We’ve had chances. Lots of chances. But humanity has a history of squandering chances, despite everything we know about climate change. Despite everything riding on us addressing it. As it happens, the odds may still be in our favour. A new study estimates there’s a 64 percent chance that peak global average temperature rise can
Will there be no end to people trying to muck up the night sky? Around this time last year it was a disco ball sent into low-Earth orbit. Now a Russian startup has had the colossally dense idea of sticking beaming billboards up there, to shine advertising back down to Earth. Putting aside the fact
The peculiar movement of gas at the galactic centre could be the smoking gun that finally leads astronomers to the most elusive type of black hole – the middleweight. Black holes are pretty hard to find unless they’re actively feeding (or colliding), since they don’t emit any electromagnetic radiation (except perhaps for Hawking radiation, which,
Some of the Universe’s deepest secrets are locked up so tight, a whole new kind of subatomic cataclysm is needed to tear them free. To unleash those kinds of forces, European physicists want to build a particle accelerator to rival anything we’ve seen, one that will make the famous 27 kilometre (16.7 mile) Large Hadron
A frog by the name of Romeo, thought to be the last of his species, is no longer fortune’s fool. Defying the stars, this lonely amphibious bachelor has at last found his Juliet. Known as the world’s loneliest frog, for ten years Romeo has burned, he has pined, but he has not perished. His story
It was promising to be an uncharacteristically warm winter day in Boston. The temperature on 15 January 1919, had soared to 40 degrees Fahrenheit from 2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius from -16) earlier in the week, prompting many downtown workers to head outdoors. Shortly after noon in the city’s bustling North End, as Model T
Australia is sweltering through an intense heatwave this week that’s scorching the country from coast to coast with temperatures as high as 49.3 degrees Celsius (120.7 degrees Fahrenheit). In numerous locations, temperature records have already been broken, with minimum overnight temperatures in three towns of 33°C (91°F) showing even the night offers no escape from
Supermassive black holes may be the gravitational glue that binds a galaxy, but they’re also a colossal puzzle. One mystery that has vexed astronomers: how do heck do black holes end up so roly-poly? Take Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. It is about four million times the
The world needs to rethink its plan for addressing climate change. That’s the assertion of political scientist Joshua S. Goldstein and energy engineer Staffan A. Qvist. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published an essay in which the duo argues that we can’t address the global climate problem as quickly as needed using just renewables
Here’s a funny one: genetically modified food. Okay, so maybe it’s not all that funny. But people’s reactions to it certainly are. Despite numerous and huge scientific studies validating the safety and benefits of genetically modified foods (aka GM or GMO foods), people just refuse to be convinced. Should we be surprised? Perhaps not: Americans
The far side of the Moon is a strange, barren, monochrome place, according to the latest images sent home from China’s Yutu 2 rover. An incredible 360-degree panorama reveals just how arid and alien it is on the back of Earth’s satellite. China made history when spacecraft Chang’e 4 landed rover Yutu 2 on the
Antarctic glaciers have been melting at an accelerating pace over the past four decades thanks to an influx of warm ocean water – a startling new finding that researchers say could mean sea levels are poised to rise more quickly than predicted in coming decades. The Antarctic lost 40 billion tons of melting ice to
In a new interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the chair of Harvard University’s Astronomy Department Avi Loeb defended his controversial hypothesis that the interstellar object known as ‘Oumuamua could be an alien probe – and speculated at length about the place of humanity in the cosmos. “As soon as we leave the Solar System,
Not everything is knowable. In a world where it seems like artificial intelligence and machine learning can figure out just about anything, that might seem like heresy – but it’s true. At least, that’s the case according to a new international study by a team of mathematicians and AI researchers, who discovered that despite the
This past March, a NASA instrument on the International Space Station spotted a black hole, about 10,000 light-years away from Earth, in the process of devouring a star. What happened next was weird, even by the standards of super-dense celestial objects from which not even light can escape: the black hole started to shrink. According
Deeps in mines, at the bottom of lakes, and even in your own gut, bacteria are hard at work producing electricity in order to survive in environments low in oxygen. These potent little power producers have been used in speculative experiments and one day may power everything from batteries to “biohomes“. There are many types
The acclaimed Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson will be forever remembered as one of the ‘fathers of DNA’. But also as something much worse. In a resurfaced controversy that further dims the shine of one of the 20th century’s most esteemed scientists, Watson – awarded the Nobel in 1962 for his role in the discovery
Dogs are said to be a human’s best friend – but they also provide an environmental conundrum to some of us. Altogether, the eating habits of our pets account for about 20 percent of the world’s meat and fish consumption, and this has an effect on a whole bunch of environmental issues, including the use
Like a brain, an ant colony operates without central control. Each is a set of interacting individuals, either neurons or ants, using simple chemical interactions that in the aggregate generate their behaviour. People use their brains to remember. Can ant colonies do that? This question leads to another question: what is memory? For people, memory
Another day, another article has misrepresented the words of a scientist. This time that article comes from the Russian state-owned website Sputnik News; according to them, a NASA scientist has revealed a “secret sign that would indicate impending apocalypse”. So just to set the record straight, we’re here to tell you that Michelle Thaller, an astronomer and
Worms may not have spines, but they’re doing some back-breaking sewer work in more than 4,000 toilets across India. Since 2015, a creative new type of toilet called the Tiger Toilet has been popping up outside homes and schools around the country. From the outside, this toilet looks like any other pit latrine. But it
Elon Musk has published a photo of an experimental rocket meant to help him achieve his mission of conquering Mars. After teasing the spaceship earlier this month, Musk posted a picture of the vehicle – dubbed the “test hopper” – in real life on Friday from SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship test flight rocket
A rocket that never runs out of fuel is ready to revolutionize space exploration. It’s called the World Is Not Enough (WINE), and instead of using fuel to power its movement, the craft mines water from its current location and turns it into steam – and uses it to propel itself to a new destination, like something out
Any species reaching for the stars is bound to have its fingertips singed. Probably more than once. One of NASA’s posts on the Astronomy Picture of the Day website is an iconic reminder of the mishaps in our spacefaring history. “A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert after being tracked by
Nature is filled with astonishing and sometimes terrifying phenomena. Case in point: this footage of spiders seemingly raining from the sky. Filmed in Minas Gerais in southern Brazil, these spiders are Parawixia bistriata, a rare ‘social’ spider that works together to build giant, fine webs up high. And contrary to how it might look, don’t worry,
Scientists have discovered mysterious streaking patterns crossing huge distances in the clouds of Venus. The discovery is giving us new insight into the brutal conditions and climate on the strange planet second closest to the Sun. Based on advanced computer modelling, the team thinks moving air caused by polar jet streams, similar to those on
Science fiction introduces us to elaborate, futuristic worlds that often sound like nothing more than a dream. But humanity has made incredible technological advancements over the past 100 years, and many of the ideas predicted in science fiction have now become reality. Some predictions, like self-driving cars, are still in the early stages, but scientists
To properly navigate across the face of our planet, we need to use guidance from its magnetic field. And for that, we need to keep an accurate track of what that field is doing. With that in mind, every five years scientists refresh a standardised model of the detailed wiggles and warps of Earth’s magnetic
The year 2020 will be bringing us a new decade, an American presidential election, and a cruise for people who believe Earth is flat. Although details are currently thin on the ground, the cruise is being organised by the Flat Earth International Conference, and promises to be “the biggest, boldest, best adventure yet”. Well, we
We rarely portray Neanderthals, our close relatives, as telegenic. Museum exhibits give them wild tangles of hair, and Hollywood reduces them to grunting unsophisticates. Their skulls suggest broad faces, tiny chins and jutting brows. But to mock Neanderthals is to mock ourselves: Homo sapiens had lots of sex with Homo neanderthalensis. Neanderthal genes supply between
I teach people how to teach math, and I’ve been working in this field for 30 years. Across those decades, I’ve met many people who suffer from varying degrees of math trauma – a form of debilitating mental shutdown when it comes to doing mathematics. When people share their stories with me, there are common
As far as supernovae go, AT2018cow – detected last year – was among the brightest ever seen. The flash was so intense, some mistook it for an explosion inside the Milky Way. In the event’s wake, all eyes turned to the expanding wave of debris to better understand the cause of this extreme flash. Now,
If you need to remember something, you might do well to… draw it. According to a new study, drawing can be a more effective memory aid than writing and rewriting, simply looking at information, or using various other visualisation techniques. Older adults who take up drawing could even enhance their memory, the researchers say, providing
One of the most cherished science fiction scenarios is using a black hole as a portal to another dimension or time or universe. That fantasy may be closer to reality than previously imagined. Black holes are perhaps the most mysterious objects in the Universe. They are the consequence of gravity crushing a dying star without
Long after fusion has faded and her furnaces have cooled, our Sun’s embers will form a giant crystal hanging in the sky – one of countless sprinkled throughout our galaxy. Astronomers have found evidence that massive white dwarf stars solidify into metallic crystals rather early in retirement. Poetic descriptions aside, it could challenge how we
We usually think of whales as serene, gentle creatures, but a new study on an ancient species paints a different picture. Around 35 million years ago, in the late Eocene, a giant whale roamed the oceans, feasting on large fish and, the new evidence suggests, other smaller whales. Yikes. Discovered in 2010, this 15 metre
We have been closely following the progress of Chang’e-4, the Chinese Moon lander that touched down on the far side of the Moon last week and released a rover called Yutu 2. As the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon in history, the mission was a coup for the Chinese space program.
You may have heard of the Mona Lisa effect, or even felt her famous, haunting gaze yourself. If you’re not familiar, the idea is that the eyes in the iconic painting follow you around the room wherever you stand. A new study has found that the effect can be backed up by science – but
It started in December, just before Christmas. Hundreds of dead perch were discovered floating along the banks of the Darling River – victims of a “dirty, rotten green” algae bloom spreading in the still waters of the small country town of Menindee, Australia. Things didn’t get better. The dead hundreds became dead thousands, as the
For only the second time, astronomers have picked up a mysterious repeating signal coming from an unknown source in space. They’re called fast radio bursts. And in less than the blink of an eye, they ping into the data collected by radio telescopes out of nowhere, with as much energy as a hundred million Suns.
A tiny fragment of lapis lazuli pigment, discovered in the fossilised teeth of a medieval woman, is now challenging some of our most basic assumptions about the history of book production. Before the dawn of the 15th century, scribes and artists in Europe who wrote and illustrated religious manuscripts were often too modest to seal
An apparent hit-and-run in Las Vegas caught on video seems to show what could be a first-of-its-kind traffic fatality: an autonomous robot struck and allegedly ‘killed’ by a self-driving Tesla. As brutal as it sounds, it’s also suspected to be part of an elaborate PR stunt set up to promote the now-‘deceased’ robot in question
Astronomers say they have discovered a planet that’s twice the size of Earth and within a zone that could allow liquid water to exist on its surface. The finding comes from data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which ran out of fuel in October. The planet, K2-288Bb, is within its star’s habitable zone, which is why liquid
George, a Hawaiian tree snail – also a 14-year-old local celebrity and the last known snail of his kind – will no longer be able to entertain school children, or eat tree fungus. He died on New Year’s Day, according to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). The death of George, and
When we look at the way an object moves, humans are able to use this context to infer weight – whether it is light or heavy. Now, New Caledonian crows have demonstrated the same skill – accurately gauging the weight of an object based on how it moves in a breeze. They could be the
Siberia’s wilderness is experiencing a new kind of gold rush. As melting permafrost gives up the bones of long extinct megafauna, a new breed of ivory hunter is cashing in on the remnants of creatures that vanished millennia ago. Trade in mammoth tusk isn’t illegal, and in China it’s actually viewed as an ethical alternative
For many years, quantum computers have only been within the confines of the research lab. On Tuesday, though, IBM unveiled the IBM Q System One, billed as the first-ever quantum computer designed for businesses to put to their own use – though the company is clear that this is only the first step towards a
As Europe wilted in the sweltering, record-breaking harshness of summer 2018, strange things happened. Mysterious outlines of ancient societies revealed themselves across the seared landscape, but it’s not just traces of ghostly architecture resurfacing. So too are grim words of warning. Inscribed boulders known as ‘hunger stones’ are reappearing in Czechia after a prolonged drought afflicting
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