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Marine mammals, particularly orcas, underwent something of a tidal wave change in public opinion after the 2013 documentary film Blackfish was released. Foremost in that film was the story of Tilikum the orca, who killed several people while at SeaWorld. Tilikum died in 2017, but the outrage and animal welfare concerns sparked by the film […]

This week you can now use binoculars to see the toolbag dropped by ISS astronauts on a recent spacewalk, the world’s first “chimeric” monkey with a high proportion of stem cell-derived cells was born alive, and we may have just had our first fight in space. Finally, we question if “panda diplomacy” might be coming […]

There’s no doubt about it – humans love to talk. The average person speaks thousands of words a day and it’s a vital part of how we communicate with one another. But when did we become such chatty Cathy’s? Researchers have long pondered and argued over this question, coming up with quite a range of answers […]

A 450-million-year-old extinct marine organism is back not with a bang, but more of a gentle thud, after researchers recreated it in the form of a soft robotic replica. It’s hoped that it’s the first of many such robots that could be used to give us a better understanding of how extinct organisms moved, and […]

Synthetic DNA might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s fast becoming a reality. Researchers have created a yeast cell with a genome that’s over 50 percent synthetic, including the world’s first entirely synthetic chromosome. Scientists have previously produced synthetic bacterial and viral genomes, but the next step up was eukaryotic – a […]

There is a type of bamboo known as henon, Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, which only flowers once every 120 years. Though this may seem like a long time to put off flowering, the bamboo dies shortly afterward, so let’s not be so quick to judge. With a gap of over a century between flowering, botanists […]

For the last five decades, researchers have suspected that our planet’s major geological events occur in a cycle – but couldn’t get the data to properly back it up. However, with technology coming on in leaps and bounds, geologists have since been able to show that Earth does in fact have a beating geological heart, […]

We all have a pretty good idea of what “bad weather” means: wind, rain, sub-zero temperatures, that kind of thing – but where would you go to find the worst weather on Earth?  It sounds like an impossible question. After all, how do you quantify “bad”? Windiest, yes; highest rainfall, sure; most toes turned into […]

Humanity may have conducted its first-ever fight in space last week after Israel claims its air force shot down an “aerial threat” outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claims that it shot down a surface-to-surface missile allegedly fired from Yemen on October 30 using its Arrow system. According to the Telegraph, […]

Thanks to an experimental spinal implant in his lower back, a man with Parkinson’s disease has experienced a drastic improvement in his ability to walk without falling. Marc Gauthier, a 63-year-old from Bordeaux in France, was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative condition over 20 years ago. The disease is characterized by uncontrollable movements and coordination problems, […]

Astronomers believe that it takes around 7 billion years (about half the age of the universe) to end up with a galaxy such as ours. So you can imagine their surprise when they observed ceers-2112, a galaxy with the same shape as the Milky Way, being well-ordered, and quite massive, just 2 billion years after […]

In 1905, the remains of mummified baboons were discovered in Egypt, sparking over a century of speculation as to how they came to be so far from home. Now, in a study that marries biology and history to answer questions surrounding the origin of these ancient interlopers, we finally have some idea of where they […]

Lost species, or those only observed from a few encounters, are often presumed to have gone extinct or exist in extremely limited numbers. One of the reasons it’s hard to be sure is that most of these species live in remote, inaccessible areas and are elusive, coming out only at night or hiding away in […]

The world’s first eyeball and partial-face transplant has been declared a success. Although doctors are still uncertain whether he will regain his vision, the patient believes the groundbreaking surgery has given him a “second chance at life”.  Aaron James, a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas, suffered from a 7,200-volt electric shock while working as a […]

On November 12, 1933, one man allegedly photographed something strange and mysterious lurking in Loch Ness, Scotland. It has now been 90 years since this famous photo appeared to the public, and the frenzy it generated is very much still alive.  Creating a legend It was apparently a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Scottish Highlands […]

In a new study, people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) have been observed to regain thickness in their cortex, the outermost layer of brain tissue that can become thinner in people with AUD, over an extended period of attempted abstinence from alcohol. The study participants, who had experienced AUD for years, had cortical thickness statistically […]

The cause of Tutankhamun’s untimely death in his late teens remains one of the great archaeological mysteries, although there is evidence to suggest that the Boy King may have met his end after falling from his chariot. Speculating that the ancient Pharaoh could hold the distinction of being Africa’s first traffic fatality, the authors of […]