News

Did you know that the yeast used to make beer and bread is capable of sexual reproduction? That’s right – these single-celled fungi can get it on in a process called “shmooing”. The term originates from the fact that, when they’re getting down to it, yeast cells resemble a shmoo: a blobby, rotund character created […]

The announcement of OpenAI’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) model, GPT-4, has many people concerned – concerned for their jobs, concerned for how good it is at making content, and concerned for the ethics of such a powerful language model. But perhaps the most concerning part of it all was detailed in a report by OpenAI […]

Growing up in the 1990s, I first encountered the ancient world through a video game called Prehistorik. The game resembled Super Mario, only the main character was not an Italian plumber but a shaggy caveman. Clad in a leopard-print loincloth, the fellow roamed his 2D world, searching for food and clobbering dinosaurs with a hefty wooden club. […]

Pre-SHAT score. Post-SHAT score. FART score. You’d be familiar with these tests had you read Volume 55 of the Journal Of Paediatrics And Child Health. Why? Because in 2018, a group of researchers decided to find out how long it takes to poop Lego. Six pediatric health care professionals took on the challenge in a […]

In the USA in the 1800s, a number of patients went to see their dentists with an unusual complaint: their teeth had exploded in their mouths.  Now not to go too layperson on you, but generally speaking, teeth are not known for their explosive capabilities. No country to date, we’d be willing to bet, has […]

Good news, there’s an easy (if a little expensive) way to lose weight – and it’s as easy as hopping on a plane. All you have to do is head closer to the equator, where you will weigh ever so slightly less than you do when closer to the poles. Assuming you lived at the […]

On the boundary of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean is the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest in the Atlantic Ocean. Kilometers above it, the ocean’s surface is dipped slightly, pulled by an anomaly of Earth’s gravity.  If you drop an object there, it will fall slightly faster than elsewhere on the planet or […]

Around 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Taiwan there is nothing but ocean, but look below the depths and there is a much stranger sight. Huge steps of stone apparently lead up a massive pyramid-like structure, the stone looking too shaped and uniform to be natural, while hammerhead sharks surround the curious area. This is […]

The 2019 fire at Notre-Dame de Paris has revealed yet another of the cathedral’s secrets: the 12th-century Gothic-style building is the first such structure known to be constructed with an iron skeleton.  The blaze devastated the iconic cathedral, which is still undergoing repairs almost four years later. Still, among the scorched ruins, a number of […]

Octopuses are highly intelligent animals capable of advanced problem solving and learning, and have even exhibited behaviors that suggest they have personalities and feel pain, but they have one significant weakness: they’re considered a delicious delicacy across the globe. Now a proposal for the “world’s first intensive octopus farm” in Gran Canaria has scientists and […]

It’s easy to envisage other universes, governed by slightly different laws of physics, in which no intelligent life, nor indeed any kind of organised complex systems, could arise. Should we therefore be surprised that a universe exists in which we were able to emerge? That’s a question physicists including me have tried to answer for […]

In the 1860s, a particularly tricky trade route from Australia and New Zealand to Europe saw an intolerable number of shipwrecks for boats that sailed upon it.  In one (or should that be two?) particularly noteworthy incident(s), the surviving crews of two ships found themselves shipwrecked on New Zealand’s Auckland Island, unaware of their fellow […]

OpenAI has released a new version of ChatGPT, claiming that the new language learning model is capable of passing – and even excelling in – a variety of academic exams. ChatGPT-4, which will be available on Bing as well as the OpenAI website, is more reliable and more creative than its predecessor, according to OpenAI. […]

As the ISS hurtles towards the end of its long life, NASA wants to begin researching a spacecraft that will take it down from space and guide it on its way to crashing into the sea. The plan would involve giving it a light “space tug” out of orbit at the perfect time for it to […]

It looks like it’s all over for the exceptional “triple-dip” La Niña weather event that cooled the Pacific Ocean and shaped the Earth’s weather for the past three years. However, scientists have already warned that an El Niño warming phase could be brewing. If true, then it could have some worrying implications for the warming […]

For a thousand years the wild sika deer of Nara Park have been considered sacred in Japanese culture. Their status has protected them from hunting and isolated from other populations of wild sikas, which according to new research has preserved a rare ancestral population that’s genetically unique from other wild deer. Nara Park’s sika deer […]

A new trial pushing back school start times to 5:30 am for some 12th-graders in Indonesia is facing criticism. Introduced by Governor Viktor Laiskodat as a way “to build our students’ character so they know discipline,” many have voiced concerns about potential safety risks, as well as detrimental effects on health and school performance. The […]

From the Ancient Egyptians to Sumerians, Romans to Maya, or even the Vikings and Celts, listen to 14 ancient languages that will transport you back in time. Many are not spoken anymore, so we may not know how they were pronounced but these languages offer a little window into the past and the cultures that […]

In the first public event presenting the Artemis III Lunar Space Suit, NASA revealed the prototype that will be worn by the first woman and person of color to go to the Moon. Made by Axiom Space, the next-gen spacesuit will eventually be white, but is currently on display with a black cover while they […]