The amount of close and comforting contact that young infants get doesn’t just keep them warm, snug, and loved. A 2017 study says it can actually affect babies at the molecular level, and the effects can last for years. Based on the study, babies who get less physical contact and are more distressed at a
When the end of the world comes, how will you tweet? Thankfully for those of us who didn’t have a plan ready, Motherboard reports that software developer Virgil Dupras has built an operating system — Collapse OS — that can be run on parts salvaged from a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The idea is to find ways
A strange, undulating blob found in the waters of Ørstafjorden in Norway has turned out to be a rare sight: a giant mass of squid eggs. The otherworldly ball, floating mysteriously in the darkness of the fjord, was discovered by captain Nils Baadnes and diver Ronald Raasch with the research vessel REV Ocean. It wasn’t
You might not know the term ‘oobleck’, but it’s highly likely you came across it as a kid. Also known as a non-Newtonian fluid, the strange material sometimes behaves like a liquid, and sometimes acts like a solid. It’s usually made of corn-starch and water, and it produces hours of fun for children everywhere. Punch it
It’s been a busy week for astrophysicist Michel Mayor. On Tuesday, he won a Nobel Prize for his work detecting exoplanets. Then, on Wednesday, he crushed the dreams of anyone hoping to one day colonize those planets. “If we are talking about exoplanets,” Mayor told Agence France-Presse when asked about off-world colonization, “things should be clear: we will not migrate there.”
There’s a fish that can live on land. Georgia officials want you to kill it immediately. A northern snakehead fish was caught earlier this month in a Gwinnett County pond, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division, and it’s the first time the species has been reported in Georgia waters, the
Unlike some creatures, humans can’t regenerate their limbs – but a new study suggests we do have a hidden ‘salamander-like’ ability to regrow cartilage in the body, a finding which could help treatment for joint injuries and even arthritis. Using mass spectrometry techniques on 18 specimens, researchers were able to identify a mechanism by which
Ninety-nine per cent of all freshwater ice on Earth is sitting on top of Greenland and Antarctica, and each year, a little more of it melts into the ocean. Normally, it would take hundreds to thousands of years for it all to melt away. But what if something happened that caused a massive global melt
Those Knightscope security robots may not be so great at their jobs. When a woman in a park near Los Angeles saw people fighting and tried to summon help via a police robot patrolling nearby, the robot merely told her to “step out of the way” and continued along its pre-determined route, according to NBC
The Moon is a pretty inhospitable place for humans. It’s all dry and dusty, and there’s no atmosphere for us to breathe. But there is a bunch of oxygen: The lunar regolith – the crumbly top layer of dirt and rubble on the Moon’s surface – is loaded with it. And now scientists have figured
NASA astronomers have used data from the Voyager probes to measure the bustle of particles rippling at the very edge of our Solar System, and discovered the pressure in the distant borderlands of our star is higher than they expected. The results suggest “that there are some other parts to the pressure that aren’t being
With red-flag warnings in place and an “extreme” fire risk for parts of Northern California on Wednesday that is expected to shift south Thursday, a bout of strong and prolonged winds is prompting Pacific Gas & Electric not to take chances. Because the utility giant does not want to risk its grid infrastructure sparking yet
A seemingly strange demise has befallen five cattle on the Silvies Valley Ranch in remote eastern Oregon. Reports from NPR and the Associated Press paint a bewildering scene, free from tracks, predator activity, poison, shot wounds and even blood. But it might just be the latest instalment in a long line of ‘mysterious cattle death’ stories
The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for the development of lithium-ion batteries. “We have gained access to a technical revolution,” said Sara Snogerup Linse, a chemistry professor and member of the award committee, sweeping her finger at the reporters gathered at the Royal
Some of the strongest magnetic fields ever detected in the Universe come from magnetars. Now, we might finally know how these strange objects form. Large and complex computer simulations, detailed in a new study, show that the collision of two stars can produce a massive star with a particularly strong magnetic field. As it eventually
At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong. As I’ve argued elsewhere, acknowledging climate change involves accepting certain facts. But being concerned about climate change involves connecting these facts to values. It involves building bridges between the science
Over millions of years, humans have developed a talent for transforming bits of nature into objects that make daily tasks easier. We got so good at it, we started to think tool-use among animals was a rather exclusive club – as it turns out, we were wrong. Adding to the long list of animals that
Humans have been mining diamonds for a long time, but a new stone hauled from the belly of the Earth could very well be a first. The diamond itself is hollow – and inside is another diamond, freely moving around. It was discovered in a Russian mine in Siberia, and has been named the Matryoshka
A cosmologist who revealed that the universe was made mostly of invisible matter and energy, and two scientists who detected the first planet orbiting an alien star, were jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday. By studying the earliest moments after the birth of the universe, James Peebles of Princeton University developed a
Space food is notoriously lacklustre, but new technology is slowly revolutionising the way astronauts eat. Whereas the first astronauts in space squeezed their meals from toothpaste-like tubes, today’s astronauts chow down on ice cream and fresh fruit, and season their meals with liquid salt and pepper. But there are still limits to the types of
Scientists have observed a quantum vibration at normal room temperature for the first time, a phenomenon that usually requires ultra-cold, carefully calibrated conditions – bringing us another step closer to understanding the behaviour of quantum mechanics in common materials. The team was able to spot a phonon, a quantum particle of vibration generated from high-frequency
Following the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown – the world’s worst nuclear accident – authorities cordoned off the most contaminated areas around the Ukrainian power plant. That restricted land, known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, now extends 1,000 square miles (2,589 square kilometres). It’s illegal to live there (though a few families have defied the law by
In early September 1859, something world-changing occurred. Earth was wracked by a monumental solar storm, which lashed our magnetosphere with a coronal mass ejection, the like of which had never before occurred in recorded history. It’s called the Carrington Event, and it occurred right on the cusp of the Technological Revolution. It temporarily knocked out telegraph
When the last of Earth’s woolly mammoths expired, they were isolated on Wrangel Island in the frigid Arctic Ocean, north of Russia. We’ve known of the species’ last resting place for years; now, we finally know more about their survival and ultimate death. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) died out 4,000 years ago over a remarkably short
Six elephants died while trying to save each other after a baby elephant fell from a waterfall in a Thai national park, officials said. Staff at Khao Yai National Park, about 85 miles northeast of Bangkok, found the roughly 3-year-old baby elephant drowned on Saturday. Five more dead elephants also were discovered at the bottom
For the first time, astronomers have obtained high-resolution images of a binary star system in the early stages of formation, and it’s more beautiful than we ever expected. Here on Earth, we’re used to orbiting a lone star. But out there in the wider Universe, most stars come with their own little star families, or
Blind people who use echoes to map their surroundings, akin to how bats or dolphins navigate, have an adapted brain region that allows them to ‘see’ with sound, a new study suggests. The primary visual cortex is where the human brain normally interprets signals from the eyes, but that doesn’t mean it can only process
Saturn has unseated Jupiter as the Solar System’s most moon-bearing planet, the Carnegie Institution for Science announced on Monday. Scientists discovered 20 previously unknown moons orbiting Saturn, which gives Saturn a grand total of 82 moons, flying past Jupiter’s 79. The discovery unlocks a trove of possible new hints at how Saturn and its moons
Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) rarely get a break from their cramped quarters. Only on occasion do they get to don a spacesuit and actually venture outside. This month, various mission members will get to do so five times. Over the weekend, NASA began a lengthy series of spacewalks to upgrade a set
According to the most widely-accepted cosmological models, the first galaxies began to form between 13 and 14 billion years ago. Over the course of the next billion years, the cosmic structures we’ve all come to know emerged. These include things like galaxy clusters, superclusters, and filaments, but also galactic features like globular clusters, galactic bulges,
Our diets can have a big environmental impact. The greenhouse gas emissions involved in producing and transporting various foods has been well researched, but have you ever thought about the water-scarcity impacts of producing your favourite foods? The answers may surprise you. In research recently published in the journal Nutrients, we looked at the water
Not unlike the movie “Okja,” where a company breeds massive pigs to maximize profits, some Chinese farmers are growing larger and larger hogs to keep up with pork shortages. In Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi province, one farm owner is breeding pigs that weigh over 1,100 pounds – making them the size of polar
Research suggests there could be a good scientific reason why some of us struggle to look someone in the eye and hold a conversation with them. It turns out we’re not just awkward, our brains actually can’t handle the tasks of thinking of the right words and focussing on a face at the same time.
From its red and rugged surface, Mars looks like a lifeless planet, both dry and desolate. But that hasn’t always been the case. NASA’s Curiosity Rover has now collected even more evidence of an ancient salty lake that once lapped the edges of the Gale crater some 3.7 billion years ago. Analysing soil samples collected
Twinship has become a cultural phenomenon in the United States over the past three decades, with a higher proportion of twins living among us than at any other time in known history. There are twin conventions, twin parenting books, twin Halloween costumes, and debates on local school boards over whether to separate — or keep
Scientists have been able to teach birds simple songs they’ve never heard before by selectively activating specific neurons in their brains – effectively implanting false memories. Using the process of optogenetics, where light is used to control living tissue, the team was able to activate certain neuron circuits in the birds and get them to
When China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft landed on the lunar far side on 3 January 2019, it made history. It was the first spacecraft to visit that part of the Moon, and among its payload was a 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) mini-biosphere called the Lunar Micro Ecosystem (LME). The sealed, cylindrical biosphere is only 18 cm (7.1
In a death-defying maneuver for the spacecraft, NASA’s Juno has completed an unprecedented and unplanned engine burn. The purpose? To save the spacecraft’s ‘life’, or at least the rest of its mission to Jupiter. Jupiter casts a deep, dark shadow. Dark enough, in fact, to effectively kill Juno if it flies through it. Rather than
Just less than 13,000 years ago, the climate cooled for a short while in many parts of the world, especially in the northern hemisphere. We know this because of what has been found in ice cores drilled in Greenland, as well as from oceans around the world. Grains of pollen from various plants can also
We know that our planet has experienced warmer periods in the past, during the Pliocene geological epoch around three million years ago. Our research, published today, shows that up to one third of Antarctica’s ice sheet melted during this period, causing sea levels to rise by as much as 20 metres above present levels in
You might be familiar with the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, where the eponymous feline in a box can be both alive or dead at the same time, often used to illustrate the multi-state paradox of quantum mechanics. Well, now scientists have managed to apply that theory to huge molecules made up of 2,000 atoms. Quantum
The centre of the Milky Way galaxy is a relatively calm place now (compared to other galactic centres), but that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, just 3.5 million years ago, it was positively riotous – expelling a burst of energy that eventually blasted 200,000 light-years above and below the galactic plane. The shockwaves
In April, an international team of scientists captured the first-ever photo of a black hole. In September, they won a US$3 million Breakthrough Prize for that accomplishment. But they’re far from finished. Next, the team behind the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is planning a cinematic debut. The subject: the supermassive black hole at the centre of our
According to local news reports in Chile, something was seen blazing a trail across the sky over the island of Chiloé last Wednesday. Naturally, with several small fires appearing soon after the sightings, some residents concluded the two events were linked. But experts have now ruled if what people saw was a meteorite, the space
A new study comparing human skulls with those of other animals claims that the dimensions of our heads appear to follow the golden ratio – that special number with a controversial reputation for being the “formula for beauty”. Usually symbolised by the irrational number phi, or roughly 1.618, the golden ratio is amongst the most
The most significant pterosaur fossil ever discovered in Australia has been unearthed in the Winton area of central western Queensland. The newly discovered species, which my colleagues and I have named Ferrodraco lentoni, had a wingspan of about 4 metres (13 feet). It lived around 96 million years ago, and was surprisingly similar to other
They may not have the muscles and reflexes of the animal kingdom, but that doesn’t mean plants just passively sit around when something starts chewing them up. We know damage triggers a signal that spreads through the plant, mounting its defensive response. And we know part of that response is the release of smelly volatile
Astronomers across the globe were quick to begin studying 2I/Borisov – the second known interstellar object to visit our solar system – almost immediately upon its detection in August. Those observations are already yielding fascinating insights into the comet – including the fact that its solar system of origin might not be that different from
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