Science

Dense thickets of ghostly corals shelter myriads of unfamiliar sea creatures have been found covering a vast area of the deep Atlantic, breaking records to become the largest known deep sea reef. “It’s eye-opening – it’s breathtaking in scale,” says Scripps Institution of Oceanography marine biologist Stuart Sandin. We barely have a clue what these

Albert Einstein was one smart cookie; there’s no doubt about it. But even he knew his general theory of relativity – the 21st century’s answer to Newton’s universal theory of gravity – wasn’t perfect. Like the second-hand car you bought using your first paycheck, it does the job for day-to-day errands. Push it too hard

The popular Paleo diet is based on the belief that we are better off eating like our ancestors by sticking to a largely meat-heavy diet. But a new study suggests that some of our ancestors didn’t gorge on meat at all, but preferred a diet that was largely made up of plants. “Conventional wisdom holds

We finally have the first high-res images of the contents of NASA’s precious Bennu asteroid sampler container, more than 3.5 months since the OSIRIS-REx returned them to Earth. The delay is due to two pesky fasteners that were holding the sampler lid in place, and were finally opened on January 10. On January 19, NASA

Urban agriculture is expected to be an important feature of 21st century sustainability and can have many benefits for communities and cities, including providing fresh produce in neighborhoods with few other options. Among those benefits, growing food in backyards, community gardens or urban farms can shrink the distance fruits and vegetables have to travel between

The term space plane conjures up all sorts of images and NASA, with their new X-59 (even the name sounds mysterious) they have definitely not disappointed. Their new quiet supersonic aircraft has been designed to minimize the sonic boom it creates when it crosses the speed of sound. It will fly at 1.4 times the

TAMPA, Fla. — It will become increasingly challenging to protect national interests during treaty-level talks over how radio waves should be allocated for satellite connectivity, according to the ambassador who led U.S. efforts at the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23). “We’re going to see, I think, a lot more satellite-related issues,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of

As Earth turns, so does our physiological clock. Daylight keeps cascades of timekeeping molecules in sync as they perform regulatory dances throughout our bodies, sometimes partnering with sex hormones, sometimes waltzing alone, but always leading the way. A surprising study led by the University of California, Davis has now discovered timekeeping molecules that dance to

Scientists have accidentally tied the smallest and tightest knot ever, overtaking the top spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. The remarkable microscopic tangle contains just 54 atoms that twist around three times into an interlacing loop called a ‘trefoil’ knot, with no loose ends. This ‘three-leaf clover’ shape is the simplest of nontrivial

Women tend to live longer than men, but a global review of mortality data from 1990 to 2010 suggests the gender gap in life expectancy is narrowing. The study is based on a statistical analysis of United Nations data, which grouped 194 countries into ‘clusters’ of similarity based on measurable factors that influence mortality. Compared

Millions of people will be able to don protective glasses and view a spectacular total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, starting around 1 pm CT. If this sounds familiar, it’s because in 2017, a 70-mile-wide band of the US saw a total solar eclipse, while many other areas saw a partial eclipse. People drove

Climate change has caused Greenland’s ice sheet to lose 20 percent more ice than previously thought, according to research published Wednesday that used satellite imagery to track the retreat of glaciers over the past four decades. Previous studies have found that about 5,000 gigatons of ice has been lost from the surface of the Greenland

An experimental philosopher from the University of Arizona has set up what he’s calling the Millennium Camera: a device designed to take a single image of the Tucson, Arizona landscape over the course of a thousand years. Creator Jonathon Keats says he wants the Millennium Camera to provoke deeper thought about the past, present, and

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force last year launched a small satellite on a Firefly rocket in a demonstration of responsive launch, sending the payload to orbit just 27 hours after receiving launch orders. That mission, named Victus Nox, was impressive, Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force, said

The random nature of genetic mutation implies evolution is largely unpredictable. But recent research suggests this may not be entirely so, with interactions between genes playing a bigger role than expected in determining how a genome changes. It’s known that some areas of the genome are more likely to be mutable than others, but a

When Isaac Newton inscribed onto parchment his now-famed laws of motion in 1687, he could have only hoped we’d be discussing them three centuries later. Writing in Latin, Newton outlined three universal principles describing how the motion of objects is governed in our Universe, which have been translated, transcribed, discussed and debated at length. But

Researchers have detected a cluster of lost 2,500-year-old cities at the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon rainforest. This amazing discovery, the oldest and largest of its kind in the region, includes a vast system of farmland and roads, revealing that Ecuador’s Upano Valley was densely populated from about 500 BCE to between 300

The very early Universe was a dark place. It was packed with light-blocking hydrogen and not much else. Only when the first stars switched on and began illuminating their surroundings with UV radiation did light begin its reign. That occurred during the Epoch of Reionization. But before the Universe became well-lit, a specific and mysterious

Since the 1960s each decade has been hotter than the last, exactly as predicted by many climate models. But there has been some debate in the science community about whether or not this rate of warming is accelerating, particularly in light of last year’s climate chaos. A few months ago former NASA climatologist James Hansen,

TAMPA, Fla. — Space investments should start picking up in 2024 after plummeting last year, executives discussing the industry’s outlook said Jan. 17, but will likely remain far short of record highs. According to recently released research from early-stage investor Space Capital, around $17.9 billion was invested in the global space economy in 2023, 25%

About 14,000 years ago, the tusk of a 20-year-old female mammoth ended up at a campsite in Swan Point, Alaska. How the tusk got there will likely remain a mystery – perhaps the campsite owners hunted her, or came across her remains and took the tusk home with them. Fortunately for us, the extinct mammoths’

Quantum science is usually concerned with ultra-small scales, where the mathematics of probability becomes a more useful tool than ‘classical’ descriptions of matter. Now, new research has put forward a way to measure the quantumness of much larger masses. Scientists have been wanting to test the quantum nature of bigger objects for a long time:

Scientists are predicting a worldwide fall in family sizes before the end of the century, as families get more ‘vertical’ – meaning more grandparents and great-grandparents, and fewer cousins, nieces, and nephews. In a new study by an international team of researchers, mathematical models were used alongside existing population records and projections to calculate an

A glimmer flickering from across the gulf of time and space is the earliest black hole we’ve ever seen. The light detected by a team led by astrophysicist Roberto Maiolino of the University of Cambridge is the blaze emitted by the black hole’s host galaxy as it swirls inexorably towards the event horizon. Appearing as

Scientists are putting forward a new explanation for the giant exploding craters that seem to be randomly appearing in the Siberian permafrost. These craters, first spotted in 2012, have been popping up in the deserted Siberian permafrost, puzzling scientists. They can be substantial, reaching more than 160 feet in depth and 65 feet in width,

WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency announced Jan. 16 it selected  L3Harris, Lockheed Martin and Sierra Space to build and operate 54 satellites equipped with infrared sensors capable of tracking hypersonic missiles in all phases of flight. The satellites will be part of SDA’s Tranche 2 Tracking Layer, a network of satellites in low orbit

This year marks a once in a lifetime event in the mysterious world of periodical cicadas: the simultaneous emergence of two separate broods in the US, a rare phenomenon that last occurred in 1803. One of the greatest enigmas of the insect world, periodical cicadas (Magicicada spp.) live up to 99.5 percent of their lives

In a typical battery, charged ions zip one way through a sea of other particles as the battery recharges, before racing back in the other direction to release the stored energy on cue. Back and forth the ions go, some getting diverted along the way, until the capacity of the battery is drained, and it

One of the marvelous things about humans is the uniqueness of each of our bodies. Although over 100 billion humans have lived on this blue marble of ours, no two fingerprints, scientists believe, have ever been identical. The pattern of lines and whorls on each human fingerprint is believed to be unduplicated on any other

A strange star in the Milky Way bares the signature of a unique explosion of a giant star that once existed billions of years ago in the era of the cosmic dawn. The chemical composition of the extant star known as J0931+0038 is so weird that it can only be made up of the leftovers