News

Landing on another body in the Solar System is a tough business. Despite many successful touchdowns throughout history, spacecraft sent to land on the lunar surface still regularly fail in the final moments. Meanwhile on Mars, the Spirit rover sent by NASA became stuck in the planet’s soft sand after its wheels broke through a […]

A new preprint study has taken a look at transient objects captured by astronomers in the pre-Sputnik era, finding a curious correlation with nuclear tests and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Since 2017, the Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project has attempted to look for stars and other sources of light […]

What if planet Earth is undergoing such rapid change that the traditional framework of “seasons” no longer makes sense in our everyday experience? This is the bold new idea proposed by a pair of geographers at the University of York and London School of Economics in the UK. Seasons, in their most conventional sense, refer […]

Sharks and rays have been found to have an XY sex chromosome system superficially like our own, but with its own unique features. It’s also older than that of any other vertebrate. There are lots of ways to determine sex besides the XY system used by non-monotreme mammals, where XX (usually) denotes females and XY produces males. […]

Most of the black holes we know of are in two categories. They are either supermassive, millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun, or stellar-sized, from a few times to a few tens of times our little star. There is an in-between category known as intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) that weigh […]

If you set a camera trap in the woods today, you might just be in for a big surprise. Camera traps are an incredibly useful tool for capturing animal behavior, especially elusive species, and providing a low-cost, non-invasive way to monitor wildlife populations. In Thailand, one recently managed to film an extremely rare golden cat […]

Roughly 720 million years ago (give or take a few tens of millions), Earth plunged into one of the most extreme climate events in its history. In several stages, the planet became a giant snowball, encased in ice from pole to pole for millions of years. What exactly triggered this deep freeze has long divided […]

Scientists report a new quantum state of matter that might lead to a computer that can self-charge but is also capable of withstanding the extreme radiation that can be found in deep space. This new quantum state of matter is the spin-triplet excitonic insulator. Electronics are based on semiconductors, which can be understood as having […]

The sharks just don’t stop coming at Mammoth Cave National Park in the US, where palaeontologists have uncovered yet another new species of ancient shark that lurked in the shallow seas submerging the region millions of years ago. The new species, which is thought to have only reached less than 30 centimeters (12 inches) in […]

A non-hormonal, reversible male contraceptive pill with very few side effects might not be as far off as previously thought, early human trial results suggest. In a first-in-human study, a drug called YCT-529, developed by YourChoice Therapeutics, was found to be safe and well-tolerated when administered to healthy men. Even at its highest dose, the […]

The JWST has turned its powerful eye on the Apep Nebula, sometimes known as the Cosmic Serpent, and found it eating its tail. Or perhaps you could argue the tail, in the form of enormous shells of dust, is being consumed by its half-sibling in a tale worthy of ancient myth. The system could be […]

Issue 37 (August 2025) of CURIOUS is out now, bringing you science highlights for the month plus deep dives into intriguing topics, interviews, exclusives, diary dates, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. Read Issue 37 of our digital magazine now by clicking below! Scroll to navigate or download the […]

Atlantis may be a favorite among proponents of pseudoarcheology, but it is entirely fiction – it’s not even a myth. There is, however, evidence for ancient cities and settlements that once were thriving but are now submerged underwater, from Atlit Yam in Israel to Thonis-Heracleion in Egypt.  Jerome Dobson, a Professor of Geography at the […]

Meet the Rumplestiltskin of the animal kingdom: the Trichonephila clavipes, otherwise known as the golden silk orb-weaver.  This striking arachnid might not spin threads of pure gold, but the critter is able to skillfully craft large golden-hued webs that can reach impressive lengths up to three feet long. The pigment responsible for the silk’s bright […]

Put July 29, 2025 in your calendar. Two meteor showers will peak on the exact same night, creating a spectacular light show. If that wasn’t enough, the Perseids – one of the year’s most prolific meteor showers – will be gracing our skies at the very same time.   The stronger of the two is […]

What links black-eyed peas and cancer? The cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV), which researchers believe could pave the way for a low-cost but effective new treatment option for cancer patients.    Immunotherapy is an exciting area of medicine that exploits the patient’s immune system to treat cancer. Several viruses are being investigated as contenders for immunotherapy […]

At some point, you have probably heard somewhere that oil comes from dinosaurs, as if every time you fill up at the gas station, you are pumping refined velociraptor into your Volvo. It’s a vivid image, but it’s not true. Despite how widespread the belief is, oil isn’t made from decomposed dinosaurs. “For some strange […]

Motty remains the only confirmed hybrid between an African elephant (Loxodonta africana) and an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Although the calf tragically died just days after birth, his unique descent earned him the rare distinction of being named the “world’s rarest elephant” by Guinness World Records. Motty was born on July 11, 1978, at Chester […]

This week, a Cretaceous-era trackway in Canada provides the first evidence of a dinosaur herd combining two species, scientists walked back on the claims that 10,000 is the optimal number of steps per day, and the so-called “entropy catastrophe” has been bypassed after researchers superheated gold to 14 times its melting point. Finally, we explore […]

Mirrors that focus sunlight to produce electricity have been vastly outpaced by photovoltaic panels, but one scientist thinks they could have a second application, spotting asteroids at night. Solar thermal power has a great advantage over solar panels on roofs or in most solar farms: it can continue to produce electricity after the Sun has […]