News

An expansion of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program means that for the first time, humanity is starting to collect a substantial sample of the radio universe for this purpose, thanks to advances in detection equipment.  Despite occasional flutters of excitement, none of our scanning of the skies has turned up evidence of alien […]

You wouldn’t want to be on Venus right now. Or any day really. The atmospheric pressure and temperature are so high that you would be flattened and cooked immediately. It is much more bearable in the clouds of the planet, with a tropical climate and Earth-normal temperatures – as long as you don’t mind the […]

This article first appeared in Issue 15 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  A 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine stands in the White Mountains of California, making it the oldest non-cloned living organism on Earth. We know the extremes of longevity can get messy in the context of animal cancers, but what about botanical species? Do plants get […]

Lying deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, an immense geological superstructure has been growing since the Cretaceous period, fuelled by an area of intraplate volcanism that’s larger than Great Britain. In a new study, geologists attempt to piece together how the so-called Melanesian Border Plateau was formed, concluding that it was formed through several different pulses […]

This article first appeared in Issue 15 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  H.G. Wells set off an obsession with his novel The Time Machine, one whose frequent appearances in science fiction testifies to its popularity ever since. Many of the other futuristic concepts Wells and his contemporaries wrote about have long since come true, but […]

The fourth anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic is almost upon us. In 2024, the availability of vaccines has made it a very different beast from the disease authorities were struggling to contain at the start of 2020. Since that time, we’ve learned much about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its effects, but this research […]

On February 21, 1997, a man calling himself Mel Waters rang the late-night radio talk show “Coast to Coast with Art Bell” with a very strange story to tell. According to Waters, on his property, around 14 kilometers (9 miles) west of Ellensburg, Washington, there was a hole that seemingly had no bottom. Waters told […]

Fingerprint analysis is considered an invaluable tool in forensic and security settings due to the uniqueness and permanence of the patterns. No two people have been found to share a fingerprint pattern, not even identical twins. Fingerprints are so unique, in fact, that your own fingerprints don’t even match each other. But now, new research […]

There’s nothing like a cup of hot brown water to start your day. For some it’s the taste, while others seek the energy boost, but does tea or coffee have more caffeine?  The answer changes depending on how you do your brew, so let’s dive into it. Advertisement How much caffeine does tea have? Tea […]

This article first appeared in Issue 15 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS.  Thousands of seals call Kaikōura, New Zealand, home, but when the winter weather starts to kick in come April, the Ōhau Point Seal Colony’s pups make a unique journey. They swim inland, following a stream to Ōhau Waterfall, which for one to three months […]

Archaeologists have unearthed two more Egyptian mummies with golden tongues at the ancient town of Oxyrhynchus, around 100 miles from Cairo. This brings the total number of specimens to 16, all of which have been recovered from this site. Oxyrhynchus, otherwise known as the “City of the Sharp-nosed Fish”, has been a veritable treasure trove […]

A new study of global shark fishing mortality has revealed the true extent of humanity’s negative impact on the oceans: around 80 million sharks die in fisheries each year, despite fishing regulations and bans on finning. Between 2012 and 2019 – during which time there was a tenfold increase in finning legislation – global fishing […]

Marine mammals come in all shapes and sizes, from surfboard-stealing sea otters to giant humpback whales making Fibonacci spirals. However while the former is famously cute and fluffy with thick fur, do whales have hair? We take a closer look at the skin of these ocean giants. Do All Whales Have Hair? The short answer […]

The cosmological principle states that at a large enough scale, the universe is uniform and isotropic. That means that it’s the same everywhere, no matter which direction you are looking at. You should not be seeing a single enormous structure in a particular direction. So imagine finding two in close proximity. Two years ago, researchers […]

Our solar system is not still in space; it moves around the galaxy at 370 kilometers per second (230 miles per second). This means that part of the universe looks like it is coming towards us, while the opposite side moves away from us. This effect is seen, for example, in the Cosmic Microwave Background […]

By 2100, the US could be scattered with thousands of ghost towns. That’s according to new research by the University of Illinois that’s suggested almost half of the nearly 30,000 cities in the US will face depopulation by the end of this century.  These impacted cities are estimated to experience depopulation of 12 to 23 […]

Compare these two scenarios: meeting your significant other for a romantic dinner, or going for an after-work coffee with that guy you barely know from HR. We’ll bet one of these sounds a lot more appealing than the other, right? Scientists have just cracked the code for why we crave spending time with some people […]

Mach numbers compare the flow velocity of a fluid past a boundary to the speed of sound. Crucially, however, there is no universal speed of sound. Instead, sound travels at different rates depending on the medium the sound is travelling in and the temperature. Consequently, Mach 1 is equal to the local speed of sound, […]

A photo of Jupiter that has been claimed to be the “closest ever taken” of Jupiter is doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter.  It’s not clear where the claim that it is the closest ever taken comes from. The image of the planet was taken by Junocam during perijove 26, according to the SETI […]