News

Boiling an egg feels like walking a tightrope: misjudge it by just a fraction and you’ll end up with either a snot-like undercooked white or a miserable, dry yolk. Fortunately, a team of scientists has finally cracked it, developing a novel method to cook all parts of an egg to perfection. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE […]

Update 2/6/25: We have updated this article to include the Center for Near Earth Objects Studies cumulative impact probability, which upgrades the chance from 1.8 percent to 2.3 percent. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The threat of Asteroid 2024 YR4 has not gone away just yet. The near-Earth object was discovered in December and calculations of […]

A team of researchers in Germany have proposed a new method for searching for life on alien worlds, which they believe could be integrated into future Mars missions. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Finding life on another planet would be a world-changing discovery for humanity. But actually detecting it is no simple task. Rovers sent to […]

A Cretaceous-era skull found on Vega Island, Antarctica, has been confirmed as a member of the same order as ducks and geese, making it one of the oldest known examples of a modern bird. Dating from not very long before the asteroid hit, the species Vegavis iaai, or a near relative, is a strong candidate for […]

Fear is very useful for survival – but so is being able to control it. It’s wise to be scared of the unfamiliar, especially when it resembles a known threat. However, once you realize that thing lying by the door is actually just a draught excluder and not a reticulated python, you can safely set […]

Researchers have successfully generated a digital image of an ancient scroll from Herculaneum that has not been seen in almost 2,000 years. The announcement was made by the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and the Vesuvius Challenge, which have been working to decipher three scrolls, including this one, over the last few years. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE […]

Avoiding predators is one of the most important jobs for many members of the animal world. Even ocean giants like baleen whales have something to fear from killer whales, their only known natural predators. To avoid coming across killer whales, new research has revealed that some whale species might be whispering through the ocean, hoping […]

When you consider, say, a salmon, or a pigeon, your first thought is probably not “Wow, I bet that guy is great at quantum mechanics” – and yet, that’s precisely what the evidence suggests: that these animals, among others, exploit some of the most advanced science currently understood by humans in their everyday lives – […]

Around 2,700 years ago in ancient Egypt, a man named Pakepu held the title of “water pourer on the west of Thebes”, responsible for managing the funerary cult in the legendary city. Upon his own death, Pakepu was placed inside a set of wooden coffins, sealed with a selection of pink and white “pastes” that […]

Argentina’s president has ordered the country to pull out of the World Health Organization (WHO), following the lead of like-minded allies in the US.  ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE On February 5, President Javier Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist nicknamed “El Loco” (the Madman) – took to social media to announce the withdrawal, citing the WHO’s […]

Galaxy LEDA 1313424 is a beauty. It is 2.5 times the size of the Milky Way and has something no other galaxy has: A series of concentric rings, nine to be exact. This is more than other known galaxies, which usually have just two or three rings. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The galaxy has been […]

Should we be allowed to charge for sex? Do we have a right to sell our organs? And is our DNA our own property? The level of autonomy we ought to have over our flesh and bones is far from clear cut, and as innovations in biotechnology continue to transform our moral and economic relationships […]

When it comes to chronicling the past, it seems there are basically two ways discoveries are made: either they’re the result of years of painstaking, devoted work… or they’re accidentally found in a drawer somewhere after eons of collecting dust. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The new discovery of two scientific treatises by Apollonius, the ancient […]

A seismologist working at the US Geological Survey (USGS) may have solved an old mystery involving supposed hauntings in Charleston, South Carolina. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE From around the mid-20th Century CE, people have told stories of a ghost haunting the railroad track between Charleston and Summerville in South Carolina. Though there are a number […]

He does not look overly enthusiastic as I look down on his body, but then again, I doubt anyone would be if they had every conceivable weapon of their age cutting, poking, stabbing, slicing, gouging, ripping, and shattering their body. I say “and” here, because this individual is not being assaulted by just one object […]

A team of scientists from King’s College London, Swansea University, and collaborators in Chile say that they have found a way to reverse cracking in bitumen, paving the way toward the sci-fi dream of self-healing roads. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Potholes are a bit of a problem, causing damage to cars at a cost of […]

Google’s parent company Alphabet has redrafted its policies guiding its use of artificial intelligence (AI), doing away with a promise to never use the technology in ways “that are likely to cause overall harm”. This includes weaponizing AI as well as deploying it for surveillance purposes. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The pledge to steer clear […]

It’s an inescapable reality that human and non-human cases of avian influenza H5N1, or “bird flu”, have been on the up in the US. With every announcement of a new outbreak often comes fresh concern about the potential danger it poses to humans. But how concerned do we need to be? Will it start spreading […]

Having a cold sucks – and so, desperate for any relief from the constant coughing and annoyingly drippy nose, people have turned to all sorts of bizarre remedies. From onions in your socks to flushing your nose out, let’s find out whether some of them really work. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Before we get started […]

When the first complete Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, the 3 billion base pairs it contained helped to fill in some of the gaps in our own species’ ancient history, revealing a wild past colored by prehistoric love affairs with our extinct relatives. As a result, all present-day populations outside Africa continue to carry […]