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With the news that President Trump is looking to reopen Alcatraz, we wondered whether it’s true that there’s never been a successful prison break from the notorious island. This led us to a fascinating piece of research by scientists in 2014 that looked into the most famous escape attempt that occurred in June 1962. Their […]

The Vesuvius Challenge has announced the latest award for the identification of the first title on one of the ancient Herculaneum scrolls. The title has been unread for nearly 2,000 years, ever since the volcano erupted in 79 CE, but now innovative noninvasive techniques have recovered it from the still-rolled scroll that would have otherwise […]

A new-to-science species of worm has just pulled out one hell of a party trick: it can squash up like an accordion to a staggering one-fifth of its normal body length. No news yet on whether the feat comes with an equally comical gasp of discordant notes, but a reminder that worms really are a […]

A bill that has just passed out of the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is aimed at tackling challenges beyond Earth “due to relativistic effects”.  The Celestial Time Standardization Act will now make its way through to a floor vote, before going to the Senate, before being signed into law. The purpose […]

The largest dam removal project in US history, and likely the world, was completed at the end of last year, with the removal of four huge dams. But with the Klamath River now running free, the river’s restoration is only just beginning. The project is featured in the new season of the BBC’s Our Changing […]

The world’s largest experiment in fusion power is about to have its magnet installed, following the announcement that all components have been completed.  Nuclear fusion powers the Sun and other stars, but they achieve the vast forces required to push atoms together with gravitational pressure unachievable on Earth. Therefore, alternative forms of pressure or temperature […]

Japanese space company ispace has a mission that has slowly made its way to lunar space, and in the coming weeks will attempt to land on the Moon. There’s a crucial event ahead of that, and it is getting into lunar orbit. That will happen today, May 7, 2025. This is the second time the […]

As if Australia’s mammalian fauna was not already weird enough, they also glow under ultraviolet light. The reasons for this are still not understood, but scientists have improved our knowledge by studying the molecules responsible, and finding they differ among species. Certain molecules absorb ultraviolet light and re-radiate it at wavelengths we can see. Consequently, […]

The laws of general relativity suggest that it is possible for an object to have such a density that nothing, not even light, can escape. That is a black hole. There are a few defining characteristics for these objects. They tend to have an event horizon, the surface that separates them from the rest of […]

Bostonians found themselves facing a strange new world in the early 1930s. It was snowing, which was no great surprise, but what did have people sitting up straight was the fact that the snow had turned red. The 1930s were the unfortunate era of the “Dust Bowl”, a regrettable period in America’s past during which […]

The participation of women in sports in modern times has always been controversial. For a long time, women were not allowed to compete based on some bogus claims about their constitutions. Now, most of the debate is around who counts as a woman, and a new survey looked at one aspect of this: how actual […]

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US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr pledged last week that his department will now require all new vaccines to be tested in placebo-controlled trials before being licensed for use. In a statement first given exclusively to the Washington Post, the department called the move “a radical departure from past practices”. […]

The Atlantic Ocean was formed by the dramatic break-up of the supercontinent Pangea, splintering our planet into drifting landmasses that would become the continents we know today. Now, the imprint of giant underwater mud waves found near West Africa is providing a key insight into how this world-making event unfolded. Scientists at Heriot-Watt University in […]

Many people across the world believe in karma or something like it. This is the idea that the universe contains some kind of justice mechanism that holds people accountable for their behavior, rewarding those who do good while punishing those who do bad. It’s a comforting belief, especially during difficult times, but new research has […]

Bonobos are what you’d call sexually dimorphic, meaning the females and the males are noticeably different. The males are larger and stronger compared to the females, and yet they’re the ones that will sit and wait in the trees while the females have their fill of a fresh kill. Females also decide who they mate […]

The call of nature for whales is very important to the rest of nature, with their urine allowing life to flourish in areas that would otherwise be liquid deserts. The importance of whale feces has been recognized for a long time, but now a study has demonstrated that migrating whales make an even larger contribution […]

US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has recently made a pretty bold – and misleading – claim about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, stating that it contains “a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles.” Kennedy Jr made the claim on April 30 when speaking to News Nation about why some […]

People with celiac disease often have to adopt strict diets to avoid contact with gluten, but what happens if a person with this condition kisses someone else who has just eaten a gluten-filled snack? This question may seem trivial, but it causes anxiety among many people living with celiac disease. Thankfully, new research has challenged […]

Ah, math. Take an easy problem we all studied in our teens, scale it up by just a couple of steps, and suddenly you’re facing something that has stumped generations of the world’s best mathematicians. Ain’t it always the way? Well, according to a new paper from Norman Wildberger, an honorary professor in the University […]