Science

In 2003, workers building a highway through a small township in Ireland chanced upon a long-lost medieval graveyard. Of the roughly 1,300 bodies found at the site near the township of Ballyhanna, a couple of the ancient interred stood out. Their bones were riddled with benign tumors caused by a rare disease, but for strangely

A flash of powerful light from a galaxy just over a billion light-years away is upending our understanding of the most powerful explosions in the Universe. The gamma-ray burst appears to be the result of a merger between two neutron stars. This in itself isn’t a surprise; neutron stars can release a short, intense burst

A new study has revealed that small lakes on Earth have expanded considerably over the last four decades – a worrying development, considering the amount of greenhouse gases freshwater reservoirs emit. Between 1984 and 2019, global lake surfaces increased in size by more than 46,000 square kilometers (17,761 square miles), researchers say. That’s slightly more

Our society faces the grand challenge of providing sustainable, secure, and affordable means of generating energy while trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to net zero around 2050. To date, developments in fusion power, which potentially ticks all these boxes, have been funded almost exclusively by the public sector. However, something is changing. Private equity

Mynaric is designing an optical communications terminal for DARPA’s Space Based Adaptive Communications Node program known as Space-BACN WASHINGTON — Mynaric selected a cybersecurity tool from Redwire and BigBear.ai for an inter-satellite laser communications terminal it is developing for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the companies announced Dec. 6. Laser communications supplier Mynaric is

Charles Darwin believed evolution created “endless forms most beautiful“. It’s a nice sentiment but it doesn’t explain why evolution keeps making crabs. Scientists have long wondered whether there are limits to what evolution can do or if Darwin had the right idea. The truth may lie somewhere between the two. While there doesn’t seem to

The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene. The good news is two branches of rodents have already lost

If you were to look up at the night sky, it could range from a dusty glow to an inky black expanse with thousands of sparkling stars, depending on where you are. On a clear night, estimates suggest a couple thousand stars are visible to the naked eye, but the light pollution glare of city

Many of the companies promising ‘net zero’ emissions to protect the climate are relying on vast swaths of forests and what are known as carbon offsets to meet that goal. On paper, carbon offsets appear to balance out a company’s carbon emissions: The company pays to protect trees, which absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

Satzman: The value of space “has been proven out” WASHINGTON — The war in Ukraine has put on display military forces’ growing reliance on satellites and has created incentives to disrupt opponents’ access to space systems, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force, said Dec. 3. “I think this

Everyone has seen lightning and marveled at its power. But despite its frequency – about 8.6 million lightning strikes occur worldwide every day – why lightning proceeds in a series of steps from the thundercloud to the earth below has remained a mystery. There are a few textbooks on lightning, but none have explained how

For the first time, scientists have created a quantum computing experiment for studying the dynamics of wormholes – that is, shortcuts through spacetime that could get around relativity’s cosmic speed limits. Wormholes are traditionally the stuff of science fiction, ranging from Jodie Foster’s wild ride in Contact to the time-bending plot twists in Interstellar. But

You’ve finally got an interview for your dream job. Dozens of applications, dozens of rejection letters – but now you’ve got a shot at the job you really wanted. In you go. Maybe you shake hands with the person who will decide your future, pour a glass of water to steady your nerves. But what

An analysis of a huge chunk of space rock that fell to Earth in Somalia has revealed materials never before seen in nature. Two new minerals have been analyzed and named, and a possible third is currently under consideration by the International Mineralogical Association. This discovery could give scientists some important clues as to the

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that Mars wasn’t always the desiccated dustbowl it is today. In fact, the red planet was once so wet and sloshy that a megatsunami was unleashed, crashing across the landscape like watery doom. What caused this devastation? According to new research, a giant asteroid impact, comparable to Earth’s Chicxulub impact

Earlier this year, astronomers found an absolute monster of a galaxy. Lurking some 3 billion light-years away, Alcyoneus is a giant radio galaxy reaching 5 megaparsecs into space. That’s 16.3 million light-years long, and it constitutes the largest known structure of galactic origin. The discovery highlights our poor understanding of these colossi, and what drives

Our failure to decisively mitigate climate change is prompting researchers to examine more drastic approaches, like fertilizing the oceans to combat the massive excess of carbon dioxide in our air. “At this point, time is of the essence,” says Michael Hochella, an Earth scientist at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “To

Retired Maj. Gen. Aaron Prupas was most recently director for defense intelligence at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security WASHINGTON — Cognitive Space, a startup based in Houston, Texas, announced Dec. 1 that retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Aaron Prupas has joined the company as a strategic advisor. Prupas

For something as chaotic as the wind, meteorologists tend to have a pretty good grip on the kinds of circulating air patterns we might expect to see whipping up storms around the globe. One, it seems, has until now slipped under the radar. In an effort to better understand contrasts in ocean temperature in the

An ancient bone is helping scientists refine the timeline of humanity’s relationship with our best friends – the canine companions that have brightened our lives for millennia. How many millennia? Well, no one knows for sure. But precision carbon dating is helping narrow it down. A canine humerus recovered from Erralla cave in the Basque

We’re putting more and more satellites into orbit, and along with all the welcome technological and scientific advances that brings, there are also potential problems. Intended to be the start of an orbiting communications network that can be accessed by standard smartphones, the recently launched prototype BlueWalker 3 satellite is now one of the brightest

Without strong climate action, forests on every continent will be highly flammable for at least 30 extra days per year by the end of the century – and this fire threat is far greater for some forests including the Amazon, according to our new study. Our research in Nature Communications looked at 20 years of

The Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission is scheduled to launch in 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force announced Nov. 28 it delivered the second and final military communications payloads that will launch in 2023 on Space Norway’s Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission known as ASBM.

For the first time in decades, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa – the largest active volcano in the world – erupted, turning the sky red. The eruption began around 11:30 pm local time Sunday night (0930 UTC Monday morning) in Mauna Loa’s summit caldera, according to a United States Geological Survey statement. In a 7:20 am local

Archaeologists have discovered several ancient mummies in Egypt sporting gold chips where their tongues should be. The auspicious discovery was made at the Quweisna (sometimes spelled Quesna) necropolis in the central Nile Delta. Discovered in 1989, the site is thought to have been occupied during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which stretched from about 300

Earth is about 29 percent land and 71 percent oceans. How significant is that mix for habitability? What does it tell us about exoplanet habitability? There are very few places on Earth where life doesn’t have a foothold. Multiple factors contribute to our planet’s overall habitability: abundant liquid water, plate tectonics, bulk composition, proximity to

A fraught United Nations (UN) summit wrapped up Sunday with a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with devastating climate impacts – but also anger over a failure to be more ambitious on cutting emissions. ​The two-week talks in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which at times appeared to teeter

WASHINGTON — A brand new SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched a new cargo Dragon spacecraft Nov. 26, carrying supplies, experiments and new solar arrays for the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 2:20 p.m. Eastern. The rocket’s upper stage deployed the Dragon spacecraft into

EMBARGO Friday 25 November 1900 GMT | Saturday 26 November 0600 AEDT Our glorious little blue marble of a planet is filled with an astonishingly diverse array of lifeforms, but some are definitely more peculiar than others. This is particularly true of the octopus, an animal so strange that it regularly invites comparisons to aliens.

Scientists and government representatives meeting at a conference in France voted on Friday to scrap leap seconds by 2035, the organization responsible for global timekeeping said. Similar to leap years, leap seconds have been periodically added to clocks over the last half century to make up for the difference between exact atomic time and the