News

When astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) are cruising over 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth’s surface, it’s not unusual to see the bloody sight of the planet oozing with a gory red fluid. There are a bunch of causes behind this phenomenon (none of which involve the spilling of blood, to our knowledge).  […]

We’ve all been there; you’re fixing some tricky object and you drop one of the tools you brought that isn’t currently in use. Sometimes it’s the whole tool bag. For most of us, however, the main danger is gravity causing it to land forcibly on a toe. Things are trickier if you’re in microgravity, and […]

There is a geological formation in Turkey that some believe could be the site where Noah’s legendary ark came to rest after the Biblical flood. Now, a team excavating the area thinks it has evidence that confirms the ancient vessel landed there. But before we all get excited about this potential revelation, is it as […]

The first and second missions of NASA’s Kepler are long ended but astronomers continue to refine the data of the game-changing planet-hunting missions. Astronomers have gone through old Kepler data, creating the most precise list of exoplanets and candidate worlds – among them is the hottest seven-planet system yet. At the center of this system, […]

Like the pyramids, the Great Sphinx of Giza is shrouded in mysteries that have kept archaeologists busy for centuries, yet new research suggests the answers may be blowing in the wind. After replicating the weather conditions that existed at the time the monument was constructed, the study authors found that the landmark’s basic form may […]

Sometimes, dramatic breakthroughs in niche areas of mathematics are like buses: you wait the best part of a century for one, and then three turn up altogether. At least, that’s the case for Ramsey Theory – a branch of combinatorics devoted to finding pockets of order within overwhelming randomness.  Following hot on the heels of […]

Did you know the world’s largest waterfall is underwater? Us neither – every day’s a school day as they say. The tallest waterfall on Earth stands at a massive 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles), next to which Angel Falls, the tallest uninterrupted waterfall over land, pales in comparison. So, where is this underwater behemoth? Where is […]

This article first appeared in Issue 13 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. If I asked whether the Earth was spherical, most readers would say yes. Only the pedantic would point out it is an oblate spheroid, but technically speaking those who agreed with the proposition would be wrong. Clearly, however, they’re nowhere near as wrong […]

This article first appeared in Issue 13 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. We’re often told that “age is just a number.” After all, when “40 is the new 30”, but then “life begins at 50”, it’s easy to think that none of it means anything at all. But there have to be some biological indicators […]

For millions of years, woolly mammoths roamed across Europe and Asia, even for a while after humans came along. Whilst we no longer live alongside them – although some are seeking to change that – it turns out there’s still plenty we can learn about these hairy giants, thanks to some remarkably well-preserved baby woollies. […]

This week the first-ever lunar farm demonstrates how plants can grow on the Moon’s surface, new research reveals “spermageddon” linked to smartphones, and it turns out starfish are made up of basically just a head. Finally, we look at the new developments in technology aiming to help rid us of dangerous space junk. Subscribe to […]

A tropical disease caused by bloodsucking sandflies seems to be gaining a foothold in the US. Caused by the Leishmania parasite, this nasty disease has the potential to leave people with disfiguring skin lesions and can even prove fatal.  Cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the US are typically “imported,” whereby someone goes abroad, picks up the […]

For the first time ever, a virus has been observed attaching to another virus. However, the never-before-seen behavior was almost missed after it was stumbled upon in a happy accident involving some anomalous sequencing results. “When I saw it, I was like, I can’t believe this,” Tagide deCarvalho, first author of a study announcing the […]

Astrophotographers and amateur astronomers this is your 18-month warning that Saturn’s rings are about to disappear from your images of the planet. Due to the tilt of the planet in its orbit around the Sun, Saturn’s iconic rings will be perfectly edge on with our line of sight, disappearing from view. It might seem very […]

From the get-go, NASA’s Trojan asteroids-bound Lucy was going to be a record breaker. The mission mission is set to study eight different asteroids, the largest number of objects ever for one spacecraft. This week, it carried out a successful flyby of its first asteroid – not its final destination but an interesting stopover – […]

Just over 40 years ago, minds were blown upon the discovery of an almost perfectly preserved body of a medieval man laid to rest in a lead-coated wooden coffin. Known as St Bees Man, researchers now believe they have a fairly clear idea of who this prestigious person was.  The mysterious discovery was unearthed in […]

When we look at Earth and Mars, it feels like they had to pick a primary color scheme and stick with it. Earth is the quintessential pale blue dot, in opposition to Mars’s moniker as the Red Planet. But the scheme is turned on its head when we talk about sunsets. Our vivid scarlet sunsets […]

The fact that isotopes have a unique half-life has proven perhaps humanity’s most powerful tool for understanding the deep history of our planet. But what is a half-life, how do we use them – and for that matter, what even is an isotope? The nucleus of an atom is made up of protons and (aside […]

Welcome to the wonderful world of animal toxicity and the confusing question of: poisonous or venomous? Here we break down what each term means and some of the animals each term belongs to. People love to use the phrase, “If it bites you and you die it’s venomous, and if you bite it and you […]

The CEO of Levi’s has swirled up the debate around how often you should wash your jeans once again. His theory, in sum: you should avoid putting your jeans in the washing machine at all costs and only spot-clean parts that are affected by stains when needed. Back in 2014, it was widely reported that […]