News

Astronomers have reported the discovery of an unlikely rainbow in the Solar System, showing that whenever there’s a bit of precipitation and light, rainbows appear. The celestial rainbow appears above Enceladus, the icy moon of Saturn, which is responsible for the formation of Saturn’s E ring. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]

While cleaning out a drawer during a recent house move, I found the diary I kept in high school. Obviously, I couldn’t resist the temptation of reading the things 14-year-old me had seen fit to document – friendship dramas and getting braces featured heavily – and while a lot of it made me cringe, it […]

A new study has used an alternative method to work out how much Mercury has shrunk since its formation, finding that the planet has gotten significantly cooler in its first 4.5 billion years. Back in 1974, NASA’s Mariner 10 mission flew by Mercury and discovered evidence that, already the smallest planet in the Solar System, […]

A sprawling landscape of some 6,00 salt wells can be found arranged in stepped terraces on the hillside of the Qaqawiñay mountain, Peru. Known as Salineras de Maras, or the Salt Mines of Maras, they are located 52 kilometers (32 miles) northeast of Cusco city and sit at an altitude of 3,200 meters (10,500 feet) […]

Meet one of the world’s newest feline breeds: the Highlander cat. Breeding of these unusual-looking felines began in 2004. The goal? To craft a domestic cat that resembled big wild cats without the wild behavior. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Originating […]

Whatever your answer, there’s a very high chance it’s not as long as some divers out there. Whether through culture, evolution, or just one dude’s strangely specific obsession, there are plenty of people in the world who saw the classification of humans as a terrestrial animal and thought, “nah” – and sometimes, the limits they […]

We are in a special time where Earth and Saturn’s tilts create two wonderful illusions for lovers of the night sky. Not only have Saturn’s rings disappeared from view, but its largest moon has cast its shadow upon the planet a handful of times this year, something you only have two more chances to see; […]

The mummification process is perhaps one of the most talked-about aspects of Ancient Egyptian life. It’s a complex process that we’re still trying to understand, not least because trying to step into the mindset of people living thousands of years ago is tricky when you’re burdened with the cultural norms of the 21st century. Still, […]

The availability of oxygen beyond Earth is a crucial factor for human exploration of space. We do need it to breathe after all. Already, there have been tests for extracting the precious element both in microgravity and on Mars. There is a major challenge when it comes to microgravity production, and researchers now report an […]

Psychedelic drugs like LSD, DMT, and psilocybin are known for their ability to trigger kaleidoscopic visual hallucinations, raising interesting questions about how people with aphantasia – or the lack of a “mind’s eye” – experience these trippy substances. Astonishingly, research is beginning to reveal that some individuals with this condition may actually acquire visual mental […]

Physicists have demonstrated they can move atoms with incredible reliability, both in 2D and in 3D – and to really show it off, they created the world’s smallest cat video: a movie of 2024 rubidium atoms showing the famous quantum cat thought experiment first suggested by Erwin Schrodinger. The approach employs a machine learning algorithm […]

The rarest whale in the world is the spade-toothed whale (Mesoplodon traversii), with only seven confirmed specimens to date since first reported in the 1800s, and nobody’s ever seen one alive. All but one of them have been reported in the seas around New Zealand. Last December saw the first-ever dissection of one after it […]

Congratulations! It’s a bouncing baby flounder. Look at its sweet, symmetrical eyes. Adorable, aren’t they? Well, take a picture, because they won’t stay there for long. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. For flounders and other flatfish, it’s a rite of passage […]

A nearly complete human skull that was discovered in a Greek cave in 1960 has remained at the center of a major anthropological debate for over six decades. However, researchers have finally settled the matter by revealing that the cranium belongs to a species that’s more primitive than both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, yet existed […]

Down beneath the ocean waves are all manner of secret surprises, from mysterious-looking new species to gentle seahorses floating in the current. One diver was lucky enough to capture a key moment as she witnessed eggs being passed between two seahorse parents.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]

The Solar System’s largest moon could be a dark matter detector, according to a new paper. All we have to do is look.  As far as astronomers studying the observable universe can tell, only around 5 percent of it is made up of matter. The rest, or the overwhelming majority of it, is made up […]

The sky at night. It inspires awe. It inspires thoughts of an existential nature: Who are we? Why are we here? And, perhaps most importantly of all, in which direction should I roll this big ball of shit? That is, if you’re a dung beetle. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]

If you think of helium, you are probably thinking of party balloons and squeaky voices. That doesn’t do the element justice. It has a large number of technical and industrial applications, and is the second most common element in the universe. On Earth, though, it is pretty scarce, and the fact that it is lighter […]

Back in 2022, the Hubble space telescope appeared to have found the most distant star ever discovered. Named Earendel – morning or rising star in old English – a new paper suggests it might not be what we thought. Earendel was spotted by Hubble due to a fortunate case of gravitational lensing, where light from […]