Science

An ancient fragment of clay tablet dating back to 3,700 years ago, during the Old Babylonian period, contains what is now the oldest known example of applied geometry, a mathematician has discovered. That’s more than a millennium prior to the birth of Pythagoras. And this history-altering artifact, known as Si.427, had just been sitting in

The Solar System is positively lousy with magnetic fields. They drape around (most of) the planets and their moons, which interact with the system-wide magnetic field swirling out from the Sun. Although invisible to the naked eye, these magnetic fields leave their marks behind. Earth’s crust is riddled with magnetic materials, for example, that retain

Italy may have just recorded the hottest temperature in European history, according to preliminary reports from local meteorologists. And perhaps fittingly, the culprit of the heat wave has been named Lucifer. Syracuse, a city on the coast of the Italian island of Sicily, registered temperatures of 119.85 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday (Aug.

The typical Australian will change careers five to seven times during their professional lifetime, by some estimates. And this is likely to increase as new technologies automate labor, production is moved abroad, and economic crises unfold. Jobs disappearing is not a new phenomenon – have you seen an elevator operator recently? – but the pace

1st Space Brigade commander Col. Donald Brooks says forces in the field often are not aware of how dependent they are on satellites for every aspect of their operations HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Without satellites in space, military forces on the ground cannot shoot, move or communicate. That is the mantra that the Army’s 1st Space

Unlike numerous other animals, cats show a strange unwillingness to work for their food. When given the choice between a freely available meal and a meal trapped inside a puzzle, scientists have found most animals, such as dogs, bears, pigeons, pigs, goats, mice, rats, monkeys and other primates, prefer to work for their food –

According to theory, if you smash two photons together hard enough, you can generate matter: an electron-positron pair, the conversion of light to mass as per Einstein’s theory of special relativity. It’s called the Breit-Wheeler process, first laid out by Gregory Breit and John A. Wheeler in 1934, and we have very good reason to

The enteric nervous system (ENS) in our gut operates a lot like other neural networks in the brain and the spinal cord – so much so that it’s often called the ‘second brain’. Now a new study has revealed more about how exactly the ENS works. Using a recently developed technique combining high-resolution video recordings

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are set to welcome a most unusual guest, as “the Blob” blasts off into orbit on Tuesday. An alien on its own planet, the Blob is an unclassifiable organism – neither fish nor fowl. Nor is it plant, animal, or fungus. As such, Physarum polycephalum – a type of

Every few years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the United Nation’s climate science body – produces a major report on the state of the climate crisis. However you slice it, the latest IPCC report told the world what it already knew – and added even greater urgency. Like the last two in

Scientists have created key parts of synthetic brain cells that can hold cellular “memories” for milliseconds. The achievement could one day lead to computers that work like the human brain. These parts, which were used to model an artificial brain cell, use charged particles called ions to produce an electrical signal, in the same way

There are now 11 vendors in the OSP-4 program that will compete for 20 missions over the next nine years HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — ABL Space Systems Corp, Astra Space and Relativity Space will join a pool of launch providers that are eligible to compete for missions awarded under the U.S. Space Force Orbital Services Program

In the wetlands of the west coast of North America – from Alaska to California – there lives a herb-like plant that has just been discovered to have the occasional taste for flesh. While the plant – called Triantha occidentalis – employs insects to pollinate its very normal-looking flowers, it also has sticky hairs just

We all know the world desperately needs to transition to renewable power sources – but many of us forget we also need to make our energy systems themselves more efficient. At the moment, an estimated 70 percent of all energy we generate in the world is lost as heat – often in power plants themselves. It’s a

Since the 1970s, sex-selective abortions in China, India, and ten other nations have caused between 23 and 45 million women to go ‘missing’. By 2030, a new study predicts those very same nations will ‘lose’ another 4.7 million female births, skewing their sex ratios even more. This study uses a model based on 3.26 billion

In the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it seems two interplanetary visitors have made themselves at home. 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia are much redder than any other object we’ve seen hanging out in the densely populated region. In fact, according to new research, their profiles are much closer to those of objects from

This week, hundreds of scientists from around the world are finalizing a report that assesses the state of the global climate. It’s a big deal. The report is used by governments and industries everywhere to understand the threats ahead. So who are these scientists, and what goes into this important assessment? Get ready for some

Lurking in the background of the quest for true quantum supremacy hangs an awkward possibility – hyper-fast number crunching tasks based on quantum trickery might just be a load of hype. Now, a pair of physicists from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and Columbia University in the US have come up with a better

WASHINGTON — NASA scientists and engineers are working to understand why the first sampling attempt by the Mars rover Perseverance failed to collect any material. In a statement late Aug. 6, NASA said that while Perseverance had drilled a sample from a rock on the floor of Jezero Crater, that sample did not make it

Some types of bacteria are hardy enough to survive in the most inhospitable of conditions – and that includes concrete, as a new study proves. Not only can microbes survive in this dry, inhospitable building material, they can actually thrive there too. The research shows that bacteria could provide early warnings of moisture-induced alkali-silica reactions

Plants thirst for water, just as we animals do, but exactly how they slurp it through their tissues has remained a bit of a mystery as attempting to see it happening impairs the process. By applying a gentle imaging technique in a new way, University of Nottingham physicist Flavius Pascut and the team were able

A new study by scientists has demonstrated how researchers may be able to create an accelerating jet of antimatter from light. A team of physicists has shown that high-intensity lasers can be used to generate colliding gamma photons – the most energetic wavelengths of light – to produce electron-positron pairs. This, they say, could help

The history of the Incas was written by their conquerors, and as we’re coming to find out, the story we know is not necessarily accurate. Modern radiocarbon dating now suggests Machu Picchu is at least two decades older than historical records have indicated. According to interpretations of 16th century documents by the American archaeologist and

When you’re swimming in a large body of water, calculating its volume or discerning the locations of distant floating objects isn’t easy. The same is true for our galaxy. From our position inside the Milky Way, much of its size, contents, and three-dimensional structure is really tricky to figure out. There’s a lot that eludes us,

If Earth had a pulse, it might be The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – a swirl of ocean currents that carries tropical heat north towards polar waters. Over the past century this global heartbeat has eased, slowing to a speed not seen in more than a millennium. New research based on a range of

If you’re wondering just how advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems are getting, then know this: the US military is testing an experimental AI network tasked with identifying likely future events worthy of closer attention, and days before they occur. The series of tests are called the Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), and they combine data from a huge

WASHINGTON — Companies involved with commercial activities on the International Space Station or planning their own space stations may face a new competitor in China’s new space station. During a presentation at the ISS Research and Development Conference Aug. 4, Jeff Manber, chief executive of Nanoracks, said his company has already lost business to China

A long-lost piece of Stonehenge that was taken by a man performing restoration work on the monument has been returned after 60 years, giving scientists a chance to peer inside a pillar of the iconic monument for the first time. In 1958, Robert Phillips, a representative of the drilling company helping to restore Stonehenge, took the cylindrical

When Derek Muller took an experimental land yacht for a spin this spring, he wasn’t aiming to stir up scientific controversy. He certainly wasn’t trying to win $US10,000 in a bet. Muller, the creator of the Veritasium YouTube channel, likes to break down funky science concepts for his 9.5 million subscribers. So in May, he

Neurotransmitters are chemical substances crucial to the proper functioning of the brain, responsible for carrying messages between neurons and other kinds of cells. As such, they’re a fundamental part of how neurons relay signals to other cells, but not just that – according to a new study, neurotransmitter activity can even indicate how good (or