Science

Dare to get close enough to a snake of some kind, you’ll quickly notice there’s no sign of an ear for you to whisper into. Not a flap, flop, or furrow to be seen. So you might be mistaken to thinking they’re a little hard of hearing. “Snakes are very vulnerable, timid creatures that hide

In 15th century England, a woman by the name of Lady Isabel German tucked herself away in a room of the All Saints Church near York. For 28 years, she lived in religious solitude as an ‘anchoress‘, praying and contemplating God from the confines of a sealed cell. Five hundred years later, remains thought to

A comma-shaped molecular cloud near the center of the Milky Way seems to be orbiting one of the most sought-after objects in astronomy. At the center of the “Tadpole’s” orbit, a team of astronomers saw precisely … nothing. And a nothing which attracts something simply screams ‘ black hole‘. Modeling suggests that this wouldn’t just

The Antarctic Ocean area covered by ice has shrunk to a record low, exposing the thicker ice shelves buttressing Antarctica’s ground ice sheet to waves and warmer temperatures, scientists reported Thursday. The National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States said Antarctica’s sea ice fell to 1.91 million square kilometers (737,000 square miles)

Elon Musk wants to put a computer chip in your brain. Well, maybe not in your brain, but in the brain of some human somewhere. Musk’s neurotech startup, Neuralink, has been working toward implanting its skull-embedded brain chip in a human since it was founded in 2016. After years of testing on animal subjects, Musk

WASHINGTON — The carrier aircraft for Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spaceplane made its first flight in more than a year Feb. 15 as the company moves one step closer to beginning commercial service. The airplane, VMS Eve, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, flying for more than

Without the buzzing, fluttering, scuttling or creeping crawlies our world would be in strife. Yet we don’t even know some of the most basic things about these arthropods like butterflies, spiders and centipedes, such as how many of these important components of our world’s biosphere are even out there. So researchers crunched some numbers to

Isaac Newton is credited with first formulating a theory of gravity in the latter half of the 17th century – apparently inspired by an apple falling from a tree – but fundamental aspects of gravity’s pull were also recognized by Leonardo da Vinci more than a hundred years earlier, a new study explains. The study

Under the shadow of the Cold War, many in the world feared the impending prospect of a nuclear winter. According to a new report, our focus has since drifted from its horrors, leaving us with a general lack of awareness that could be dangerous for the future of humankind. It goes without saying that the

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