Science

Sourcing human tissue samples for biological investigations isn’t always easy. While they are ethically obtained through organ donation or from tissue that’s removed during surgical procedures, scientists are finding them increasingly difficult to get hold of. And it’s not just because there’s a limited supply of human tissue samples. There’s also restricted availability of the

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told a House committee that SpaceX’s truncated Starship test flight was not a major setback in plans to use that vehicle to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2025. Testifying before the House Science Committee April 27 about the agency’s fiscal year 2024 budget request, Nelson said

We’re used to hearing about viruses spreading from wildlife to humans, but infection across species can go in the reverse, too. Just over 1,000 mountain gorillas are left in the world, and any mass mortality event will push this species further to the brink. For this reason, the often lethal Ebola virus – which scientists

Scientists are still getting to grips with the ins and outs of strange materials known as time crystals; structures that buzz with movement for eternity. Now a new variety might help deepen our understanding of the perplexing state of matter. Just as regular crystals are atoms and molecules that repeat over a volume of space,

Since our earliest school days, we generally accept the idea that some people learn faster than others – but, according to a new study, it turns out that we actually learn at very similar rates given the same opportunities. Researchers looked at 1.3 million “student interactions” across a variety of learning software tools used by

The Universe is swarming with galaxies, billions upon billions as far as the eye can see. And among this multitude, some galaxies really stand out in a spectacular way. These are the quasar galaxies. Powered by an active supermassive black hole guzzling material at such a tremendous rate, they blaze with some of the brightest

If you think your morning commute is a logjam, you should see the Mackenzie River Delta in Nunavut, Canada. Unlike logjams of idling trucks, sedans, and SUVs, this literal logjam stores carbon. Covering some 51 square kilometers (nearly 20 square miles) it’s the largest-known cumulative logjam on Earth, consisting of fallen trees that have floated

Over the past year or so, generative AI models such as ChatGPT and DALL-E have made it possible to produce vast quantities of apparently human-like, high-quality creative content from a simple series of prompts. Though highly capable – far outperforming humans in big-data pattern recognition tasks in particular – current AI systems are not intelligent

WASHINGTON — SpaceX is getting a second launch pad on the West Coast after gaining approval to lease Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, a historic site previously occupied by United Launch Alliance.  Space Launch Delta 30, the Space Force unit that manages the West Coast launch ranges, announced April

We already know seahorses are among the cutest and most unique critters in the ocean, and now scientists have found out more about a clever and unusual way that they eat. Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US have calculated the power required of specialized anatomy

Our Sun regularly erupts in tongues of heat and fury so large, our own planet would be dwarfed by their size many times over. To better understand how they work, researchers created a version that could fit inside your lunchbox. Using an apparatus that turns powerful bursts of electricity into rope-like loops of plasma, a

The head of the Pentagon office that is reviewing reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP – commonly known as UFOs, unidentified flying objects) told the US Congress this week that his office is now reviewing more than 650 incidents, but so far, none exhibited anything that was evidence of extraterrestrial activity or defied the known laws

Physicists believe most of the matter in the Universe is made up of an invisible substance that we only know about by its indirect effects on the stars and galaxies we can see. We’re not crazy! Without this ” dark matter“, the Universe as we see it would make no sense. But the nature of

Researchers have just calculated the value society gets from a common but hidden underwater resource, and found it’s way higher than we ever expected. Kelp forests have long done so much for humanity, all the while operating out of sight beneath the waves. Hugging a third of our coastlines, they provide food and homes for

Making solar cells more efficient is an obvious win for green energy. It means more electricity from the same number of panels and the same amount of sunlight – and scientists are working hard to take on the challenge. Now a team from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON — Astra Space won a task order worth $11.5 million to launch experimental payloads for the Defense Department’s Space Test Program. Astra, a small satellite launch company based in Alameda, California, was awarded the contract under the U.S. Space Force’s Orbital Services Program OSP-4, the Space Systems Command announced April 21. The OSP-4 program

Elephant seals drift downwards into the ocean in a “sleep spiral” to catch up on sleep while on months-long foraging trips but are programmed not to drown, according to a new study. The seals fall into sleep during deep dives of up to 377 meters, which is around 1,235 feet, to avoid predators. They spiral

The sense of how to shift our position on a playground swing tends to come naturally as part of growing up – a bit like learning how to ride a bike – and now scientists have put together a mathematical model for the ultimate swinging technique. In particular, the model identifies how riders adapt how

You learn from your mistakes. At least, most of us have been told so. But science shows that we often fail to learn from past errors. Instead, we are likely to keep repeating the same mistakes. What do I mean by mistakes here? I think we would all agree that we quickly learn that if

It’s the end of an era, at least for the Perseverance rover on Mars, who has lost a long-time friend. For 427 sols or days on Mars, Perseverance has been carrying around a rock in one of its wheels. We’ve been following the saga of this pet rock, which for over a year has stuck

Ambitious targets intended to slam the brakes on our current mass extinction may already be slipping out of reach barely a year after they were established, new research suggests. Data on birds and mammals reveal there’s a huge time lag between environmental change and its impact on animal populations, of up to 45 years depending

Artificial intelligence has changed form in recent years. What started in the public eye as a burgeoning field with promising (yet largely benign) applications, has snowballed into a more than US $100 billion industry where the heavy hitters – Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, to name a few – seem intent on out-competing one another. The

TAMPA, Fla. — The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules April 20 governing how fixed-satellite service operators in non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) share spectrum amid an unprecedented flood of proposed constellations. In the first item taken up by the regulator’s recently established Space Bureau, the rules clarify how operators awarded licenses in different FCC application processing

With their baby-face aesthetics and a certain personable charm, flat-faced dogs are cherished companions around the world. It’s a love that dates back to Roman times, a new study suggests. The skull and jawbone of a dog with a decidedly squashed snout was unearthed in 2007 in the ruins of Tralleis (now Aydin in modern-day

Predicted over a century ago as monstrous concentrations of mass that torture the fabric of the Universe into traps of light and information, black holes are now established as objects of fact. But might every distortion of light we now come across be a certified concentration of infinite density, or should we leave room for

Scientists have discovered how two distinct brain networks interact with one another to help us make meaning out of words and glean complex, higher-level meaning from sentences, like the one you’re reading right now. “This study helps us better understand how distributed hubs in the brain’s language network work together and interact to allow us

Amateur astrophotography is becoming increasingly popular among the astronomy community, as advancements in telescope and camera technologies allow individuals from all walks of life to observe the heavens in mind-blowing detail, including our own Sun, albeit with the proper protective equipment. This was recently demonstrated by Andrew McCarthy (Twitter @AJamesMcCarthy), who owns and operates Cosmic

Almost a third of the world’s plastic waste is polypropylene, a hardy plastic used to make bottle caps and food containers that can take hundreds of years to degrade. But now, scientists have harnessed two strains of fungi found in soils to break down lab samples of polypropylene in just 140 days. The two fungi,

Scientists are continuing to make advances in electronics that can safely monitor and treat our health from inside the body. Unfortunately, powering these miniature medical gadgets isn’t always straightforward. There’s now a new type of rechargeable battery that could help in that department. Made from fully edible substances, it can dissolve safely in the stomach