Science

A group of mathematicians has unveiled a brand new 13-sided shape they’ve simply called ‘the hat’. Don’t let the rather mundane description fool you though. This hat (which looks a bit like a fedora) is next season’s must-have fashion item, able to be tiled across a plane to create patterns that never repeat. Shapes like

The way a person speaks is an intrinsic part of their identity. It’s tribal, marking a speaker as being from one social group or another. Accents are a sign of belonging as much as something that separates communities. Yet we can probably all think of examples of people who seem to have “lost” their regional

An explosion that took place in a galaxy 180 million light-years away is challenging our understanding of how stars die, appearing to represent the flattest explosion of its kind on record. The monumental kaboom named AT2018cow belonged to an extremely rare class of cosmic blasts known as fast blue optical transients, or FBOTs. Unlike the

Millions of dead and rotting fish have clogged a vast stretch of river near a remote town in the Australian outback as a searing heat wave sweeps through the region. ​Videos posted to social media showed boats plowing through a blanket of dead fish smothering the water, with the surface barely visible underneath. ​The New

Imagine you’re thinking of a goldfish. Now, what if artificial intelligence could interpret what you’re thinking and turn that into an AI-generated image of a goldfish – or at least a pretty close version of it? It may sound like something out of science-fiction, but a preprint study published in November tried to do exactly

HELSINKI — A major Chinese state-owned defense contractor is preparing to launch the first satellite for a very low Earth orbit constellation.  The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) told Chinese state media in early March that its first satellite for a constellation of very-low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellites will launch in September. VLEO

Giant African pouched rats are as clever as they are cute. Trained them to wear little backpacks, they can rescue people from disaster areas in return for a treat. They can also find landmines that need disarming, sniff out tuberculosis, and have even been recruited in the fight against wildlife poaching. So handy are these

The humble proton is a lynchpin of the material Universe. Its characteristics define chemistry, governing teams of electrons that build atoms into molecules, and molecules into dazzling complexity. For all we understand of its behavior, the proton’s internal structure is a chaotic mess of activity scientists are still deciphering. A new experiment conducted at the

Most of us have heard the one about if you cross your arms over your chest you’re feeling defensive or if you’re fiddling with your hair while talking you feel nervous – but is there really any truth to some of these body language stereotypes? Reading body language can be a useful skill in understanding

Astronomers have just found a cosmic cannonball. Around a star some 730 light-years away orbits an exoplanet the size of Jupiter, but with a density that boggles the mind. Astronomers have determined that the world, named TOI-4603b, has a mass of nearly 13 Jupiters. That means it’s nearly 3 times the density of Earth, and

The world is direly addicted to plastics. Try as we might to recycle them, plastics are cheaper to make anew, so unthinkable amounts of plastic waste are dumped into landfill and are clogging up our oceans. From all the new plastics ever made, over 6 billion metric tons of plastic waste (that doesn’t decompose but

The AI chatbot known as ChatGPT, developed by the company OpenAI, has caught the public’s attention and imagination. Some applications of the technology are truly impressive, such as its ability to summarize complex topics or to engage in long conversations. It’s no surprise that other AI companies have been rushing to release their own large

WASHINGTON — Several military allies of the United States in the Middle East have expressed interest in creating their own space forces, and have sought advice from the U.S. on how to accomplish this goal, Col. Christopher Putman, commander of U.S. Space Forces Central, said March 27. “We have a lot of nations that see

Bones found on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen suggest the ancient marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs roamed Earth’s oceans for much longer than we thought. Dated to 250 million years ago, the remains represent the oldest evidence of ichthyosaurs we’ve ever seen. Moreover, the species represented by the bones was already large and well-adapted

Nearly a century has passed since scientists broke the Universe. Through a complex mix of experiment and theory, physicists discovered an engine built on the mathematics of probability ticks away below the façade of reality. Referred to in vague terms as the Copenhagen interpretation, this take on the theory underpinning quantum mechanics says everything can

More than 2,000 mummified ram heads and a palatial Old Kingdom structure have been uncovered by archaeologists at the King Ramses II Temple of Abydos. The finds, located roughly 270 miles (435 kilometers) south of Cairo, come from a period of over 1,000 years, from the Sixth Dynasty to the Heroic Age, making some of

There might be some hidden oceans lurking around Uranus. New evidence suggests that one or two of the gas giant’s 27 known moons might be harboring liquid oceans beneath their crusty rock-and-ice exteriors. The possible culprits for seeding the space around Uranus with plasma are Miranda and Ariel, one or both of which might be

In 2013, a monstrous marine heatwave known as ‘The Blob’ developed off the coast of Alaska and soon stretched as far south as Mexico along the Pacific coast of North America. It lingered far longer than anyone expected, decimating fisheries, triggering toxic algal blooms, disturbing kelp forests, and starving sea birds of food. At one

WASHINGTON — The Space Systems Command announced March 24 it has selected 18 vendors to provide data analytics and software services to help decision makers analyze information about the space domain. The companies are Agility Consulting, August Schell Enterprises, Avantus Federal, BAE Systems, Bluestaq, C3 AI, Enlighten IT Consulting, Ernst & Young, Kinetica, MAG Aerospace.,

A new species of orchid with delicate, glass-like blooms has been discovered by Japanese scientists, who found the pink and white plant hiding in plain sight. Despite its presence in Japan’s parks and gardens, it took researchers at Kobe University a decade to confirm that the plant – dubbed the Spiranthes hachijoensis – was a

For the first time, an international team of physicists has successfully manipulated small numbers of light particles – known as photons – that have a strong relationship with each other. That may sound a little obscure, but it’s a fundamental breakthrough in the quantum realm that could lead to technology we currently can’t even dream

Looking to the stars for constellations that preside over birth and life has a long and complex history, and archaeologists have just uncovered a small piece of it. A spectacular series of relief paintings on the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian temple depict 12 signs of the zodiac, and you might be surprised to recognize

A newly proposed propulsion system could theoretically beam a heavy spacecraft to outside the confines of our Solar System in less than 5 years – a feat that took the historic Voyager 1 probe 35 years to achieve. The concept, known as ‘pellet-beam’ propulsion, was awarded an early-stage US$175,000 NASA grant for further development earlier

The world will cross the key 1.5 degree Celsius global warming limit in about a decade, the United Nations (UN) said Monday, warning that devastating impacts of climate change are hitting faster than expected. ​In the final instalment of a major series of reports, delivered in a crucial decade in human history, the UN’s climate

WASHINGTON — Relativity Space’s first Terran 1 rocket successfully got off the launch pad March 22 but failed to reach orbit because of an upper stage malfunction. The Terran 1 rocket lifted off at 11:25 p.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a test flight dubbed “Good

Nobody writes an obituary for the last of a species dying alone in the wild. So, knowing precisely when to confirm an extinction comes down to a mix of clever sleuthing, mathematics, and no small amount of guesswork. On 7 September 1936, a thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) held captive in a small Hobart zoo became the

The ghost, at long last, is actually in the machine: For the first time, scientists have created neutrinos in a particle collider. Those abundant yet enigmatic subatomic particles are so removed from the rest of matter that they slide through it like specters, earning them the nickname “ghost particles”. The researchers say this work represents

We might be getting closer to understanding why hundreds of large stone structures were built across the deserts of northwest Saudi Arabia thousands of years ago. According to an in-depth new analysis, the mysterious, rectangular enclosures were used by Neolithic people for unknown rituals, depositing animal offerings, perhaps as votives to an unknown deity or

A sample extracted from an asteroid far from Earth has confirmed that RNA nucleobases can be found in space rocks. Analysis of dust ferried home from asteroid Ryugu has been found to contain uracil – one of the four nucleobases that make up RNA – in addition to niacin, a form of the vitamin B3,