Science

For most of us, hair naturally loses pigment as we get older. We often think that stress may also play a role, but until recently, that hadn’t actually been demonstrated in humans; a 2021 study finally brought some evidence to the table. Gray and white hair is typically caused by the pigment cells in our

The Moon is no longer pristine. We humans have been messing about up there for over half a century now, and our prints, dead equipment, crashed spacecraft, art, and even feces is speckled across its gray and cratered surface. The time has now come, scientists say. Humans have become the dominant force acting on the

The last time carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently matched today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago, according to a large new study Thursday that paints a grim picture of where Earth’s climate is headed. Published in the journal Science, the paper covers the period from 66 million years ago until the present, analyzing

Imagine brain scanning technology improves greatly in the coming decades, to the point that we can observe how each individual neuron talks to other neurons. Then, imagine we can record all this information to create a simulation of someone’s brain on a computer. This is the concept behind mind uploading – the idea that we

NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program is in crisis. A recent review of the plan of its flagship Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission pegged its cost at $10 billion, a price tag that threatens to preclude funding any other exploration missions to the Red Planet for the next decade and a half. While the decadal plan

In a world first, a megamouth shark has been seen pregnant. A female of this super rare, deepwater species was found washed up on a beach in the Philippines last month. Unfortunately the megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) had to die for us to see this, with one dead young shark found next to her and

Some enmities are so powerful, they could never be resolved. Bette and Joan. Batman and the Joker. Hamilton and Burr. It was starting to look like that list would include general relativity and quantum theory, two mathematical frameworks for describing the Universe that just cannot be made to fit together. But in new paper, physicist

A mysterious ancient graveyard that has flummoxed Finnish archaeologists for decades could be one of the largest Stone Age cemeteries in northern Europe, a new study suggests. Located on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Tainiaro, a place of long and bitter winters, the site was first unearthed in 1959 and studied again in

It seems like we have free will. Most of the time, we are the ones who choose what we eat, how we tie our shoelaces and what articles we read on The Conversation. However, the latest book by Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, has been receiving a lot

In around a billion years, the sun will become hot enough to boil all the oceans on our planet, and life as we know it will be destroyed. The fate of life on Earth, scientists think, is more or less sealed. But a passing star could prove to be an unlikely savior, according to a

According to the president of COP28, the latest round of UN climate negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, there is “no science” indicating that phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to restrict global heating to 1.5°C. President Sultan Al Jaber is wrong. There is a wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that a fossil fuel phase-out

The world’s biggest experimental nuclear fusion reactor in operation was inaugurated in Japan on Friday, a technology in its infancy but billed by some as the answer to humanity’s future energy needs. Fusion differs from fission, the technique currently used in nuclear power plants, by fusing two atomic nuclei instead of splitting one. The goal

WASHINGTON — SatixFy is the latest space firm to face being kicked off a stock exchange after shares plummeted following a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), a fast-track alternative to traditional initial public offerings of stock.  The NYSE American stock exchange has given the Israeli satcom equipment maker until Dec. 30 to

In October, a great white shark washed up on a beach in southern Australia with its insides conspicuously missing. Large chunks of flesh had been violently ripped from its trunk, but the head, tail, and fins appeared untouched. Scientists can now confirm what they suspected at the time: that orcas were behind the slaughter of

Particle accelerators are hugely useful in scientific research, but – like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – usually take up vast amounts of room. A remarkable new system developed at the University of Texas in Austin could change this. In experiments, researchers were able to use their particle accelerator to generate an electron beam with

A newly discovered trade-off in the way time-keeping devices operate on a fundamental level could set a hard limit on the performance of large-scale quantum computers, according to researchers from the Vienna University of Technology. While the issue isn’t exactly pressing, our ability to grow systems based on quantum operations from backroom prototypes into practical

File this under ‘That’s not supposed to happen!’: Scientists observed a metal healing itself, something never seen before. If this process can be fully understood and controlled, we could be at the start of a whole new era of engineering. In a study published in July, a team from Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M

Researchers propose that a taste for fermented morsels may have triggered a surprising jump in the growth rate of our ancestors’ brains. In fact, a shift from a raw diet to one that included food items already partially broken down by microbes may have been a crucial event in our brain’s evolution, according to a

Astronomers have spotted signs of an extended disk of dust and gas, whirling in orbit around a distant star. There’s nothing unusual about this. It’s a normal stage in the development of a star and its planetary system. What makes this find so spectacular is that it’s the first ever seen around a star in

Nearly five times more people will likely die due to extreme heat in the coming decades, an international team of experts said Wednesday, warning that without action on climate change the “health of humanity is at grave risk”. Lethal heat was just one of the many ways the world’s still-increasing use of fossil fuels threatens

The vast amounts of digital information produced every day (including this article) have to be stored somewhere, and China is embarking on an innovative idea for its latest bank of data centers: putting them underwater. Data centers are vast racks of computer storage, holding everything from your Spotify playlists to your Gmail messages. While fitting

WASHINGTON — Angola signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords outlining best practices for space exploration Nov. 30, becoming the third African nation to do so. The signing took place during the visit of Angola’s president, João Lourenço, to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden. The signing was mentioned briefly in White House statements

There’s a marked difference between how quickly mammals (including ourselves) age and how quickly many species of reptiles and amphibians do. This discrepancy, one scientist proposes, could be due to the dominance of dinosaurs millions of years ago, during a critical period of mammalian history. Microbiologist João Pedro de Magalhães from the University of Birmingham

Ever since the spooky phenomenon of superconductivity was discovered in 1911, scientists have been searching for superconducting materials that work under practical conditions. If only they could find a compound in which electrical resistance vanishes at room temperature and ambient pressure – not extreme cold and ultrahigh forces – then we could finally step into

Picture this: you’re nestled comfortably in your seat cruising towards your holiday destination when a flight attendant’s voice breaks through the silence: “Ladies and gentlemen, both pilots are incapacitated. Are there any passengers who could land this plane with assistance from air traffic control?” If you think you could manage it, you’re not alone. Survey

China’s Zhurong rover was equipped with a ground-penetrating radar system, allowing it to peer beneath Mars‘s surface. Researchers have announced new results from the scans of Zhurong’s landing site in Utopia Planitia, saying they identified irregular polygonal wedges located at a depth of about 35 meters all along the robot’s journey. The objects measure from

The explosive end of non-avian dinosaurs is the most infamous blow to life on Earth. But there’s long been hints that the asteroid may not be the main culprit behind this mass extinction, just the most spectacular isolated contribution. Before this dramatic event, 66 million years ago, toxic winds of change were already brewing in

Do you know what the padlock symbol in your internet browser’s address bar means? If not, you’re not alone. New research by my colleagues and I shows that only 5% of UK adults understand the padlock’s significance. This is a threat to our online safety. The padlock symbol on a web browser simply means that

WASHINGTON — Arcfield, a U.S. defense and intelligence contractor, announced Nov. 29 it has completed the acquisition of Orion Space Solutions, a developer and manufacturer of small satellites and sensor payloads. The value of the acquisition was not disclosed. Based in Chantilly, Virginia, Arcfield is a portfolio company of the private equity firm Veritas Capital.