Science

Hydrogen has huge potential as a clean fuel: it’s abundant (mainly in compounds like water), it doesn’t produce any damaging emissions, and it can also be used to store energy from solar, wind, and tidal sources. There are challenges in producing enough of the stuff in a practical and affordable way, however. Splitting hydrogen from

WASHINGTON — A joint U.S.-French Earth science mission is ready to be delivered to California for a launch now scheduled for early December, a slight delay caused in part because of transportation issues. Thales Alenia Space, the prime contractor for the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft, said Sept. 6 it is making final

A new study has shown that the concept of the mammalian ‘lizard brain’ can be well and truly put to bed. Based on a study that examined brains of bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps), large lizards from the Australian desert, scientists have shown that mammal and reptile brains evolved separately from a common ancestor. It’s another

It could be raining diamonds on planets throughout the Universe, scientists suggested Friday, after using common plastic to recreate the strange precipitation believed to form deep inside Uranus and Neptune. ​Scientists had previously theorized that extremely high pressure and temperatures turn hydrogen and carbon into solid diamonds thousands of kilometers below the surface of the

There are all kinds of pollutants in the air around us. Outdoors, these can be washed away through the falling rain, and the oxidation that happens after ultraviolet light from the Sun interacts with ozone and water vapor. So, what happens indoors? As a new study shows, there’s also some oxidation going on indoors too:

Today, it’s on the brink of death: a huge, red ball of flame, glaring like a baleful, bloodshot eye before it winks out into a tiny pinprick of degenerate matter. But red supergiant Betelgeuse was not always this way. Once upon a time, the star was a main-sequence monster – a blue-white O-type star, the

Scientists reviewing over a decade’s worth of studies on the fate of notorious pollutants – dubbed ‘forever chemicals’ for the way they persist in waterways, soils, and sea ice – have unearthed where environmental hotspots of contamination lie. The review, led by hydrologist Xueyan Lyu of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, focused specifically

Amid the continuous noise about cryptocurrencies, it’s often hard to pick out what really matters. However this month, if all goes to plan, the energy-hungry digital sector will undergo its biggest shake-up in years. Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, is tomorrow expected to start a technology changeover which, once complete, should cause its carbon emissions

The company won a $540,000 small business contract known as a TACFI, or Tactical Funding Increase WASHINGTON — Saber Astronautics announced Sept. 5 the U.S. Space Force has extended the company’s contract to develop a space domain awareness tool designed for satellite operators. The company won a $540,000 small business contract known as a TACFI,

Scientists working in the Andes Mountains in Patagonia have been presented with a puzzle: Mice from the same species are growing to larger sizes on the western side of the mountains compared to the eastern side. Now a new study suggests a solution to the mystery. It seems that thanks to the rain shadow effect

With the right physics, it’s possible to blast a box of circuits clear across the Solar System with pinpoint accuracy to come within a whisker of distant worlds. But stir a splash of milk in your tea and the best physicists can do is hazard a guess at the kinds of patterns you’ll see swirling

We know verbal insults hurt. Words slung with spite or malice can feel like a proverbial slap in the face. Now new research goes some way to explaining why visceral shocks to spoken insults linger longer than praise or compliments often do. A team of researchers in the Netherlands explored people’s emotional reactions to hurtful

NASA on Saturday (Sept. 3) scrapped a second attempt to get its new 30-story rocket off the ground and send its uncrewed test capsule toward the Moon after engineers detected a fuel leak. With millions around the globe and hundreds of thousands on nearby beaches waiting for the historic launch of the massive Space Launch

Earth’s concentration of greenhouse gases and sea levels hit new highs in 2021, a US government report said Wednesday, showing that climate change keeps surging ahead despite efforts to curb emissions. “The data presented in this report are clear – we continue to see more compelling scientific evidence that climate change has global impacts and

You may not have given much thought to being able to text underwater, but for millions of scuba diving and snorkeling enthusiasts, communication in the ocean is pretty essential to staying safe. Right now, hand gestures are the preferred way of keeping in touch under the waves, and professional divers use a globally recognized vocabulary

Updated 12:25 p.m. Eastern with Nelson comments. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA called off a second attempt to conduct the inaugural launch of the Space Launch System Sept. 3 after failing to resolve a liquid hydrogen leak during fueling of the rocket, potentially delaying the mission until October. NASA scrubbed the launch, which had

In seahorses and pipefish, it is the male that gets pregnant and gives birth. Seahorse fathers incubate their developing embryos in a pouch located on their tail. The pouch is the equivalent of the uterus of female mammals. It contains a placenta, supporting the growth and development of baby seahorses. Seahorse dads provide nutrients and

Most of us grow up familiar with the prevailing law that limits how quickly information can travel through empty space: the speed of light, which tops out at 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second. While photons themselves are unlikely to ever break this speed limit, there are features of light which don’t play by the

They found his body in a hammock, adorned by feathers, the last remaining member of his tribe. For 26 years, nearly 9,500 days and nights, the man with no known name had neither spoken to nor touched a single other human. He was known to the wider world as the “Man of the Hole” for

The James Webb Space Telescope has just delivered its first direct image of a planet orbiting a distant star. The gas giant’s faint glow was captured near a young star around 350 light-years away, serving as a demonstration of the telescope’s abilities to directly observe exoplanets – a technically difficult task, but one that gives

The cost inflicted on the world by carbon pollution may be nearly four times higher than recent estimates, a study said Thursday (Sept. 1), highlighting how much climate action could save this and future generations. The “social cost of carbon” is a way of evaluating the negative economic, labor, and health consequences of CO2 emissions,

Satellite terminals in Alaska will be the main connection to the new EPS-R payloads that will launch in 2023 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force has started building a gateway site at Clear Space Force Station, Alaska, where it will operate two new polar communications payloads scheduled to launch in 2023 on a Space Norway

The oldest definitive dinosaur species ever discovered in Africa – and one of the oldest dino species to walk Earth – has been unearthed in Zimbabwe, a new study finds. The finding sheds new light on dinosaur evolution, and on one of the most fundamental questions of Triassic paleontology: Why did dinosaurs live in only

A new method for entwining the fates of fragments of light has overcome some serious obstacles on the road to photon-based quantum computing. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany have successfully entangled 14 photons into a state considered optimal for qubits, more than doubling previous attempts – while also improving

A crime scene can present itself in any form and size. In recent weeks, an Aotearoa New Zealand family who’d purchased abandoned goods from a storage locker made the harrowing discovery of two sets of human remains hidden inside two suitcases. Sadly, this is not a unique case – bodies of murder victims are found

Well, it had to happen eventually, and now it has. Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have this week released images of the same object. The result is a set of images that reveal the magnificently complementary abilities of the two telescopes, and some fascinating insights into one of the most spectacular galaxies

Second only to Antarctica’s frozen cap in size, Greenland’s ice sheet is several million cubic kilometers of fresh water held in check by a combination of rock and sub-zero temperatures. Until the late 20th century, odds were the amount of ice lost to the sea would be replaced by a dusting of precipitation. Today there’s

TAMPA, Fla. — Startups developing constellations for providing connectivity directly to standard cellphones say they stand to benefit from SpaceX entering their market. The business opportunity SpaceX’s Elon Musk sees validates an emerging market that would be big enough for multiple players, according to U.S.-based startups AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global. While these ventures have

Paleontologists in Portugal have unearthed the fossilized skeleton of what could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe. The remains are thought to be those of a sauropod, a herbivorous dinosaur 12 meters (39 feet) tall and 25 meters long that roamed the Earth around 150 million years ago. “It’s one of the biggest