Science

The delicious way that champagne bubbles tickle the tongue is based on how ‘soapy’ the wine is, according to new research. When poured into a glass, carbonated drinks don’t all fizz the same way. Sparkling water creates a firework-like display of popping bubbles, bursting forth across the entire surface of a glass. Beer has bubbles

The next time you whisper sweet-nothings into someone’s ear, you might want to target their left side. Neuroscientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne University Hospital and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have discovered a strange bias in our perception of pleasing voices. According to the brain scans of 13

The largest and most powerful solar telescope on Earth has just given us breathtaking new views of the surface of the Sun. In a series of new images, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope’s observations reveal the intricate details of sunspot regions, the roiling convective cells, and the motion of plasma in the solar atmosphere

France is preparing for temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels in the country by century’s end as the world falls short in meeting climate change targets, a cabinet minister warned Sunday. Christophe Bechu, minister for ecological transition, told the weekly JDD paper that his government was no longer banking on

WASHINGTON — Three U.S. government agencies are undertaking studies to examine the safety issues associated with a new generation of launch vehicles that use liquid oxygen and methane propellants. At a May 15 meeting of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Group (COMSTAC), FAA officials described efforts that are underway to understand the

Earth’s hot and churning insides are largely still a mystery to scientists. Even at shallower depths, the crusty exterior of our planet contains plenty of unknowns. Magma deep in Earth’s mantle that rises to form continental crust is inherently different to the magma that seeps from mid-ocean ridges. Molten material that bursts from volcanoes on

A team of chemists from Osaka University in Japan have identified a rare property in a crystal. When exposed to the cool glow of ultraviolet (UV) light, the solid organic material transforms into a liquid. What’s more, this crystal undergoes an interesting series of changes in its luminescence as it melts that point to changes

Human history is intimately entwined with the use and control of fire. However, working out when our relationship with fire began and how it subsequently evolved has been notoriously difficult. This is partly due to the incomplete nature of archaeological records, and also because fire use was fleeting, making burnt remains difficult to detect. But

How thick is the crust of Mars? This question is what a recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters attempted to answer as it reported on data from a magnitude 4.7 marsquake recorded in May 2022 by NASA’s InSight lander, which remains the largest quake ever recorded on another planetary body. As it turns out,

Mounting evidence suggests humans are now a major driving force of evolution on Earth. From selective breeding to environmental modifications, we’re altering so much of our world that we’re not only now driving the climate, but the direction of life itself. In a massive project involving 287 scientists across 160 cities in 26 countries, researchers

WASHINGTON — Spanish launch startup PLD Space plans to conduct a suborbital launch before the end of the month to test technologies for its small orbital launch vehicle. PLD Space said May 18 that it conducted a static-fire test a day earlier of its Miura 1 rocket on the pad at El Arenosillo, a site

Researchers have just found a robust answer to the centuries-long mystery of which multicellular animal first existed on Earth. Sponges (Porifera) have long been a lead contender for the title of “first” due to their anatomic simplicity – like their lack of a nervous system – but as we’ve delved deeper into genetic histories, a

Researchers have discovered the earliest examples of human footprints in Germany. They’re so old, it’s unlikely they were made by any species live today. Stretching back some 300,000 years through time, it’s thought they were made not by Homo sapiens, but by the ancient (and now extinct) ‘Heidelberg people’ (or Homo heidelbergensis). The impressions provide

Saturn’s rings are one of the jewels of the Solar System, but it seems that their time is short and their existence fleeting. A new study suggests the rings are between 400 million and 100 million years old – a fraction of the age of the Solar System. This means we are just lucky to

Scientists are alarmed as sea surface temperatures stubbornly maintain record-breaking highs for more than a month, pushing the state of Earth’s oceans into uncharted territory. Starting in mid-March, data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) leaps dramatically from earlier recordings, following lows of both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice this year. Dark

WASHINGTON — For the third consecutive year, bipartisan legislation will be moving through the House and Senate aiming to establish a Space National Guard as a reserve component of the U.S. Space Force.  The legislative push, led by lawmakers from Colorado, California and Florida, has encountered stern opposition from the White House Office of Management

Dog brains are much smaller than wolf brains, but new research suggests modern breeding efforts have somewhat increased their relative size. Compared to ancient dogs, modern breeds that developed in the past 150 years possess larger skulls compared to their body size. Yet scientists still don’t know why. Numerous studies have shown that domesticating wild

Albert Einstein wasn’t entirely convinced about quantum mechanics, suggesting our understanding of it was incomplete. In particular, Einstein took issue with entanglement, the notion that a particle could be affected by another particle that wasn’t close by. Experiments since have shown that quantum entanglement is indeed possible and that two entangled particles can be connected

When you’re poking around ancient ruins, you probably expect to find a few artifacts or the bits and pieces left behind by the people who lived and worked there long ago. But an archaeological site has just yielded something you might not expect if you didn’t know the history of the place. At what was

After just a few short months in the lead, Jupiter has once again ceded the title of “most known moons” to Saturn. The discovery of 62 previously unknown satellites has put the ringed planet firmly back in the lead, with a grand total of 145 officially recognized moons. This means Big Jupe, with its paltry

The Amazon rainforest is on the precipice of a catastrophic collapse from which it may never return. The traditional knowledge that once helped cultivate this precious ecosystem could now help it recover, according to new research by researchers from the University of São Paulo, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, and the National Institute for Amazonian

Wood is good for a lot of things. Building boxes, boats, and bookcases, for instance. Making tools, or campfires. Feeding termites. And beavers. You’ll note powering functional electrical appliances isn’t among them. Researchers at Linköping University and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden clearly never paid much attention to lists of things wood

WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit has extended the deadline for bids as part of its bankruptcy auction process that the company says has attracted interest from dozens of potential bidders. In a May 12 filing with federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, Virgin Orbit said the company, with the agreement of other major parties in the case,

Although long dead, fossil skeletons provide an incredible window into the lifestyle and environment of an extinct animal. By analyzing the various features of fossil bones we can reveal not only the overall size and shape of the animal, but also what kind of movement the animal was capable of, its lifestyle, and the environment

Eight years after the technology was approved by government authorities, it can be reported that at least one child with DNA from three different people has been born to parents in the United Kingdom. The announcement isn’t exactly ‘new’ knowledge, but reporters at The Guardian were able to prompt an official confirmation with a freedom

Astronomers said on Friday they have identified the “largest” cosmic explosion ever observed, a fireball 100 times the size of our Solar System that suddenly began blazing in the distant universe more than three years ago. While the astronomers offered what they think is the most likely explanation for the explosion, they emphasized that more

Our planet is teetering on the edge of several tipping points that once passed, will topple into a cascade of ecological changes. Extreme heatwaves, droughts, floods, and storms are becoming more common and intense; the energy trapped by Earth’s atmosphere and oceans fizzing up like a carbonated soft drink under pressure. Now a new study

In 1998, I unintentionally created a racially biased artificial intelligence algorithm. There are lessons in that story that resonate even more strongly today. The dangers of bias and errors in AI algorithms are now well known. Why, then, has there been a flurry of blunders by tech companies in recent months, especially in the world