News

Our tiny swimmers are not lone wolves as we once thought – sperm cells tend to clump together so they can easily traverse vaginal fluid, a new study has found. It has always been portrayed that the strongest and fittest individual sperm is the one that beats all others in the fertilization race. That may […]

A bubble of hot gas has been detected swirling around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Moving at a velocity of around one-third the speed of light, the hot spot provides new insights into the type of environment that surrounds our home galaxy’s black hole. “We think we’re […]

Climate change is impacting the Earth so acutely that it’s rapidly changing the color of the planet. In a new study, scientists have shown how warming global temperatures are turning the world’s blue lakes to a murky green-brown color. The color of a lake is influenced by a bunch of factors, most notably levels of […]

Both Jupiter and NASA’s DART mission have been in the news a lot this week as they are both having a bit of a moment. Jupiter is set for its closest meeting with Earth since 1963 next week and DART, on its way to its own date with destiny, snapped a gorgeous image of the […]

Incredible photos of space from space are not that unusual. From the vantage point of the International Space Station (ISS), basically everywhere you look is fascinating, strange, or beautiful. Occasionally, however, you get a “wow, er, what even is that?” European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who will become commander of the ISS next […]

To put it mildly, it’s been a weird hurricane season. Despite predictions that La Niña would cause more frequent storms, the Atlantic has had only six named storms so far compared to 21 storms in 2021 and 2020’s total of 30.  Hurricane Fiona is the first category 4 storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. […]

This week, JWST grants us access to view Neptune’s dazzling rings, a brand-new island has emerged out of the depths of the Pacific Ocean, and we learn about the mysteries of rare “golden blood”. JWST Captures Neptune And Its Intriguing Rings As We Have Never Seen Before Neptune makes a complete orbit of our Sun […]

Scientists have revealed that a recently discovered coronavirus found in Russian bats has the worrying ability to infect human cells. Although the pathogen is very similar to SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, our current vaccines would be useless against it. Khosta-1 and Khosta–2 viruses were discovered living in horseshoe bats near Sochi National Park back […]

The history of cryonics – the attempt to freeze the bodies of the recently deceased in the hope that they can be revived and cured at some far-off point in the future – is pretty grim. In an article originally published in Cryonics in 1992, early attempts at cryonics were documented in great and horrific […]

Through one of history’s more morbid games of telephone, the myth of the vampire, and how to contain it, was born. A culmination of medical ignorance and re-interpreted religious practises meant the threat of spooky ghoulies used to be very real – at least in the minds of the public. Seeking protection against what we […]

A recent and troubling trend has seen heart attacks in people under 40 move from “practically unheard of” to making up around one in five cases. We all know what a heart attack looks like, right? It’s when an old guy, probably heavier than average, with a history of things like alcohol and tobacco use […]

There’s a blood type so rare that fewer than 50 people in the world are known to possess it. Scientifically known as Rhnull (Rhesus null), it’s often referred to as “golden blood” due to its extreme rarity – and its value to others. To understand why Rhnull is so rare and precious, you need to quick […]

Everything we see, from galaxies to capybaras, is made of matter. But matter has a mirrored version of itself known as antimatter. If the two come into contact they annihilate one another, turning into pure energy. Why does the universe prefer one over the other? This is a fundamental mystery of the universe, and at […]

Your risk of contracting a rare eye infection increases almost four times if you use soft reusable contact lenses compared to using soft disposable ones. That’s the grim findings from research led by the University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital, where researchers have been investigating what factors can increase a […]

The humble raccoon was practically built for a life of crime, having evolved a bandit mask to give the Hamburglar a run for his money. Famous for raiding bins and breaking into banks, these animals are well versed in navigating city life – but new research has found that when it comes to nailing the […]

The Milky Way is orders of magnitude larger than the other galaxies in the local group, Andromeda aside. It got that way by cannibalizing smaller galaxies. The GAIA space telescope has allowed us to identify stars of common origin, based on their movements and ages, revealing many of the conglomerations of stars that got consumed.  […]

New research that has used a biologic drug to treat infants and kids with severe eczema has shown huge promise in an early trial. By using this monoclonal antibody treatment in kids, the researchers even speculate that it might be able to save them from developing other allergies beyond eczema. After a 16-week course of […]

A landmark new study has shown once and for all that patience really is a virtue – at least if you’re hoping to change the world. After a slow start, tofersen – an experimental drug being investigated as a treatment for motor neurone disease (MND) aka amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – has turned out to […]

The cat flap may not be the most sophisticated of inventions – a tiny flap in a door that a cat can get through is not Nikola Tesla territory – yet they have still been around a surprisingly long time. They even make an appearance in churches dating back to the 16th century, though it […]