News

One of NASA’s most ambitious missions, bringing back samples from the surface of Mars for analysis on Earth, is in trouble. Cost estimates are blowing out, and some scientists are questioning the priority given to the project. However, in an announcement on the mission’s future, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson remained committed to the idea (with […]

The glittering golden hue of a cracked lump of pyrite gives false promises of riches for a rock that’s not really all that valuable – but a new announcement suggests there could be more to “fool’s gold” than meets the eye. Pyrite sampled from the United States was found to contain a surprising amount of […]

Less than a year after the discovery of one of the closest supernovae of the century, another has popped up only slightly further away. So far, no professional images of the exploding star have been released, but amateurs are filling the gap, although many live too far north to be able to participate. Since the […]

Before 1962, Centralia, Pennsylvania, was a thriving old mining town. However, that changed when a fire broke out in May that year. Although it is not completely clear what started it, the results are well known: the fire spread into the labyrinthine mining tunnels running under the town, causing devastation as it went. Fissures appeared […]

Between December 1968 and October 1969 – and potentially before and after those dates, too – the San Francisco Bay Area was rocked by a series of high-profile murders. It wasn’t the method or number of the killings that set them apart, though; all things considered, they were pretty boring in their execution, and while […]

Generations of Star Trek fans have wondered what it might be like to make first contact with a new species, escape an awkward social interaction with an emergency beam-out, or experience warp speed on a starship (just don’t go past warp 10, whatever you do!). While a lot of the incredible tech depicted in the […]

Long before black became the world’s most fashionable color, life on Earth was dressed in neon pink. Remnants of this distant rose-tinted era can still be seen in the fossilized remains of bacteria that lived in an ancient ocean 1.1 billion years ago, making them the oldest known biological pigments on the planet. The discovery […]

A new species of titanosaur has been described from Argentina. Found in rocks dating back almost 70 million years, the mini job has been named Titanomachya gimenezi and was 10 times smaller than its largest titanosaur relatives, making it one of the smallest ever described. The fossils were retrieved from Chubut Province in Patagonian Argentina […]

Ol Doinyo Lengai is one of the weirdest volcanoes on planet Earth, perhaps even in the whole Solar System. While it appears typical enough from afar, take a peek into its northern crater and you’ll see it oozes with a unique form of black lava that’s relatively cool and flows like runny motor oil.  Located […]

Chinese particle physicists have announced evidence for a new subatomic particle found when the (J/psi) meson decays to a positive and negative pion pair. Although new subatomic particles are found relatively often, and reports of tentative discoveries are more common still, this one stands out because it was predicted more than 70 years ago by […]

In recent years, there has been a shift in the public perception of science. The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a modest but noticeable increase in mistrust of scientists and science as an institution, especially in the US. According to a new editorial, the issue may relate to the public understanding of the philosophy of […]

A new – and indescribably cute – species of tiger cat has been identified by scientists in Brazil. Unfortunately, just like its other tiger cat cousins, the species is under threat from rampant deforestation and habitat destruction.  Also known as the oncilla, tiger cats are small spotted cats that quietly stalk Central and South America, […]

The world may soon see what could be the first ever military exercise in Earth’s orbit, with the US Space Force finally living up to its name and using military force in space. The Space Force, which has been mocked for adopting the Star Trek logo as its own logo, having its own horse, and […]

The question of how to tell how old an octopus is has been at the forefront of researchers’ minds as they seek effective strategies to help age these animals, and thereby work to combat issues associated with overfishing and the growing demand for commercially harvesting octopuses for consumption.  Octopuses typically have pretty short lifespans, depending […]

NASA is set to make an announcement today on the future of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) project, which aims, as the name very much suggests, to return samples of rocks and soil to Earth. Rovers placed on the Red Planet have been tasked with collecting samples of it. During their time on an alien […]

A strange, ghost-like ant discovered deep underground has been declared a new species, with a shiny new Harry Potter-themed name to boot. Leptanilla voldemort, as the novel species has been called, is pale, slender, and prefers life on the dark side, much like its namesake. Just two specimens of the mysterious ant were discovered in […]

This article first appeared in Issue 18 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.  In 2011, a UK survey asked the public a simple question: would you like to live forever? More than five out of every six people said no. Advertisement Turn it around, though, and the opposite is equally off-putting: do you want to die?  […]

 CC BY-ND The cargo ship Dali knocked down three main truss spans, constructed with connected steel elements forming triangles, on the Francis Scott Key Bridge just seconds after crashing into one of the bridge piers early on Tuesday morning, March 26, 2024. The bridge collapse happened so fast that it left little time for the […]

Summer normally sees the trees full of green, blue skies (ok, maybe not here in England), and deliciously warm, long days – but for people living in the Northern Hemisphere in 1816, those days never came. What was “The Year Without Summer”? The Year Without Summer was pretty much what it says on the tin; […]

I have been researching the psychology of conspiracy beliefs for seven years now and people often ask me why people believe in them. This is not a simple question. There are many reasons people might endorse conspiracy theories. Something that stands out to me, though, is how our thinking styles can influence the way we […]