Science

A trail found in the gas surrounding a distant galaxy could be the smoking gun pointing to a runaway supermassive black hole. Based on an analysis of light that has traveled for more than 7.5 billion years to reach us, a team of astronomers has presented evidence of a colossal object ejected from its host

From soaring coastal redwoods to dinosaur-era Wollemi pines and firs that make the perfect Christmas trees, even our most revered woody plants are in an awful lot of trouble. But it turns out that losing some species won’t just endanger local forests; it will threaten entire ecosystems, research shows. In 2021, a global assessment titled

One of the challenges of reaching the full potential of quantum computing is figuring out how to get millions of qubits working together – those quantum equivalents of the classic bits that store 1s or 0s in traditional computers. Scientists at the University of Sussex in the UK have now been able to get qubits

TAMPA, Fla. — Canadian launch startup SpaceRyde has filed for bankruptcy just months after noise complaints put an end to rocket engine tests. The five-year-old company, which had been developing a rocket that would use a stratospheric balloon as its first stage, filed for bankruptcy Feb. 10 and named Deloitte as trustee to handle its

The possibility that communication networks of fungi exist connecting forest ecosystems in a ‘wood-wide web‘ has increasingly gained attention among researchers in recent decades. Yet it might be more hype than hyphae, according to a perspective recently published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Three biologists from the University of Alberta and University of British Columbia

Have you ever suffered through tales of greatness from a self-absorbed “friend” who reminds you of Michael Scott from The Office – and not in a good way? Have you been betrayed by a colleague out of the blue, undermined on a project by the office mean girl, or had a work friendship dropped altogether

In recent years, evidence suggests that there might be something lurking on the outskirts of the Solar System – something large, and possibly very dark. That large, dark thing has been named Planet Nine, its presence inferred by some peculiarly clustered orbits detected in small objects in the outer Solar System’s Kuiper Belt. Something, some

With each passing year, the effects of rising global temperatures become even more obvious, while the chances of avoiding greater catastrophes in the future retreat like every melting glacier. Desperate to avoid worst-case scenarios, researchers have proposed various measures that could, at the very least, buy us the time we might need to mature as

The conversational AI bot ChatGPT is having a moment, promising to transform the ways in which we produce written text, search the web, and educate ourselves. The latest ChatGPT achievement? Almost passing the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). We’re talking about an exam known for its difficulty here, one that usually requires some 300 to

WASHINGTON — A Progress cargo spacecraft docked to the International Space Station experienced a coolant leak Feb. 11, the second such incident involving a Russian spacecraft at the station in less than two months. The Russian space agency Roscosmos reported a “depressurization” in the Progress MS-21 spacecraft shortly after another cargo spacecraft, Progress MS-22, docked

If you think you have trouble telling when someone’s into you, just be grateful you’re not a giraffe. Like many even-toed hoofed animals such as goats and antelope, male giraffes need to analyse a female giraffe’s pee to figure out if they’re receptive to baby-making. Unfortunately reaching the ground to sniff at puddles of urine

When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or convenience, such as easy access to toilets. Frequent flyers (this author included) might book their seat as close as possible to the front

A newly discovered structure located deep in the heart of a thick cloud of gas and dust more than 450 light-years away is the signature of a pair of baby stars in the throes of formation. A team of astronomers have identified a previously unseen bubble at the center of a stellar nursery called Barnard

We know volcanoes can cause dramatic shifts in the atmosphere when they erupt, but what about those long stretches of time when they appear to have fallen silent? A new study suggests that dormant volcanoes could be leaking out much more sulfur than we thought. In fact, we might have underestimated sulfur output from sleeping

Above the islands of Hawaii on January 28, a green laser was seen piercing the night sky, silently tracing a path towards the horizon like a stutter in the Matrix’s code. The scene was caught on camera from a telescope atop Hawaii’s tallest peak. You can check out the scanning laser in the footage below.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Gaining access to AWS Ground Stations is enabling Atlas Space Operations to dramatically expand its network, Brad Bode Atlas chief technology officer and co-founder told SpaceNews. Atlas, a ground software as a service company based in Michigan, is gaining access to 11 ground antennas sites through the AWS Solution Provider Program.

An extremely large earthquake has occurred in the southeast of Türkiye, near the border with Syria. Data from seismometers which measure shaking of the ground caused by earthquake waves suggest this this event was a magnitude 7.8 out of 10 on the moment magnitude scale. Seismic waves were picked up by sensors around the world

A trio of codebreakers has accidentally stumbled upon a lost series of secret letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots in the years before her execution in 1587. The incredible, seven-year-long correspondence was encrypted so successfully, the documents were archived in an unmarked file and mistakenly placed in a part of France’s national library involved

A bright infrared light blazing from two galaxies in the process of merging has just been yanked out of hiding. Using the JWST, astronomers have pinpointed the exact location of the light, behind a thick wall of dust obscuring it in other wavelengths. Whatever is producing the light is yet unknown, but narrowing down where

Glaciers are melting, putting the lives of millions around the world at risk of flash flooding, according to a new study. Most of those people reside in just four countries – India, Pakistan, Peru, and China – where glacial lakes are numerous and populations are vulnerable to climate disasters. Glaciers are ‘rivers of ice‘ that

The US military shot down what US officials called a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on 4 Feb 2023. Officials said that the US Navy planned to recover the debris, which is in shallow water. The US and Canada tracked the balloon as it crossed the Aleutian Islands, passed over Western

TAMPA, Fla. — EchoStar Corporation, a U.S. operator with around $1.6 billion in cash, is preparing to disrupt the market for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices after ordering satellites it needs for global services next year. The company said last week it had placed an order with California-based Astro Digital for 28 satellites, which

The Sun gives life to our planet through its rays, and yet some fascinating lifeforms don’t need light to live. Instead of using photosynthesis to store energy in their chemical bonds, some microbes rely purely on the oxidation of inorganic molecules like hydrogen to do the trick. Chemosynthesis, as it’s known, was speculated as a

Scientists rattling normal frozen water around in a jar of ultracold steel balls have discovered a previously unknown form of ice, closer to liquid water than any other ice yet. This is amorphous ice, a form not found in nature on Earth. That’s because its atoms are arranged not in a neat repeating crystalline pattern,

If you walk through the woods and pass a beehive, you may catch the sweet scent of honey in the wind and suddenly be flooded with memories: having tea with grandma or eating warm biscuits on a Sunday morning. If you were taking that walk 300,000 years ago with a Denisovan – a now-extinct hominid

You can now listen to the sounds of the space around one of the Milky Way’s most spectacular stars. RS Puppis, a Cepheid variable star around 6,500 light-years away, has gotten the data sonification treatment by the sci-art outreach project SYSTEM Sounds. They took a Hubble image of the star and transcribed the light into

Sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms have predicted that the world will be 1.5 °C hotter than it was before the Industrial Revolution by the early 2030s – another climate change alarm bell to add to the cacophony that’s already being sounded. And that’s baked in, the AI says: it doesn’t matter whether greenhouse gases rise

Billion-dollar startup Colossal Biosciences claims it has come a step closer to reviving the dodo, a flightless bird that has been extinct since the 17th century. The futuristic plan is only possible now that the Dallas-based company has decrypted the dodo’s entire genome, according to a press release. The bird is the latest in the

WASHINGTON — U.S. and Indian officials agreed this week to expand civil space cooperation, including training Indian astronauts and flying payloads on commercial lunar landers. In meetings this week in Washington, held with little public fanfare, the United States and India agreed to expanded cooperation in civil space and laid the groundwork for potential new

The adorable, white-spotted pink-nosed marsupial that lives in the top half of Australia would rather die than miss out on sex. During its brief mating window, the males run themselves ragged – then die from exhaustion, a study led by the University of the Sunshine Coast suggests. The study compared the activity of male and