Science

We have identified the coldest star ever found to produce radio waves – a brown dwarf too small to be a regular star and too massive to be a planet. Our findings, published today [July 13] in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, detail the detection of pulsed radio emission from this star, called WISE J0623. Despite

In 2021, researchers at Purdue University announced that they had developed the whitest paint on Earth. The color is so white that it can reflect over 98% of light. This is particularly useful because light generates heat – and we here on Earth are running a bit hot these days. If used on a building,

Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 planets outside of the Solar System to date. The grand question is whether any of these planets are home to life. To find the answer, astronomers will likely need more powerful telescopes than exist today. I am an astronomer who studies astrobiology and planets around distant stars. For the

WASHINGTON — House and Senate appropriators have drafted bills that would give NASA slightly less money in 2024 than it received in 2023, rather than the significant increase the administration requested. The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for fiscal year 2024 on a 28–1 vote during a July

Magpies and crows are using anti-bird spikes collected from buildings to build nests. These long metal rods are intended to discourage birds from hanging around, but some crafty urban avians in Europe have found ways to take advantage of the deterrent. “It’s actually like a joke,” says biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra of Naturalis Biodiversity Center in

Three objects spotted lurking in the murk of the Cosmic Dawn could be powered by collisions between particles made not of normal star stuff but the enigmatic material known as dark matter. Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of theoretical astrophysicists has determined that three galaxies – named JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0, and

When aliens or our distant progeny sift through layers of sediment 500,000 years from now to decode the Earth’s past, they will find unusual evidence of the abrupt change that upended life half-a-million years earlier: chicken bones. That is the conclusion of scientists whose findings are offered as proof that rapid expansion of human appetites

A retired cosmological theory should be given a second chance at explaining anomalies in our Universe, according to theoretical physicist Rajendra Gupta from the University of Ottawa in Canada. By marrying the existing expanding Universe theory with a fringe explanation called the tired light hypothesis, Gupta has found the Big Bang could have taken place

Many common drugs consist of chemicals sourced from crude oil, a situation that needs to change if we’re to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Now scientists have managed to make two well-known painkillers, acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) and ibuprofen, out of a compound found in pine trees. The compound is also a waste

A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots told a United Nations summit on Friday that they could eventually run the world better than humans. But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly-developing potential of artificial intelligence. And they admitted that they cannot – yet – get a proper

HELSINKI — Chinese private rocket firm Landspace achieved a global first late Tuesday by reaching orbit with a methane-fueled rocket. The 49.5-meter-long Zhuque-2 lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on July 11.  Landspace and Chinese state media announced that the second Zhuque-2 reached orbit, making it

Aquatic adaptations in mammals may be irreversible, according to a new study investigating the means by which more than 5,000 species transitioned from land to water. Although the evolutionary journey of animals like whales and seals can ultimately be traced back to marine tetrapods that left the ocean for a life on land, roaming terra

University of Colorado scientists have set the tightest constraints yet on the potential size of separation in electrical charges within an electron, or its electric dipole moment (EDM). While it doesn’t mean we know what that size is or if it even truly exists, it could help weed out ideas explaining why the Universe isn’t

Since the days of Aristotle, scientists and philosophers have debated whether silence is ever ‘heard’. A new series of experiments by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the US may just have settled the issue. The research made clever use of a well-known trick called the one-is-more illusion, which fools the brains of listeners into

Avi Loeb, a physicist from Harvard University in the US, has recovered 50 tiny spherical iron fragments from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that he claims may be material from an interstellar alien spaceship. Loeb is linking his finding with the passage of a fireball in January 2014. The meteor was observed by sensors

World daily temperature records have been smashed this week, according to preliminary data. The modeling tools that produced these estimates can provide an early warning of extreme heat events, even if they aren’t as precise as monthly and yearly reports produced by leading agencies, say experts. Who is producing the data? The University of Maine

SAN FRANCISCO – Plasmos, the Los Angeles-based startup developing rocket engines, is pivoting to become an artificial intelligence-driven venture capital firm. Plasmos officially changed its business model in late May after struggling to attract investors and strategic partners due in part to the background of Plasmos CEO Ali Baghchehsara. Born in Iran, Baghchehsara moved to

On a long walk in the summer of 1860, Charles Darwin first noticed a peculiar phenomenon among plants that still puzzles scientists to this day. On the English heathland, there was a common sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) with a whole bunch of insects stuck to its leaves. And that chance encounter started Darwin on a 16-year-long

Superconducting quantum technology has long promised to bridge the divide between existing electronic devices and the delicate quantum landscape beyond. Unfortunately progress in making critical processes stable has stagnated over the past decade. Now a significant step forward has finally been realized, with researchers from the University of Maryland making superconducting qubits that last 10

Extended periods of solitude can leave many of us climbing the walls for something to occupy our minds. Those who are creatively minded, however, relish the freedom to escape into their own mental universe. US psychologists from the Universities of Arizona, Arkansas, and Minnesota, surveyed over 2,000 volunteers to better understand how creativity kicks in

Ancient stars born during the Cosmic Dawn have been identified in the center of the Milky Way. As part of a survey to uncover some of the oldest known stars in the Universe, scientists conducted a comprehensive search for these ancient, but elusive, stars, and found that the measures they spin around the galactic center

Consuming over a third of Earth’s vertebrates, the more voracious predator our planet has ever known has a staggering ecological impact. New research finds this animal’s consumption creates a footprint 1,300 times larger than anything else we have records for. Yet only about half of what is being taken is for food. That predator is,

Everyone has a characteristic odor; a distinctive scent. Now scientists have found that with just a whiff of someone’s hand – and a fancy protein analysis machine – they can distinguish between sexes with darn-good accuracy. In the study of 60 people, consisting of 30 men and 30 women, a person’s sex could be correctly

It’s said nature abhors a vacuum. The same is true of leadership. In the global space community, a government body is almost always a leading component of a nation’s growing space ecosystem. But what if it wasn’t? In Ecuador today, there is growing momentum around space ecosystem development. To be sure, Ecuador has some history

More than a thousand Californian sea lions have been poisoned by a toxic algae bloom that can cause seizures, brain damage, and death. Across California’s beaches, sea lions have been exhibiting strange behaviors like swaying their heads back and forth, frothing at the mouth and being unusually violent when touched. Sea lions aren’t normally aggressive

When you turn on a lamp to brighten a room, you are experiencing light energy transmitted as photons, which are small, discrete quantum packets of energy. These photons must obey the sometimes strange laws of quantum mechanics, which, for instance, dictate that photons are indivisible, but at the same time, allow a photon to be

There are many ways we humans have unleashed devastation on each other – nuclear weapons, pollution, the spread of deadly pathogens, just to name a few. While it’s hard to say with certainty, by many accounts the deadliest day in human history was actually the result of a natural disaster. On the morning of 23

On one particular day in 2021, astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the ISS must have felt a pin-prick of fear and uncertainty. On November 15th of that year, Russia fired an anti-satellite missile at one of its own defunct military satellites, Tselina-D. The target weighed about 1,750 kilograms, and when the missile struck its target, the

The risks of harvest failures in multiple global breadbaskets have been underestimated, according to a study Tuesday that researchers said should be a “wake up call” about the threat climate change poses to our food systems. Food production is both a key source of planet-warming emissions and highly exposed to the effects of climate change,

WASHINGTON — After completing an upgrade to the International Space Station’s power system in June, NASA is moving ahead with plans to add two more solar arrays to the station. Boeing and Redwire announced June 28 that they signed a contract for a fourth pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays, or IROSA, for the station.