News

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a life-saving procedure that should be known more widely than it is. It has helped countless people around the world and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti has decided to show us online how it could also save lives in space. On Earth, CPR relies on us using our bodyweight to […]

Psychopaths are more likely to act as “parasitic” fathers should they have children, a study published in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science has found. Psychopaths are loosely defined as people with egocentric and antisocial personalities, showing little empathy for others. Because of this, you would expect that they would have little interest in having and […]

Non-formally-trained scientists have been playing an increasingly revolutionary role over the last 15 years. The rise of Citizen Science has had impacts on every discipline, and every month new projects are launched to involve, inform, and ask the public for help in tackling mysteries at the cutting edge of human knowledge. By any metric, involving […]

The US now meets the criteria to enter the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of countries where circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPVs) have been identified and are in circulation, the CDC announced on Tuesday. This is due to an ongoing outbreak in Rockland County, New York state, and surrounding areas. Joining them on the watchlist are […]

Pareidolia is the peculiar human behavior of seeing meaningful images in random patterns. We see faces in plug sockets, queens in clouds, and the entire world in funny-shaped rocks. Martian rocks are no exception, with everything from the famous “face” that turned out to be a hill to secret doors spotted on the Red Planet. […]

In just two weeks, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will test humanity’s capabilities to alter the path of an asteroid by slamming into Dimorphos, a small moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos. The asteroids pose no threat to Earth but will allow NASA to test a crucial approach to planetary defense in a way […]

BA.4.6, a subvariant of the omicron COVID variant which has been quickly gaining traction in the US, is now confirmed to be spreading in the UK. The latest briefing document on COVID variants from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) noted that during the week beginning August 14, BA.4.6 accounted for 3.3 percent of samples […]

It takes a lot to distinguish yourself if you are the fourteenth king named Louis. Louis XIV managed to do this in several ways: becoming one of the most powerful French monarchs and helping to bring surgery on the anus (and elsewhere) into the modern ages. Louis XIV had a number of illnesses, with recurring […]

The British Monarchy has been dominating headlines following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8. After her majesty’s bejeweled, lead-lined coffin made its way across the UK, we find ourselves asking, yet again, just how much is the royal family worth? In true British nature, the royals aren’t big on disclosing their financial […]

COVID-19 has infected over 600 million people (as of September 13) in practically every patch of the planet. Yet still, somehow, some people have managed to avoid the virus. That might include health carers who spent months surrounded by infected patients or even just people who have shared a bed with a sick partner. If […]

Scientists have discovered how a rare form of diamond is created in space. Found in four meteorites in north-west Africa, the strange hexagonal diamonds do not naturally occur on Earth. Now, we may know where they come from.  Billions of years ago, there was a dwarf planet in the inner Solar System that had carbon […]

All that is gold is not gold-colored, as Bilbo Baggins probably meant to say. Sometimes it’s purple, as in the Alhambra Palace where a gold layer on wall and ceiling ornaments has changed color over centuries. The chemistry of this conversion has finally been explained. The Alhambra Palace in Granada is considered one of the […]

Results from a huge study have shown the fight against cancer may have an incredible new weapon: a simple blood that test can detect multiple different types of cancer before they even show symptoms.   The Pathfinder study, which enrolled 6,600 adults aged 50 and over, offered the blood test to each adult and mixed […]

If you’re a new parent who has found themselves pleading “how do I get my baby to stop crying?!” in the dark hours of the morning (or at any time, for that matter) you’ll be pleased to know that scientists believe they have found a recipe for respite. Their “method to soothe and promote sleep […]

Most of the objects the JWST has studied are so faint they can’t be seen with binoculars, let alone the naked eye. The Orion Nebula, sometimes known as the Great Nebula or M42, is different. It’s the closest star-forming region to Earth and looks like a fuzzy star in Orion’s sword in the constellation. Even […]

The 12th Nikon Small World in Motion competition saw hundreds of entries from all over the world. A sister to the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, both reward skill and excellence in video and photography under the microscope.  The video portion encompasses any movie or digital time-lapse photography taken through the microscope, opening up new […]

In 2012, TV producers bought a Boeing 727 with the intention of smashing it into the ground. The collaboration between the UK, the US, and Germany televised the results of the experiment, which would attempt to answer the question: where should I sit on an aircraft if I want to survive a crash? The plane […]

The world is heading in the wrong direction when it comes to fixing the planet’s climate concerns, according to a new multi-agency report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). While world powers have been continuously ramping up their pledges to go net-zero, the latest reports highlight a vast gulf between their aspirations and reality.  […]

It’s no secret that orca are trained assassins (they’re known as “killer whales” for a reason), but a sequence from the newly released Frozen Planet II serves as a harrowing reminder of just how skilled they are. In it, a synchronized pod can be seen targeting a seal who evidently thought they were safe snoozing […]