Science

WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission announced plans Nov. 3 to reorganize the agency and create a bureau devoted to the its increasing work with space systems. In a speech at a Satellite Industry Association event, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced her intent to reorganize the commission’s International Bureau into a new

The first complete ichthyosaur skeleton, believed to have been found by the fossil hunter Mary Anning, was thought to have been lost forever when German bombs rained down on London in World War II. But two plaster casts of the distinctive dolphin-like reptile have now been unearthed, even though there was no record of them

For the better part of a century, quantum physics and the general theory of relativity have been a marriage on the rocks. Each perfect in their own way, the two just can’t stand each other when in the same room. Now a mathematical proof on the quantum nature of black holes just might show us

Ever feel like your cat might know a little more than it lets on? Well, you may be onto something. New research suggests that our little feline friends could be surprising sources of evidence when a crime has been committed. Specifically, a cat’s fur can retain enough DNA shed by a person who has been

The last screams of light emitted by a dying star have been preserved in a series of eerily beautiful images, slowly echoing across the cosmos. The Hubble Space Telescope has captured in spectacular detail the flash of light that followed a massive star going supernova in 2016, as the glow spread outward over a period

Researchers have rebuffed a wild idea to use tiny, hollow glass beads to halt sea ice loss, finding that a coating of microspheres would actually accelerate ice melt instead of slowing it. In 2018, a study proposed spraying layers of glass powder, in the form of hollow glass spheres about the thickness of a human

TAMPA, Fla. — Arianespace is exploring the compatibility of its rockets with orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) being developed by Space Machines Company, an Australian startup. The companies signed a deal Oct. 30 that lays the groundwork for their cooperation, which could later see them jointly offering services to customers seeking post-launch in-space logistics. Optimus-1, SMC’s

A snail preserved in amber with an intact fringe of tiny delicate bristles along its shell is helping biologists better understand why one of the world’s slimiest animals might evolve such a groovin’ hairstyle. This unusual mollusk fossil, found in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar, has lines of stiff, miniscule hairs, each between 150 and

Marking the passage of time in a world of ticking clocks and swinging pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between ‘then’ and ‘now’. Down at the quantum scale of buzzing electrons, however, ‘then’ can’t always be anticipated. Worse still, ‘now’ often blurs into a haze of uncertainty. A stopwatch simply isn’t going

Ceramics, human burial grounds, and bullets from Spanish guns are among artifacts that have been uncovered by archaeologists in Guatemala at the site of the last Maya city to resist European conquest, officials said Friday. ​The new excavation project began last June in an effort to understand more about the Tayasal outpost where Maya inhabitants

Rumbles detected deep inside Mars have promoted speculations over volcanic activity on the red planet from “possible” to “likely”. After studying a cluster of marsquakes detected by NASA’s InSight lander, researchers have concluded that molten magma is probably still present beneath the crust of Mars – meaning that the surface of Mars continues to be

A new report from a coalition of international scientists is unequivocal about the severity of the environmental crisis that we’re in, with 16 out of the 35 ‘vital signs’ used to track climate change now rated as code red – that is, they’re at record extremes. The number of climate-related disasters is escalating, the report

WASHINGTON — A NASA mission to an asteroid that missed its launch window this fall because of technical issues has been rescheduled for launch next October. NASA announced Oct. 28 that Psyche, a Discovery-class mission to the metallic main belt asteroid of the same name, will launch on a Falcon Heavy during a launch window

It’s a classic nightmare. You think you’re having a cheeky, sneaky pick-and-flick (or lick, although you probably shouldn’t), only to find you’ve been caught on hidden camera, knuckle-deep up your own nostril. In this case, though, the nose-picker is an aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis), a primate so adept at discretion that this is the first time

How does the human brain keep track of the order of events in a sequence? Research suggests that ‘time cells’ – neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information – could be the glue that sticks our memories together in the right sequence so that we can properly recall the correct order in which

Sometimes an unexpected smile is all it takes to turn your day around. Well, that kind of cheery surprise doesn’t get much bigger than this. Astronomers at NASA have spotted the Sun beaming a remarkable, joyous grin, in a sunny spectacle destined to put a smile on your dial. As shared on NASA’s Sun Twitter

NASA scientists, using a tool designed to study how dust affects climate, have identified more than 50 spots around the world emitting major levels of methane, a development that could help combat the potent greenhouse gas. ​”Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press release

Scientists can now “decode” people’s thoughts without even touching their heads, The Scientist reported. Past mind-reading techniques relied on implanting electrodes deep in peoples’ brains. The new method, described in a report posted 29 Sept. to the preprint database bioRxiv, instead relies on a noninvasive brain scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI

LAS VEGAS — Boeing announced Oct. 26 it will take yet another charge against earnings because of delays in the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program, bringing the total losses recorded by the company to date on the program to nearly $900 million. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Boeing announced a

You’ve most likely never seen an ant like this before: in an ultra-closeup, Lithuanian photographer Eugenijus Kavaliauskas snapped a shot of an ant’s face that looks like a still from some fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings. The picture has been honored as an ‘Image of Distinction‘ in the 2022 Small World Photomicrography

For centuries, the crypt of one of the oldest aristocratic families in Austria has preserved a tragic secret. A boy, perhaps no older than a year or two in age, who died not from a lack of food, or injury. But for a simple want of sunlight on his skin. The male child was found

The Fermi Paradox won’t go away. It’s one of our most compelling thought experiments, and generations of scientists keep wrestling with it. The paradox pits high estimates for the number of civilizations in the galaxy against the fact that we don’t see any of those civs. It says that if rapidly expanding civilizations exist in

Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.” Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,” the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4

Scientists continue to blow through data transmission records, with the fastest transmission of information between a laser and a single optical chip system now set at 1.8 petabits per second. That’s well in excess of the amount of traffic passing across the entire internet each second. Here’s another comparison: the average broadband download speed in

SAN FRANCISCO – Looking for immortality? Space Crystals LLC might have the answer. The startup, founded in 2021 by Waypoint 2 Space CEO Kevin Heath, plans to send crystals grown in microgravity and infused with customer DNA to the moon next year. “We’ve got the technology,” Heath told SpaceNews. “We are in the midst of

Half a century ago, the American mathematician Edward Lorentz famously inquired whether a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil might, through a chaotic domino effect, set off a tornado in Texas. If he’d instead asked whether enough locusts flapping their wings could charge the air with the potency of a thunderstorm, the question might have

Pure water is an almost perfect insulator. Yes, water found in nature conducts electricity – but that’s because of the impurities therein, which dissolve into free ions that allow an electric current to flow. Pure water only becomes “metallic” – electronically conductive – at extremely high pressures, beyond our current abilities to produce in a

Despite all we’ve discovered about our close Neanderthal cousins over the past century, there are still plenty of lingering questions. We know Neanderthals were proficient hunters, for example, but we still aren’t sure to what degree they supplemented their diet with plants… if at all. By studying dental tartar taken from Neanderthal remains uncovered on

Life might have wiped itself out on early Mars. That’s not as absurd as it sounds; that’s sort of what happened on Earth. But life on Earth evolved and persisted, while on Mars, it didn’t. Evidence shows Mars was once warm and wet and had an atmosphere. In the ancient Noachian Period, between 3.7 billion

Billions of hooks, millions of traps, and hundreds of thousands of kilometers of fishing line and nets fall into the ocean each year from commercial fishing ventures. Once lost to the wild, this drifting gear continues to snag helpless sea life in a phenomenon called ghost fishing. These items pile onto the mountains of ocean