News

Humans climbing Mount Everest leave a lot in their wake, including plastic and, occasionally and very tragically, their own bodies. But they also leave a lasting microbial legacy, according to new research. Everest’s slopes are littered with microorganisms adapted to withstand the harsh conditions on Earth’s tallest peak. In the past, it has been impossible to identify […]

There’s not much that can get past a dog’s nose. They’re not just used for saying how-do-you-do: a practiced pooch can sniff out a scent trail through a busy city two days after it was created; they can smell explosives and detect contaminants in soil at concentrations lower than a single part per million. So […]

Magnetic fields are promising to be a useful tool in the hunt for human settlements that have been lost to the sea off the coast of the UK. An upcoming project is set to use magnetometry data to scour Doggerland, the flooded chunk of land that connected Britain to mainland Europe until the end of […]

By switching the dielectric constant of a metamaterial, physicists have time-reflected electromagnetic waves being carried within it. The didn’t turn back time Cher-style, but the signal carried by the waves underwent both a reversal in order and frequency lengthening. Besides confirming a possibility theoreticians have been toying with for 60 years, the work could allow […]

Over the millions of years crocodiles and their relatives have roamed our planet, they have evolved robust immune systems to help combat the potentially harmful microbes in the swamps and waterways they call home. Our study, recently published in Nature Communications, takes a closer look at antimicrobial proteins called defensins, found in saltwater crocodiles. These […]

A museum exhibit has imagined a post-apocalyptic world after artificial intelligence (AI) has wiped out most of humanity, before attempting to make amends by creating a museum exhibit. Called the Misalignment Museum, the team hopes the exhibit will increase visitors’ knowledge and awareness of artificial general intelligence (AGI) –  the ability of an AI to […]

Late on Monday, March 13, the Sun blasted out a coronal mass ejection (CME) traveling at at least 3,000 kilometers per second (6,700,000 miles per hour), possibly the fastest ever recorded. The expelled particles reached the Earth’s orbit in less than a day. Had they hit the Earth, the results could have been catastrophic, but […]

Last weekend, an enormous fin whale was seen struggling to swim off the coast of the city of Cullera, along Spain’s east coast. The animal was originally thought to be entangled in drifting fishing nets but was later found to have a spinal malformation of unknown origin.  The fin whale, the second largest species of […]

Spicy chili peppers could cause more than just pain and regret the next day – a new study suggests patches with the active spicy ingredient in chilies could help reduce pain in diabetic patients with nerve damage. Containing capsaicin, the molecule that gives chilies their heat, the patches were found to heal damaged nerves in […]

“Face blindness” could be the latest addition to the already long list of long COVID symptoms, new research has suggested. The study is very small and has its limitations, but it seems that for some people, COVID-19 infection may result in difficulty recognizing faces, as well as possibly navigational problems. COVID has previously been linked […]

Ancient Austronesian sailors are thought to have begun conquering the world’s oceans around 6,000 years ago, eventually arriving at and populating territories from Madagascar to Easter Island. It’s still unclear how these ancient seafarers successfully navigated such huge distances, although one enigmatic phenomenon known as Te Lapa may have helped keep them on course. Roughly […]

Computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil has set some very specific timelines for when humanity will achieve immortality, and artificial intelligence (AI) will reach the singularity. The good news, if his predictions prove to be accurate, is that you just need to ride out the next seven years for your chance at living forever. Kurzweil […]

Underpants. You wear them nearly every day of your life, but probably don’t spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about them and their quirks.  For instance, in 2021 it came to our attention that not all of you knew what the holes at the front of boxer shorts were for (spoiler alert, […]

Scientists have grown “mini-antlers” on mice by inserting deer genes into the mouse genome, according to a new paper. The results suggest that mammals that have lost the ability to regenerate organs may still contain some regenerative genes, and that it may be possible to harness the rapid growth of antlers in other applications.  Growing […]

There’s a theory – and it is just a theory – that the human population on Earth was once decimated to just a few thousand individuals after a supervolcano violently erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. For a small sliver of history, humanity may have become an endangered species.  While not everyone buys this […]

When quantum physicists refer to something as “strange” you know it’s really doing something odd. People who’ve got comfortable with superposition and “spooky action at a distance” have a high bar for what is weird. Yet certain elements have earned the category “strange metals” because how they conduct electricity is different from more familiar metals […]

In the last twenty minutes of April 14, 1912, disaster struck in the North Atlantic. The RMS Titanic, the largest ship anywhere on the ocean and temporary home to more than 2,200 passengers and crew, collided with an iceberg. More than 300 feet (91 meters) of the boat’s hull was ripped open, and within three […]

NASA archives hold a pivotal technical memorandum inherited from its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, dating back to 1933. Would it shape the face of aeronautical engineering? Not exactly, though its inventor believed it to be a stepping stone to the modern jet engine. Would it introduce us to the fattest plane in […]

It seems that, when it comes to asteroids hitting our planet, people only have a binary response: not taking it seriously, and being terrified that it might happen at any moment. We ought to have a pragmatic attitude – it is important to not underestimate the threat without exaggerating it. Many organizations are keeping us […]