Science

Extreme weather events and rising seas are putting precious heritage sites around the world in harm’s way. A stunning example of this phenomenon in 2024 was a stone pyramid in Mexico succumbing to an increasingly chaotic global climate. On the night of July 29, the 15-meter-high (roughly 50-foot-high) square monument located in the state of

As efficient as electronic data storage systems can be, they’ve got nothing on nature’s own version – DNA. A new technique for writing data to DNA works like a printing press and makes it easy enough that anyone could do it. Writing data to DNA usually involves synthesizing strands one letter at a time, like

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded space engineering and manufacturing firm Optimum Technologies (OpTech) a $4.5 million contract to develop an optical imaging payload for a mission scheduled to fly in 2026 on an Impulse Space vehicle. The mission known as Victus Surgo is part of the Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program,

Paleolithic cuisine was anything but lean and green, according to a study on the diets of our Pleistocene ancestors. For a good 2 million years, Homo sapiens and their ancestors ditched the salad and dined heavily on meat, putting them at the top of the food chain. It’s not quite the balanced diet of berries,

The dream of traversing the depths of space and planting the seed of human civilization on another planet has existed for generations. For long as we’ve known that most stars in the Universe are likely to have their own system of planets, there have been those who advocated that we explore them (and even settle

Residents of India’s capital New Delhi choked in a blanketing toxic smog Wednesday as worsening air pollution surged past 50 times the World Health Organization‘s recommended daily maximum. Many in the city cannot afford air filters, nor do they have homes they can effectively seal from the misery of foul smelling air blamed for thousands

Meeting the world’s data storage demands is costly, in terms of money, energy, and environmental impact – but a new material could significantly improve the cooling of our data centers while also making our home and business electronics more energy efficient. Currently, bulky and energy-intensive cooling solutions are typically deployed to chill out the hardware

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with a long-awaited committee to evaluate ways to improve launch licensing regulations as one executive calls for far greater changes. The FAA announced Nov. 14 the establishment of an aerospace rulemaking committee, also known as a SpARC, that would examine potential changes to the FAA’s Part

Staggeringly diverse rock art motifs in galleries across what is today Serranía De La Lindosa, Colombia, record a history of otherworldly beliefs held by the Amazon’s Indigenous peoples. With the help of Indigenous elders and ritual specialists, Colombian and UK researchers finally documented tens of thousands of images at six of the sites after political

In March 2021, astronomers observed a high-energy burst of light from a distant galaxy. Assigned the name AT 2021hdr, it was thought to be a supernova. However, there were enough interesting features that flagged as potentially interesting by the Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE). In 2022, another outburst was observed, and

Almost half of all warm-water species of coral are threatened with extinction – and climate change is the chief culprit, a new report said on Wednesday. The updated risk assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was announced at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, which is being skipped by the leaders

TAMPA, Fla. — AST SpaceMobile said Nov. 14 it has booked rockets from Blue Origin and others to deploy enough satellites between 2025 and 2026 to provide full text, voice, and 5G data services to standard mobile phones across the United States and other key markets. The company said it has contracts to launch up to

The tree of life is often more like a vine that snakes back on itself, with tendrils briefly embracing before they reach for the sky or wither into nothing. While much has been said about the Neanderthal and human branches of humanity, it’s becoming increasingly clear our past has had frequent encounters with another close

Filmmakers love New Zealand. Its landscapes evoke other worlds, which explains why so much of The Lord of the Rings was filmed there. The country has everything from long, subtropical sandy beaches to active volcanoes. The country’s otherworldliness extends into its atmosphere, where a cloud nicknamed the “Taieri Pet” forms when conditions are right. The

This year is on track to become the first full year of 1.5°C of global warming above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels, smashing last year’s record jump in temperatures already, which was 0.60°C above the 1991-2020 average. This finding is supported by data from Copernicus, Berkeley Earth and the UK Met Office released for the United Nation’s

TAMPA, Fla. — Boeing has shipped the first pair of O3b mPower satellites with fixes addressing power issues that have hobbled the initial six in SES’s next-generation medium Earth orbit (MEO) broadband network. Boeing said Nov. 13 the satellites with redesigned power modules were sent via truck from its facilities in El Segundo, California, and are

When shopping for a laundry detergent, the array of choices is baffling. All of the products will likely get your laundry somewhat cleaner. But what gets the best outcome for your clothes and your budget? Do you want whiter whites? Do you need enzymes? And what’s the difference between a powder and liquid detergent? As

Last week, three tiny Australian satellites from Curtin University’s Binar Space Program burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. That was always going to happen. In fact, Binar means “fireball” in the Noongar language of the First Nations people of Perth. When a satellite is in low Earth orbit (2,000 km or less), it experiences orbital decay

There’s been an exciting new discovery in the fight against plastic pollution: mealworm larvae that are capable of consuming polystyrene. They join the ranks of a small group of insects that have been found to be capable of breaking the polluting plastic down, though this is the first time that an insect species native to

Almost no one thought SpaceX would make the catch, at least not on the first try. On the fifth integrated test flight of Starship, launched Oct. 13 from the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, site, the Super Heavy booster aimed to fly back to the launch tower, where massive mechanical arms — dubbed “chopsticks” — would

Alexithymia is a term you may not have heard before. But it describes something many people experience: difficulties in identifying, distinguishing and expressing emotions. It affects how people engage with their emotions at work, in relationships and even within themselves. It may also change how a person analyses their surroundings and how they interact with

For decades, we’ve thought we had a pretty good grasp of Uranus. The penultimate planet, our best measurements suggest, has a whole slew of idiosyncrasies. And one of the most puzzling is its magnetic field. According to measurements taken by Voyager 2 when the NASA probe conducted a flyby in 1986, Uranus’s magnetosphere is a

WASHINGTON — Reaction Engines Ltd., a British company that has worked for decades on an air-breathing rocket engine for spaceplanes and other hypersonic vehicles, has filed for bankruptcy. The company formally entered administration, a process under United Kingdom law to allow for the restructuring or liquidation of companies in financial distress, on Oct. 31 after

One stormy Monday in March, 1827, the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven passed away after a protracted illness. Bedridden since the previous Christmas, he was attacked by jaundice, his limbs and abdomen swollen, each breath a struggle. As his associates went about the task of sorting through personal belongings, they uncovered a document Beethoven had

How did everything begin? It’s a question that humans have pondered for thousands of years. Over the last century or so, science has homed in on an answer: the Big Bang. This describes how the Universe was born in a cataclysmic explosion almost 14 billion years ago. In a tiny fraction of a second, the

The carbon footprint from private jet travel grew 46 percent between 2019 and 2023 and will keep rising unless the ultra-luxury industry is regulated, according to new research published Thursday. Carbon dioxide emissions from private aviation peaked over the European summer and around major global events like the World Cup, Cannes Film Festival and UN

WASHINGTON — NASA has extended three contracts with companies to continue providing transportation of cargo to and from the International Space Station through the projected end of the station’s life in 2030. In procurement filings Nov. 8, NASA stated it planned to extend the existing Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) 2 contracts with Northrop Grumman, Sierra

Amidst a cache of glittering golden treasures from the Iberian Bronze Age, a pair of corroded objects might be the most precious of all. A dull bracelet and a rusted hollow hemisphere decorated with gold are forged, researchers have found, not out of metal from beneath the ground, but with iron from meteorites that fell

The Solar System’s little pocket of the Milky Way is, interestingly enough, exactly that. Our star resides in an unusually hot, low-density compartment in the galaxy’s skirts, known as the Local Hot Bubble (LHB). Why it’s not called the Local Hot Pocket is anyone’s guess; but, because it’s an anomaly, scientists want to know why

Artificial intelligence is rapidly getting better at mimicking its human creators. Generative AI can now convincingly hold conversations, produce art, make movies, and even teach itself how to replicate computer games. But as a new study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Reichman University in Israel warns, artificial intelligence may also be