Science

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

WASHINGTON — A Space Force office created to work with the commercial space industry is opening up a new facility in Chantilly, Virginia. Col. Richard Kniseley, head of the Commercial Space Office at Space Systems Command, said May 11 the location was chosen for its proximity to other government agencies that also work with the

Since the Cambrian explosion 538.8 million years ago – a time when many of the animal phyla we’re familiar with today were established – five major mass extinction events have whittled down the biodiversity of all creatures great and small. Last year, researchers from the US published evidence of one occurring earlier, around 550 million

For 20 years, experts have relied on the human genome reference as a genetic benchmark for the study of biology, disease, evolution, and more. It’s considered one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 21st century. Now we’ve got something even better. Scientists have just unveiled the first draft of the human pangenome, a much

In a recent study submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a pair of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) examine the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations intercepting outward transmissions from NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) that are aimed at

A closer look at the junction where a Greenland glacier crunches into the ocean floor, known as its grounding line, has revealed less stability amid the shifting of tides – and therefore a greater rate of melting – than previously estimated thanks to global warming. The finding explains why rates of glacier melts are well

WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle developer Orbex says that it has started construction on its launch site in northern Scotland, but remains guarded about when it plans to start launching from there. Orbex announced May 5 that it had started construction of Sutherland Spaceport in northern Scotland. The facility will host launches of Orbex’s Prime

Most diamonds are formed deep inside Earth and brought close to the surface in small yet powerful volcanic eruptions of a kind of rock called “kimberlite”. Our supercomputer modeling, published in Nature Geoscience, shows these eruptions are fueled by giant “pillars of heat” rooted 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) below ground, just above our planet’s core.

The state of perfect stillness known as absolute zero is one of the Universe’s impossible achievements. As close as we can get, the laws of physics will always prevent us from hitting thermal rock bottom. An international team of researchers has now identified a new theoretical route to reach the mythical mark of zero Kelvin,

A new era of clinical research on psilocybin mushrooms (aka ‘magic mushrooms’) has emboldened some scientists to share their own life-changing experiences with psychedelics. A recent case study describes a young 35-year-old male researcher in the United States, who claims to distinguish red and green colors better after taking psychedelics. Following his ingestion of magic