News

NASA’s Stardust mission to Comet Wild 2 has revealed its secrets very slowly. They’re finally coming together, however, and the results are showing that the outer Solar System in its early days was not the simple place previously thought. How one comet came to have dust from widely separated parts of the early Solar System […]

Have you ever heard of Jesus being called Jesus H. Christ? This is, in fact, not a little-known middle name like Hector, but a relic of the Greek alphabet and Christian symbolism. Dr Dan McClellan, Biblical scholar at the University of Birmingham and keen TikTokker, explains that the most widely accepted theory of the middle […]

The ancestors of frogs and toads were armed with large fangs and thousands of hook-like denticles, making their modern counterparts look a bit gummy by comparison. Do frogs have teeth? Yes, but exactly what kind of teeth and where they’re found varies significantly. Frogs have a complex history with teeth, estimated to have lost them […]

Scientists in China have successfully cloned a rhesus monkey that has managed to survive for more than two years after its birth. Off the back of this feat, the researchers claim their newly refined methods could provide a “promising strategy for primate cloning” in the future.  His name is “ReTro”, named after one of the […]

A pod of fossilized eggs has been found in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in east-central Oregon, helping to solve a mystery of what creature had laid them (and others like them) millions of years ago. Eggs had previously been found at the site, but only as individuals, and had been misidentified as ant […]

As winter rages, and viruses continue to spread, you might find yourself wondering: Can I catch two at once? What about three, or four, or (gulp) more? And, perhaps most importantly, what happens if I do? It’s a question that was posed a lot back in 2022 when fears of a so-called “tripledemic” of COVID-19, flu, […]

A new study in mice has raised the tantalizing possibility that memory loss after a head injury could be reversible. Repeated head trauma, such as that experienced by professional football players and other sportspeople, is known to be a risk factor for neurodegenerative disease down the line. Taking heavy blows to the head over a […]

Scientists have found a mineral in lunar rocks that suggests there was a lot more water in the Moon’s crust than previously thought. The mineral in question is apatite, the most common phosphate, which is also found in our bones and teeth. The mineral contains volatile elements in its structure and tends to form in […]

The Indian Continental Plate could be splitting in two, a new study proposes. However, instead of breaking vertically, like east Africa, to form a new microcontinent, India could be sheering horizontally as it runs into Eurasia, separating into two layers each about 100 kilometers (60 miles) thick. The Himalayas form the world’s mightiest mountain range, […]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scrapped its plan to end the use of mammals for the safety testing of chemicals by 2035. First announced back in 2019, the plan was considered pretty controversial – and it seems the move to ditch it is no different. Chris Frey, assistant administrator for R&D at the […]

The year is 2075. The place: the Neil Armstrong International Lunar Base in Henson Crater, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) southwest of the moon’s South Pole. Chinese electrical engineer Liu Mei and American astronomer David Scott IV sit side by side inside a pressurized, six-wheeled, fuel cell-powered lunar transporter. They have just exited the station’s […]

Despite its popularity among horror-movie mad scientists, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is actually a legitimate treatment for certain mental health disorders, and is effective for up to 80 percent of depressed patients who receive it. Strangely, however, researchers have until now been unable to explain how the procedure works, yet a pair of new studies has […]

Scientists have cooked up a new explanation for the explosive craters that have recently rocked Siberia. Trapped gas and climate change are still the prime suspects, but the new theory hints that a deeper geological force might be at play.  Since 2012, at least eight circular “gas emission craters” (GECs) have formed in the Yamal […]

In the last few days, arctic air has brought below-freezing temperatures across many parts of the US, including Chicago and Lake Michigan. There, people noticed a very peculiar phenomenon: “Steam” appeared to form above the Chicago River and the lake. Prompting many to ask (maybe in the style of 4 Non Blondes): what’s going on? […]

The Guinness World Records have temporarily suspended their “world’s oldest dog” title amid claims that the current title holder was not as old as its owners claimed it was. When Bobi passed away, an entry on the Guinness World Records website explained that he had lived to be 31 years 165 days old. While not […]

Scientists in China have successfully cloned a rhesus monkey that has managed to survive for more than two years after its birth. Off the back of this feat, the researchers claim their newly refined methods could provide a “promising strategy for primate cloning” in the future.  His name is “ReTro”, named after one of the […]

What’s your love language? Are you particularly receptive to words of affirmation? Or maybe you appreciate spending quality time with your partner, or cherish physical touch, or splashing out on a gift to express your love. Whatever your love language is, it has one thing in common with the others: none of them are supported […]

Mars is a frigid desert, but we know in the past that it had rivers, lakes, and even maybe an ocean. Those features are still carved in its rocks today. Most of the valleys and lakes were carved before 3.7 billion years ago, but something that is not clear is how long these water features […]

Astronomers have detected a star with such curious composition they conclude it must have been enriched by a supernova that didn’t accord with our current understanding of exploding stars. Their efforts to reconstruct this event reveal we’ve probably been missing something big about the behavior of the first generation of giant stars. In 1999, the […]

You’ve probably been told at some point that oil is made from dinosaurs, thinking that when you are at a gas station you are pumping refined velociraptor directly into your Volvo. As widespread as the belief is, it’s not true. Oil is not made from the decomposed bodies of ancient dinosaurs. “For some strange reason, […]