News

A video game, created in collaboration with former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, has been shown to improve the short-term memory of older adults. Developed by the University of California San Francisco’s Neuroscape Center, the game challenges players to drum out a rhythm on a tablet and engages key brain regions associated with musical performance. […]

An emerging Omicron subvariant has raised concerns about a surge of COVID-19 cases this winter, after it was found to display a worrying proclivity for evading vaccine immunity. BA.2.75.2, as it is called, can largely dodge neutralizing antibodies in the blood and is resistant to several monoclonal antibody treatments, new research from Sweden has discovered. […]

From nearly the first minute it was detected, astronomers knew the explosion named GRB221009A was something special. We’re now learning just how extraordinary it was – including detecting how it temporarily changed our planet’s upper atmosphere, affecting the passage of radio waves. Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) involve possibly the greatest release of energy of any […]

If you’ve not been up at night wondering “how do eels reproduce?” you’ve not been paying attention. Arguably one of the most gripping mysteries of science (among us eel enthusiasts, anyway), the elusive nature of eel reproduction slipped through the net of scientific understanding for centuries – literally, people have been trying to crack the […]

Sitting at 3,350 meters (11,000 feet) above sea level is a glacier resembling “the skin of an elephant” – and it’s teeming with the preserved remains of an extinct species. A survey conducted in 1914 conducted by US Geological Survey mining geologist Dr J. P. Kimball led to the finding that gave Grasshopper Glacier its […]

You might suppose Hollywood is good at predicting the future. Indeed, Robert Wallace, head of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service and the US equivalent of MI6’s fictional Q, has recounted how Russian spies would watch the latest Bond movie to see what technologies might be coming their way. Hollywood’s continuing obsession with killer robots […]

It’s long been popular advice for people looking to lose weight to avoid late night snacking. It’s no wonder, with a host of research showing that late night eating is linked to greater body weight and increased risk of obesity. But until now, few studies have actually investigated precisely why late night eating is linked […]

Innovative businesses are not easy to find. You know what we are talking about — the businesses that actually save you money with their ingenious ideas and make your life easier. But, we’ve found one that promises to do both and give you access to authentic royalty-free images to use however you like.  Scopio Lifetime […]

There are potentially trillions of different microbe species on Earth, and we’ve identified the tiniest fraction of them. That’s partly because finding them requires such cutting-edge technology, but it sometimes also comes down to more practical issues – like just looking in the right place. A new project led by researchers from across the USA, […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its guidelines regarding trans and gender-diverse people, providing new directions on how to best serve this marginalized community. The guidelines touch on several diseases that are prevalent in the community but stress how social and structural barriers deprive and obstruct access to healthcare and other essential services. The […]

If you don’t know by now that smoking is bad for you, then we can only assume you’re a time traveler from 1936 sent here to warn us all about the looming Nazi threat in Europe (don’t worry: we won.)  But what we’re still getting to grips with is just how bad for you it […]

Augmented reality technology has come a long way since its development in 1992. With the Metaverse on the horizon, more user-friendly AR design technology has begun to develop. Where the first augmented rig was constructed in a lab, now you may be able to scan, source and create your own 3D and 2D AR images.  […]

Very massive stars spend only a small portion of their lifecycle as red supergiants before becoming supernovas. What may be an astronomical blink of the eye, however, is still hundreds of thousands of years, so the process of closely watching every star in the red supergiant phase is not practical. However, new evidence of a […]

Wildscreen has announced the winners of their 2022 Panda Awards, granting My Garden Of A Thousand Bees the top prize: the Plimsoll Golden Panda Award. Filmed during lockdown, the feature film by wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn explored the secret lives of 60 bee species (mirroring this year’s winner of Wildlife Photographer Of The Year nicely). […]

New data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has shown an increase of COVID-19 cases across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In the week of October 3, COVID-19 cases stood at 1.7 million, a huge increase of 31 percent on the week previous, the highest figure the UK has seen since late July. Advertisement […]

Blue Babe was a bison with two lifetimes. The first occurred 50,000 years ago when the steppe bison (Bison priscus) roamed Alaska before meeting its end in the jaws of a lion. The second began when its mummified remains were retrieved from the Interior permafrost where it had remained frozen in time since the Ice […]

This article first appeared in Issue 1 of our new free digital magazine CURIOUS. Conspiracy theories can range from the small and innocent (blue tack is just white tack that’s been colored in with pen) to the downright dangerous and absurd (have the people who think Bill Gates is a super-genius capable of a global […]

Bumblebees have had a mixed 2022 so far. Despite their success in being declared fish by the US Supreme Court, it has also been discovered that they are capable of feeling pain. Now the results of a new study found that a common pesticide can even affect their fine-color vision and long-term memory.  Glyphosate-based herbicides are […]