Science

If doomsday comes, know this: precautions have been taken. On an isolated Arctic archipelago, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault – aka Norway’s ‘Doomsday Vault’ – holds over 1 million seed samples in a fortress-like bunker designed to be the most invulnerable seed bank in the world. Svalbard protects more than just seeds, though. On the

Hyvinkää, FINLAND — China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission launched successfully Thursday, initiating a phase of deep space and interplanetary exploration. A Long March 5 rocket launched the Tianwen-1 orbiter and rover from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at 12:41 a.m. Eastern.  Successful Trans-Mars injection was confirmed around 40 minutes later by the China Aerospace Science and Technology

Dogs have an enviable sense of direction. Even in a completely unfamiliar place, our pets have an uncanny way of tracking down a shortcut. For the first time, Czech scientists have found evidence that canines can sense and navigate using Earth’s weak magnetic field.  Exactly how they do this and to what extent is still

In ancient Greece, several hundred years before the common era and long before the invention of wheelchairs, some holy sanctuaries may have been specially designed with disability in mind. While ramps were not particularly common in the fourth century BCE, ancient healing temples are often ringed by these permanent stone structures. Archaeologist Debby Sneed from California

Astrophysicists on Monday published the largest-ever 3D map of the Universe, the result of an analysis of more than 4 million galaxies and ultra-bright, energy-packed quasars. The efforts of hundreds of scientists from around 30 institutions worldwide have yielded a “complete story of the expansion of the Universe”, said Will Percival of the University of

Climate change is starving polar bears into extinction, according to research published Monday that predicts the apex carnivores could all but disappear within the span of a human lifetime. In some regions they are already caught in a vicious downward spiral, with shrinking sea ice cutting short the time bears have for hunting seals, scientists

SpaceX’s customer for the Anasis-2 mission was Lockheed Martin on behalf of the government of South Korea. WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on July 20 launched Anasis-2, South Korea’s first military communications satellite. The rocket lifted off at 5:30 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Less than nine minutes after liftoff the Falcon

Some Salmonella bacteria strains have found a way of evading plant defences and sneaking their way into leafy greens – a strategy that’s effective enough to protect them against plant immune systems and from being washed off in the kitchen. It’s a classic trojan horse manoeuvre that’s both deeply worrying and impressive in its ingenuity:

The first Arab space mission to Mars blasted off Monday aboard a rocket from Japan, after weather delays set back the launch of the probe dubbed ‘Hope’. A live feed of the launch showed the rocket carrying the uncrewed probe, known as “Al-Amal” in Arabic, lifting off from the Tanegashima Space Centre in southern Japan.

We might have a problem with our roads: researchers have discovered that sunlight and rain might be able to turn certain compounds in asphalt into a potentially dangerous hydrocarbons, threating the surrounding environment and people using these routes. In particular, it’s the binder (also called asphalt cement) that’s the problem. This heavy, black glue is

WASHINGTON — The federal government will soon allow U.S. commercial remote sensing companies to sell high-resolution satellite images of Israel, changing resolution limits that have been in place for more than two decades. In a draft of a Federal Register notice obtained by SpaceNews, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which hosts the office

Similar to orcas and pilot whales, the enigmatic beluga whale has long been assumed to live out their lives in pods based around close maternal ties. But new research shows their social structures go far beyond sibling quid-pro-quo. By combining DNA profiling with mathematical network analysis, researchers have found belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) across the Arctic hang

It’s not unusual for people to panic over their star signs. But every few years or so, poor old NASA has to explain to the internet that no, they haven’t suddenly changed your zodiac from Sagittarius to Scorpio – nor should this change who you are as a person.  Astronomers don’t even have that power.

If we’re going to get serious about long-term space voyages, then being able to patch up injuries will be essential – and that’s no longer a far-off concept. A cosmonaut on board the International Space Station just engineered human cartilage in the microgravity of space for the first time. Bioprinters that can produce human tissue

Russian prosecutors on Wednesday said they were conducting an inspection of a facility supposed to treat acid runoff from an abandoned Urals mine after photographs emerged of streams running orange. Drone footage uploaded last week by an Instagram travel blogger showed a bright-orange landscape near the disused copper-sulphide mine close to the village of Lyovikha

GLASSBORO, N.J. — Exotrail, a French startup that builds electric propulsion systems and designs flight software for smallsats, has raised 11 million euros ($13 million) from investors, the company announced July 16.  French venture capital firms Karista and Innovacom led the Series A round, with participation from IXO Private Equity, NCI-Waterstart and Turenne Capital, plus

When microbiologist Jared Leadbeater returned to his office for the first time in months after a work trip, he found something strange. A cream-coloured manganese carbonate (MnCO3) compound, coating glassware he’d left soaking in his sink, had turned dark. Something had stolen some of its electrons. “I thought, ‘What is that?'” said Leadbeater, a researcher at the

It’s human nature to test our physical limits, but some of us have taken that impulse to the extreme. Athletes spend huge chunks of their lives honing their bodies to swim the fastest or jump the furthest. And it turns out eating is no exception. Nathan’s Famous Coney Island Hot Dog Eating contest is the

A red dwarf in our Sun’s own back yard seems to have a bad case of indigestion, belching out a flare roughly 20 times more impressive than anything known to come out of our own star. The eruption was caught using a new telescope in Okayama, Japan, when astronomers trained its sights on the constellation

Slashing greenhouse gas emissions would probably not yield visible results until mid-century, researchers have said, cautioning that humanity must manage its expectations in the fight against global warming. Even under optimistic scenarios in which carbon pollution falls sharply, climate change will continue for decades, they reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. “We need to

SAN FRANCISCO – Orbite Corp., a Seattle startup founded by American entrepreneur Jason Andrews and French entrepreneur Nicolas Gaume, announced plans July 14 to establish a Spaceflight Gateway and Astronaut Training Complex offering luxury accommodations, dining and recreation for commercial astronauts, their friends and families. “It’s been clear during my two-plus decades in this industry

Dust plumes are a natural phenomenon, part of Earth’s nutrient cycle. They occur when high-velocity winds pick up tiny dry particles from the Earth’s surface and carry them long distances. Every summer, dust plumes from Africa’s Sahara desert travel across the Atlantic Ocean. They’re usually not this big, and they often sink into the ocean.

Lewis joined DoD in November 2019 after working at the Institute for Defense Analyses. WASHINGTON — Mark Lewis, director of defense research and engineering for modernization, will temporarily serve in the role of undersecretary of defense for research and engineering following the departure of Mike Griffin July 10. Lewis will be performing the duties of

Today, flowering plants (or angiosperms) make up around four-fifths of all the green plants on Earth, but for billions of years they weren’t around at all. Now biologists have been able to fully chart the rapid rise of angiosperms over the last 140 million years. A newly published ‘time tree’ of flowering plants shows in

Would you rather save 90 percent with a product discount, or 91.27 percent? New research suggests that our minds are wired to prefer nice, round numbers over irregular ones, even when the irregular option means a better deal overall. This taste for numerical aesthetics was revealed in a study involving 1,552 participants across six different

The center of our very own galaxy might be one of the Universe’s most mysterious places. Astronomers have to probe through thick dust to see what’s going on there. All that dust makes life difficult for astronomers who are trying to understand all the radiation in the center of the Milky Way, and what exactly

There’s a major change happening in the Arctic. Dark waters are blooming with algae, as sunlight floods spaces long obscured by sheets of ice. Over the past two decades, there’s been a 57 percent increase in phytoplankton in the Arctic ocean, an analysis by researchers from Stanford University has revealed. That’s outpaced scientist’s expectations, and

WASHINGTON — Program delays have forced Eumetsat to reserve a pair of Ariane 6 rockets for two European weather satellites originally anticipated to launch on Ariane 5 rockets.  Eumetsat had signed a contract with Arianespace in 2015 to launch two or three Meteosat Third Generation satellites on Ariane 5 rockets between 2019 and 2023. Of

Just as the Moon tugs at our planet’s seas, contributing to oceanic tidal waves, it also pulls at our atmosphere along with the Sun, creating waves in the sky. A new study now demonstrates how some types of ‘sky waves’ resonate around Earth, much like how sound waves resonate inside a bell. In the water,

Last year, scientists detected the most energetic gamma ray burst we’ve ever seen. A distant galaxy spat out a colossal flare in the range of a trillion electron volts (TeV), providing invaluable new insight into the physics of these incredibly energetic events. That was pretty amazing on its own – but now astrophysicists have used