Science

Facts are the cornerstones of reality. At least, they used to be. In today’s ultra-polarized environment, however – marked by deep political divisions, heightened social tensions, and a deluge of misinformation and fake news – facts are rather less certain in people’s minds than they once were. Because of this strange ambiguity in how we

Researchers have discovered never-before-seen types of crystal hidden in tiny grains of perfectly preserved meteorite dust. The dust was left behind by a massive space rock that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, nine years ago. On 15 Feb 2013, an asteroid measuring 59 feet (18 meters) across and weighing 12,125 tons (11,000 metric tons) entered Earth‘s atmosphere at around

Parts of Portugal and Spain are the driest they have been in a thousand years due to an atmospheric high-pressure system driven by climate change, according to research published Monday, warning of severe implications for wine and olive production. The Azores High, an area of high pressure that rotates clockwise over parts of the North

Artificial intelligence (AI) can devise methods of wealth distribution that are more popular than systems designed by people, new research suggests. The findings, made by a team of researchers at UK-based AI company DeepMind, show that machine learning systems aren’t just good at solving complex physics and biology problems, but may also help deliver on

WASHINGTON — A NASA-funded lunar cubesat is on its way to the moon July 4 after a series of burns by a Rocket Lab transfer stage. Rocket Lab’s Lunar Photon stage released the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) cubesat at 3:18 a.m. Eastern, shortly after the seventh and final burn

Living as a microbe on the Tibetan Plateau isn’t easy. Frigid temperatures, high levels of solar radiation, not a lot to eat, and you’d regularly get frozen and then thawed depending on the time of year. So, it’s a bit of a surprise that in these ‘extreme environmental conditions’ scientists have discovered 968 species featuring

Physicists have just taken an amazing step towards quantum devices that sound like something out of science fiction. For the first time, isolated groups of particles behaving like bizarre states of matter known as time crystals have been linked into a single, evolving system that could be incredibly useful in quantum computing. Following the first

Holding a conversation with a five-year-old can be an adventure. One second you’re sharing opinions on favorite breakfast cereals, the next they’ve jumped ship to something vague about a cartoon octopus. What seems like a limited vocabulary or difficulty in keeping focused could actually be an inability to reconcile inferences with another person’s perspective. Researchers

Some stars burn bright but brief. These transitory novae pepper the sky, with one flaring into naked eye visibility every few years… but it was a recent brief appearance of just such a ‘new star’ that gave astronomers a chance to probe the secrets of the Universe. Japanese amateur astronomer Seidji Ueda was the first

With researchers warning that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is fast slipping from our grasp, we know it will take a mammoth effort to reach. But the scale of emissions reductions required is actually something we have already achieved before – quite recently and rather by accident. In 2020, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell

The $1.1 billion USSF-12 mission flew to geosynchronous Earth orbit WASHINGTON — A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on July 1 launched the USSF-12 mission for the U.S. Space Force. The rocket lifted off at 7:15 p.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The $1.1 billion USSF-12 mission

Most of our knowledge about what sits at the center of our planet comes from the study of seismic waves rolling out from earthquakes. Careful analysis of these waves can reveal the composition of rocks and metal below Earth’s surface. A new study of seismic waves propagating from two different earthquakes – in similar locations

The idea of a mirror universe is a common trope in science fiction. A world similar to ours where we might find our evil doppelganger or a version of us who actually asked out our high school crush. But the concept of a mirror universe has been often studied in theoretical cosmology, and as a

Imagine you have an interview for a new job tomorrow. Some people might think about what kind of questions they will be asked so that they can prepare, or imagine the interview going well. For others, the thought of an interview will cause them to toss and turn all night thinking of every worst case

NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Wednesday the agency will reveal the “deepest image of our Universe that has ever been taken” on July 12, thanks to the newly operational James Webb Space Telescope. “If you think about that, this is farther than humanity has ever looked before,” Nelson said during a press briefing at the

On top of intensifying algal blooms and depleting oxygen, a new study reveals Earth’s bodies of freshwater are also evaporating at a greater rate than we realized. What’s more, “lake evaporation plays a larger role in the hydrological cycle than previously thought,” says ecologist Gang Zhao who was at Texas A&M University during the study.

Acquisition executive Frank Calvelli said he would be open to a different model than the current two-vendor approach WASHINGTON — The Space Force launch procurement command in Los Angeles later this year will send to the Pentagon a proposed strategy for selecting national security launch services providers for the next round of contracts expected to

Long ago, almost up until the end of the last ice age, a peculiar giant kangaroo roamed the mountainous rainforests of New Guinea. Now, research published by myself and colleagues suggests this kangaroo was not closely related to modern Australian kangaroos. Rather, it represents a previously unknown type of primitive kangaroo unique to New Guinea.

Scientists have figured out how to make platinum more affordable as a catalyst: turn it into a low-temperature liquid. It’s been known for centuries that noble metals like platinum, gold, ruthenium, and palladium make excellent catalysts for chemical reactions, because they help break the chemical bonds between atoms more efficiently than other metals. But noble

A US navy destroyer sunk during World War II has been found nearly 7,000 meters (23,000 feet) below sea level off the Philippines, making it the world’s deepest shipwreck ever located, an American exploration team said. The USS Samuel B. Roberts went down during a battle off the central island of Samar on 25 October

The search for life on Mars may have just gotten a whole lot more complicated. While rovers such as Curiosity and Perseverance scour the surface looking for traces of ancient life, new evidence reveals we may have to dig much deeper to find them. Any evidence of amino acids left over from a time when

The oceans are one of our planet’s most important carbon sinks, with currently around 39,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide locked away – that’s around 50 times more than what’s circulating in the atmosphere right now. However, we can’t rely on this carbon capture and storage to solve our climate crisis problem, because we’re producing too much

For years, computer scientists have warned of the perils artificial intelligence (AI) poses in the future, and not just in the sensational terms of machines overthrowing humanity, but in far more insidious ways too. While this cutting-edge technology is capable of wondrous breakthroughs, researchers have also observed the darker sides of machine learning systems, showing

WASHINGTON — The two companies NASA selected earlier this month to develop spacesuits for the International Space Station and Artemis lunar missions were the only companies to bid on the project, according to agency procurement documents. NASA announced June 1 it awarded contracts to teams led by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop new

A gold miner found a mummified baby woolly mammoth in the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Traditional Territory in Yukon, Canada.  According to a press release from the local government, the female baby mammoth has been named Nun cho ga by the First Nation Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in elders, which translates to “big baby animal” in the Hän language.  Nun cho ga

Sometimes the discovery of new physics demands insane levels of energy. Big machines. Fancy equipment. Countless hours of sifting through reams of data. And then sometimes the right combination of materials can open a doorway to invisible realms in a space little bigger than a tabletop. Take this new kind of relative to the Higgs

An overlooked archaeological site outside of Canterbury turned out to contain some of the oldest human-made tools in Britain. Many of the artifacts were found in the 1920s in the market town of Fordwich, Kent, but they were only recently properly dated. According to modern radiometric techniques, the collection of more than 330 hand axes

Is there life on Mars? Has there ever been? It’s one of the biggest questions we have about our planetary neighbor; now, research points to one particular part of the red planet that could have been able to harbor life several times across billions of years. Through a thorough study of images captured by the

In many places around the world, grocery store produce aisles are a delightful array of colors, even in the depths of winter, when it feels like not much could grow outside. But this year-round variety has a real cost on the planet, with a new study finding that ‘food miles’ account for 19 percent of

One priority for Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, is to impose discipline in procurement programs WASHINGTON — The Space Force’s new acquisition executive Frank Calvelli says there is no quick fix for problems that for years have plagued defense procurements, such as cost overruns and schedule delays.