News

Natural selection shapes all life on Earth. As the world around them changes, organisms that can adapt have a better chance of reproducing. Humans are no exception – and while a few examples of recent evolution are known, we lack a deeper understanding of how the human genome is being shaped by natural selection. The findings are a […]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away – well, actually it was pretty close by in galactic terms – George Lucas came up with the idea of an epic space-age weapon. He dubbed it the “lightsaber”, and bestowed it upon only his noblest heroes – or his most fearsome villains. Thirty years […]

There’s no two ways about it: having a cold sucks. A lot of the time, it’s expected that we’ll simply power through it – but a stuffy nose, aches in places you didn’t know could ache, and fatigue can be a lot to contend with. But does science have a way we can avoid the […]

The Amazon rainforest could soon be reaching a tipping point, according to a new study, with a combination of human-induced pressures such as global warming and deforestation pushing it towards either partial or, in the worst-case scenario, total collapse, by 2050. “We are approaching a potential large-scale tipping point, and we may be closer (both […]

The minerals that lie deep beneath our feet hold all sorts of secrets about our planet, like the superdeep diamonds that tell us about the formation of continents. But there’s one particularly rare, buried mineral you may well have never heard of, and it too has uncovered some mysteries. Its name? Ringwoodite. What is ringwoodite? […]

Research has found that supplementing older people with GlyNAC – a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine – wards off several key indicators of aging and keeps people healthier as they age. Not only that, but older people also appeared to be fitter and stronger with slimmer waistlines after taking the GlyNAC supplement.  As reported in the study, […]

At last count, there are 118 confirmed elements in the periodic table – yet, out of that huge number, you’re more than nine times more likely to come into contact with just five than the other 113. That’s because, out of all of the dozens of elements found in the Earth’s crust, it’s those five […]

An experimental quantum drive is missing and presumed lost in space, after the team lost communication with the satellite it was supposed to move.  Rogue Space Systems launched the satellite Barry-1 into orbit in November 2023, hitching a lift from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Unfortunately, the company’s first space mission did not all go […]

A picture of a heart-shaped lake definitely sounds like something that’s been photoshopped and does the rounds on Facebook every Valentine’s Day, but the lovely shape of Spirit Lake, Washington, is very much real. However, it hasn’t always looked this way. Rather than the full heart that we can see in satellite imagery today, the […]

Beneath your feet in the depths of our planet, there’s an unbelievably vast ecosystem teeming with life. In recent years, a massive international team of scientists revealed how billions upon billions of microorganisms live miles beneath Earth’s subsurface. Presenting their work at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in 2018, the researchers calculated the size […]

Klerksdorp spheres, found inside pyrophyllite deposits mined in South Africa, are weird. Looking like tiny ancient cricket balls, with seam-like lines around their middle, it’s easy to see why they became the subject of conspiracy theories involving aliens and ancient, forgotten civilizations. In articles in the 1980s, they were speculated to be made by “a higher […]

One Za’abeel, a double-skyscraper that adorns Dubai’s busy skyline, is set to take the title of the world’s longest cantilever building. In layman’s terms, a cantilever is a structure that sticks out horizontally beyond its vertical support, creating an overhanging section without the need for columns or supports, appearing as if it’s defying gravity. One […]

Inside our planet, there are the remains of another world. No, we are not peddling some conspiracy theory like the hollow Earth. We are talking about the remains of Theia, the Mars-sized object that, billions of years ago, hit our planet and led to the formation of the Moon. Its remains were simply incorporated with […]

The smallest human-like robot ever to exist has been created by a group of four teenagers in Hong Kong. Measuring just 14.1 centimeters (5.55 inches) in height, the tiny gizmo is 11.3 millimeters (0.44 inches) shorter than the previous world record holder, which was built by Zain Ahmad Qureshi from Pakistan in 2022. Verified by […]

In eastern Java, Indonesia lies the Kawah Ijen volcano, which has become something of a tourist hotspot in recent years. This is because, at night, otherworldly blue lights appear on its darkened slopes. These ghostly pale fires are caused by the large amounts of sulfur deposits on the volcano’s surface. When the high temperatures from […]

In California’s share of the Mojave Desert, one of the sunniest places on Earth, the largest single solar and battery energy storage project in the world has just become fully operational: the Edwards & Sanborn Solar and Energy Storage facility. Consisting of almost 2 million solar panels, the sprawling solar farm has 875 megawatts of […]

One of humanity’s great coming-of-age moments was the realization that the Sun is a star, falling somewhat unexceptionally within the range of those we see; made special only by our relationship to it. However, stars are not clones of each other. So do all other stars count as suns? Do any? If only some do, […]