Science

Scientists with NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover said today that the rover has collected several tantalizing organic rock samples from an ancient river delta on the Red Planet. These samples have now been stowed for a planned future mission that hopes to retrieve the specimens and bring them back to Earth for the first-ever sample return

The Moon‘s gravitational pull on our planet’s tides is just one of Earth’s many steady thrums of life. Now researchers have found that lunar cycles not only synchronize the timing of animal migrations and mass spawning of corals but may also influence fluctuations in mangrove canopy cover. Given the growing interest in mangroves as natural

We could one day charge our phones and tablets wirelessly through the air, thanks to newly developed technology. Researchers have used infrared laser light to transmit 400mW of light power over distances of up to 30 meters (98 feet). That’s enough juice to charge small sensors, though in time it could be developed to charge

SDA’s second batch of Tranche 0 is still on track to launch in March WASHINGTON — The first launch of the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit satellites that had been scheduled for late September is slipping to no earlier than mid-December.  Speaking at the Washington Space Business Roundtable Sept. 14, SDA Director Derek Tournear

Australia’s crafty, sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) appear to have entered an “innovation arms race” with humans, scientists say, as the two species spar over the rubbish in roadside bins. ​The white birds, which can grow nearly as long as a human arm, initially surprised researchers by devising an ingenious technique to prise open household bin

Few things in the Universe keep the beat as reliably as an atom’s pulse. Yet even the most advanced ‘atomic’ clocks based on variations of these quantum timekeepers lose count when pushed to their limits. Physicists have known for some time that entangling atoms can help tie particles down enough to squeeze a little more

As any frustrated parent knows, there’s no magic way to get a crying baby to calm, let alone fall asleep. But a small new study has now highlighted a simple method that may be more effective than others. According to the research, if you want to soothe a wailing infant, sitting down with them in

The Orion nebula is one of the most studied regions of our sky. It sits amidst the constellation of Orion, between the stars, and is so large, close, and bright it can be seen with the naked eye: a vast cloud complex giving birth to and nurturing baby stars. Because it is relatively close, at

The summer of 2022 was the hottest in Europe’s recorded history, with the continent suffering blistering heatwaves and the worst drought in centuries, the European Commission’s satellite monitor said on Thursday. The five hottest years on record have all come since 2016 as climate change drives ever longer and stronger hot spells and drier soil

An expedition team has captured the highest quality footage of the Titanic, the iconic passenger liner that sunk in 1912 during her maiden voyage. The footage, which is the world’s first and only 8K video of the underwater wreck, shows “amazing detail” that will help marine archaeologists to study further the rate of decay of

PARIS, France — OneWeb is considering plans for a second-generation constellation jointly with Eutelsat ahead of closing their proposed merger, executives for the satellite operators said Sept. 12. The companies “do not need to wait” for the six to nine months it could take for their merger to clear shareholder and regulatory approvals, OneWeb CEO

On the morning of August 24, a breezy late-summer wind carried a cascade of clouds over the Rock of Gibraltar. The windy waterfall captivated onlookers, and a view from the airport was filmed and shared as a timelapse on the Met Office Gibraltar’s Twitter account. The London Gatwick @easyJet flight taxiing and taking off from

Hydrogen fuel promises to be a clean and abundant source of energy in the future – as long as scientists can figure out ways to produce it practically and cheaply, and without fossil fuels. A new study provides us with another promising step in that direction, provided you can make use of existing supplies of

Becoming a new parent is an adjustment for both men and women. A dozen or so previous studies have shown that motherhood can change the structure of a person’s brain, and yet fatherhood is comparatively overlooked. Now, new international research has identified neurological changes amongst first-time fathers as well. The study is only small, but

The Milky Way galaxy could be a much wetter place than we knew. A new analysis of exoplanets orbiting red dwarf stars suggests that we may have been missing a population of “water worlds” – soggy planets whose composition consists of up to 50 percent water. Not all of these worlds will be covered in

From soaring coastal redwoods to dinosaur-era Wollemi pines and firs that make the perfect Christmas trees, even our most revered woody plants are in an awful lot of trouble. But it turns out that losing some species won’t just endanger local forests; it will threaten entire ecosystems, says a new study. Last year, a global

It’s been easy to feel disconnected over the past two and a half years, despite all the hours spent doing Zoom trivia and online gaming with friends. But it turns out that, even when we’re physically alone, our brains may be able to sync up with the minds of others we’re playing with better than

The contract is in support of a new ground system to collect and process data from missile warning satellites WASHINGTON — SciTec, a small business based in Princeton, New Jersey, won a $272 million contract to develop software to analyze data collected by the U.S. military’s early-warning infrared satellites.  The Space Systems Command announced the

The rim rock crowned snake is said to be the rarest legless slitherer in North America. Not only does this small snake spend most of its life underground, hiding in crevices or burrowing beneath rocks, but only about 26 individuals are known to exist. These survivors are confined to what’s left of southern Florida’s pine

Korea’s ‘artificial Sun’ reactor has made headlines this week by officially sustaining plasma at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for more than 20 seconds. The team at the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device reached an ion temperature of above 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). According to New Scientist,

One secret of the past that can be revealed through the study of skulls and skeletons is how frequent violence was amongst our ancestors. However, with their preserved soft tissues, mummified remains can be an even more telling indicator than bones alone. That brings us to a new analysis of three pre-Columbian South American mummies,

The Sun has been up to some pretty intense shenanigans lately, but a recent eruption on the far side looks to be absolute science gold. On the evening of September 5 GMT, an enormous coronal mass ejection (CME) was recorded exploding on the far side of the Sun, sending a radiation storm out across the

Over the last 50 years, the oceans have been working in overdrive to slow global warming, absorbing about 40 percent of our carbon dioxide emissions, and over 90 percent of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere. But as our research published today in Nature Communications has found, some oceans work harder than others. We

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