News

Renowned all over the world for their association with beautiful jewelry and their aphrodisiac connotations, oysters are synonymous with fine dining and expensive tastes. Now, a new species of pearl oyster has been described after samples were collected from the east coast of Phuket Island, Thailand.  The new species – Pinctada phuketensis sp. nov – […]

Fall is almost here, with the autumn equinox less than two weeks away, so it’s not hard to guess why September’s full Moon is called the Harvest Moon. It will peak tomorrow, September 10, at 5:59 am EDT precisely, but if you look up at the sky you’ll see it appear full until Sunday. Many […]

Drones have enabled us to zoom into the sky and get up-close and personal with some of Earth’s most spectacular, and sometimes perilous, natural events and landscapes. From weaving around active volcanos to zooming in on a polar bear town, or simply getting up high enough to really take in the view, they have brought […]

This week, we saw the stunning first-ever images of the Sun’s chromosphere, a link is found between living near oil refineries and risk of stroke, and we learn that the electric car actually predates Tesla – the man, not the company.  World’s Largest Solar Observatory Releases First Images Of Sun’s Atmosphere Advertisement The National Solar […]

The skeleton of a young woman once suspected of being a “vampire” has been unearthed by archaeologists in Poland. Her body was found within a 17th-century cemetery with an iron sickle placed across her neck and a triangle padlock on her big toe, apparently to ensure she couldn’t wreak havoc from beyond the grave.  The […]

For a while now, scientists have known that taking a stroll in the great outdoors can do wonders for your mental health. However, what they didn’t know is why – until now.  A new study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, has found that a 60-minute stroll in nature results in a reduction of stress-related markers within […]

The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device has been breaking records for sustained nuclear fusion for a while. And now, the device has shown that it can keep the extremely hot plasma going with less instability and with fewer impurities, two major hurdles in the construction of a commercial nuclear fusion power plant. The […]

It’s no secret that species extinction and biodiversity loss are making our environment increasingly less stable. As it feels like we inch closer to waving goodbye to threatened animals like the Javan rhino, a question springs to mind: How do we know when a species is extinct? How, for instance, do we know there aren’t […]

In true crime, you get cold cases and then you get the really, really cold cases, like that of the deaths of two mummies who were killed between 740 and 1,120 years ago. While their cause of death might not be of much interest to whoever their now-relatives are, they do pose an interesting challenge […]

Living next to an oil refinery has been linked to an increased risk of stroke in a new study carried out in the southern US. It was also evident that the health burden overwhelmingly impacted poorer people, generally because they are forced to live in areas closer to fossil fuel refineries.  Scientists at Yale University, […]

In the UK, any person who stumbles across a cache of gold or silver from centuries gone by is officially a treasure hunter. This means we’re obligated by both technicality and awesomeness to tell you that a couple in Yorkshire, in northern England, recently switched from being “house renovators” to “incredibly successful treasure finders” when […]

Scientists have found that pairing mānuka honey with a widely used antibiotic could potentially prove to be a useful treatment for a fiendishly tough-to-treat lung infection. It’s only been tested in a petri dish so far, but it’s yet another demonstration of mānuka honey’s reported antibacterial potential.  The researchers gathered samples of the bacteria Mycobacterium […]

A malaria vaccine has been developed by the University of Oxford and it may soon be coming to areas that need it most, following promising clinical trial results that surpass the WHO-required 75 percent efficacy. The scientists say they have already secured a deal that will allow them to manufacture 100 million doses of the […]

In the 19th Century palaeontologists collected many bones and teeth they couldn’t identify. Some of these came from rich Ethiopian deposits laid down up to 4.5 million years ago. Now, after 150-180 years in storage, some of these fossils have been identified as coming from giant otters that weighed more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds) […]

Physicists have entangled two optical atomic clocks for the first time. This breakthrough could be a way to go beyond even the most cutting-edge current limit of timekeeping as well as being a fantastic tool in an exciting branch of quantum computing: quantum cryptography. Atomic clocks are used as timekeepers by measuring the resonant frequencies […]

Megalodon was the biggest fish ever to roam the oceans and while many enjoy indulging in the concept that they may still exist somewhere on earth, The Atlantic Shark Institute (ASI) had to do a double take when one appeared on their fish finder. The scanning technology had picked up what looked to be an […]

The Sun has been pretty active lately, delighting scientists and amateur astronomers alike. This week, it took it up a level with a massive explosion on its far side that sent out a magnificent full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME), which scientists have described as a “no run-of-the-mill event”. Luckily Earth wasn’t in its way, but […]

Three and a half tonnes of nitrous oxide canisters were collected at Notting Hill carnival in London this year. According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, nitrous oxide (also known as nos, whippits and laughing gas) is the second most commonly used recreational drug after cannabis among 16- to 24-year-olds. Nitrous oxide use […]

Slime videos emerging from TikTok sent some people into an understandable panic on Twitter recently as it looked as though they were casually tossing around mercury. While the liquid metal closely resembles mercury, it’s actually another very cool material called gallium. Gallium, or Ga on the Period Table, is a soft, silvery-white metal that’s similar […]