An explosion that took place in a galaxy 180 million light-years away is challenging our understanding of how stars die, appearing to represent the flattest explosion of its kind on record. The monumental kaboom named AT2018cow belonged to an extremely rare class of cosmic blasts known as fast blue optical transients, or FBOTs. Unlike the
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Researchers have developed a new energy-saving paint that repels heat, comes in any color, and should last centuries. It’s also the lightest paint created to date. Inspired by butterfly wings, this paint isn’t made from pigment. Instead, color is created structurally through the arrangement of nanoparticles. The team is calling it ‘plasmonic paint’. Based on
An object lurking in the foggy dawn of the Universe has just given astronomers a big surprise. Observations collected through the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed an active supermassive black hole 10 million times the mass of the Sun – one that is actively growing as it slurps up matter from the space around
Imagine you’re thinking of a goldfish. Now, what if artificial intelligence could interpret what you’re thinking and turn that into an AI-generated image of a goldfish – or at least a pretty close version of it? It may sound like something out of science-fiction, but a preprint study published in November tried to do exactly
A powerful solar flare flashed at Earth on Tuesday, sending an eruption of X-ray and ultraviolet radiation to our planet at the speed of light. It was an “X-class” flare – the most powerful kind – and it caused a radio blackout for about one hour on the day side of Earth, in parts of
Tyrannosaurus rex might not have been puckering up for a good ol’ snog, but the dinosaur‘s teeth were not exposed like a ‘gator’s; instead, they protected behind a pair of lizardy lips. That’s the result of work investigating the teeth and bones of reptiles and dinosaurs, present and past, finally resolving a long-standing debate in
It seems like Roald Dahl may have been onto something after all: if you hurt a plant, it screams. Well, sort of. Not in the same way you or I might scream. Rather, they emit popping or clicking noises in ultrasonic frequencies outside the range of human hearing that increase when the plant becomes stressed.
Billionaire mogul Elon Musk and a range of experts called on Wednesday for a pause in the development of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems to allow time to make sure they are safe. An open letter, signed by more than 1,000 people so far including Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was prompted by the
Giant African pouched rats are as clever as they are cute. Trained them to wear little backpacks, they can rescue people from disaster areas in return for a treat. They can also find landmines that need disarming, sniff out tuberculosis, and have even been recruited in the fight against wildlife poaching. So handy are these
A baby Jupiter, still hot from its gestation, could have blasted its four largest moons with light so intense, it vaporized water and stripped them of volatiles. According to new research, this irradiation could explain why the Galilean moons have the compositions they do, from the hellacious volcano-world Io, closest to Jupiter, to ice-crusted Europa,
A group of mathematicians has unveiled a brand new 13-sided shape they’ve simply called ‘the hat’. Don’t let the rather mundane description fool you though. This hat (which looks a bit like a fedora) is next season’s must-have fashion item, able to be tiled across a plane to create patterns that never repeat. Shapes like
The humble proton is a lynchpin of the material Universe. Its characteristics define chemistry, governing teams of electrons that build atoms into molecules, and molecules into dazzling complexity. For all we understand of its behavior, the proton’s internal structure is a chaotic mess of activity scientists are still deciphering. A new experiment conducted at the
Shine bright like a… gamma-ray? A gamma-ray burst that recently hit our Solar System was so bright, it temporarily blinded gamma-ray instruments in space, according to a NASA release. Scientists say the gamma-ray burst (GRB), the most powerful type of explosion in the Universe, was 70 times brighter than any previously recorded event. They dubbed
Astronomers have just found a cosmic cannonball. Around a star some 730 light-years away orbits an exoplanet the size of Jupiter, but with a density that boggles the mind. Astronomers have determined that the world, named TOI-4603b, has a mass of nearly 13 Jupiters. That means it’s nearly 3 times the density of Earth, and
Most of us have heard the one about if you cross your arms over your chest you’re feeling defensive or if you’re fiddling with your hair while talking you feel nervous – but is there really any truth to some of these body language stereotypes? Reading body language can be a useful skill in understanding
All life on Earth depends on water, including us. Some of us consume water the old-fashioned way by drinking it with our mouths, others more creatively. Beetles can rehydrate themselves by opening their rectums and drinking trace amounts of water floating in the air. They can also reabsorb water from their poop, and their butts
The bending of light as its path veers around a giant, invisible mass has revealed the presence of one of the biggest black holes yet detected in the Universe. In a galaxy at the center of a massive cluster named Abell 1201, some 2.7 billion light-years away, lurks a cosmic colossus. Not content with being
Food scientists on Tuesday unveiled a giant meatball made from lab-grown flesh of an extinct woolly mammoth, saying the protein from the past showed the way for future foods. The glistening meatball was displayed under a glass bell jar by Australian-based cultivated meat firm Vow at the NEMO science museum in the Dutch capital Amsterdam.
If you look at where wombats deposit their poo, you realize they must be able to perform some surprising acrobatics. It has always amazed me to see wombat scats on top of grass tussocks or logs, because I’ve always wondered how the stocky creatures must have maneuvered themselves to put it there. It turns out
The world is direly addicted to plastics. Try as we might to recycle them, plastics are cheaper to make anew, so unthinkable amounts of plastic waste are dumped into landfill and are clogging up our oceans. From all the new plastics ever made, over 6 billion metric tons of plastic waste (that doesn’t decompose but
An Earth-sized exoplanet in perhaps the most promising alien system for signs of life is not likely to be habitable to life as we know it. New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal that the innermost world of the TRAPPIST-1 system, an exoplanet named TRAPPIST-1b with 1.4 times the mass and 1.1 times
The AI chatbot known as ChatGPT, developed by the company OpenAI, has caught the public’s attention and imagination. Some applications of the technology are truly impressive, such as its ability to summarize complex topics or to engage in long conversations. It’s no surprise that other AI companies have been rushing to release their own large
We know there’s water on the Moon, but questions remain about how it got there, where it’s stored, and how it moves around. In a new study, scientists from China have identified tiny glass beads in the lunar soil as potential places where water could hide. And we’re talking about a lot of water too,
A giant ‘hole’ has appeared on the surface of the Sun, and it could send 1.8 million-mph solar winds toward Earth by Friday. It follows the discovery of a coronal hole on the Sun 30 times the size of Earth. As this first ‘hole’ begins rotating away from us, a new giant coronal hole –
Bones found on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen suggest the ancient marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs roamed Earth’s oceans for much longer than we thought. Dated to 250 million years ago, the remains represent the oldest evidence of ichthyosaurs we’ve ever seen. Moreover, the species represented by the bones was already large and well-adapted
Every so often, a strange signal from outer space hits our detectors here on Earth. Known as fast radio bursts (FRBs_, these signals are extremely short, just milliseconds in duration, and are detected only in radio wavelengths. Yet in those milliseconds, and in those wavelengths, they can discharge as much energy as 500 million Suns
Humans might be the only species to sniffle and giggle through a romantic comedy, but there’s good reason to think many other animals also have some capacity to share emotions with their kindred. A new study led by researchers from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal has provided evidence of the chemical mechanisms behind
We may not have found many planetary systems like our own Solar System. Still, there’s one thing they do seem to have in common: They appear to be made out of good ol’ ordinary baryonic matter – you know, the stuff our planetary system is made of. But what if there are planets out there
More than 2,000 mummified ram heads and a palatial Old Kingdom structure have been uncovered by archaeologists at the King Ramses II Temple of Abydos. The finds, located roughly 270 miles (435 kilometers) south of Cairo, come from a period of over 1,000 years, from the Sixth Dynasty to the Heroic Age, making some of
Nearly a century has passed since scientists broke the Universe. Through a complex mix of experiment and theory, physicists discovered an engine built on the mathematics of probability ticks away below the façade of reality. Referred to in vague terms as the Copenhagen interpretation, this take on the theory underpinning quantum mechanics says everything can
There might be some hidden oceans lurking around Uranus. New evidence suggests that one or two of the gas giant’s 27 known moons might be harboring liquid oceans beneath their crusty rock-and-ice exteriors. The possible culprits for seeding the space around Uranus with plasma are Miranda and Ariel, one or both of which might be
A large asteroid will safely zoom between Earth and the Moon on Saturday, a once-in-a-decade event that will be used as a training exercise for planetary defense efforts, according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, is estimated to be 40 to 70 meters (130 to 230 feet) wide, roughly the size
A new species of orchid with delicate, glass-like blooms has been discovered by Japanese scientists, who found the pink and white plant hiding in plain sight. Despite its presence in Japan’s parks and gardens, it took researchers at Kobe University a decade to confirm that the plant – dubbed the Spiranthes hachijoensis – was a
A flower’s ability to mimic the sexually attractive traits of pollinators to lure them to its nectar has long fascinated scientists. Flowers can’t buy glasses and a wig to create a disguise, so how they came to pull off such convincing dupes, using only an existing toolkit of DNA, is baffling. Orchids are the most
Looking to the stars for constellations that preside over birth and life has a long and complex history, and archaeologists have just uncovered a small piece of it. A spectacular series of relief paintings on the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian temple depict 12 signs of the zodiac, and you might be surprised to recognize
A newly proposed propulsion system could theoretically beam a heavy spacecraft to outside the confines of our Solar System in less than 5 years – a feat that took the historic Voyager 1 probe 35 years to achieve. The concept, known as ‘pellet-beam’ propulsion, was awarded an early-stage US$175,000 NASA grant for further development earlier
NASA revealed a new prototype of the spacesuit destined to adorn the next astronauts on the Moon. But the look is a little misleading. In an event on March 15, NASA and its new spacesuit contractor, Axiom Space, walked out their first iteration of the uniform for the Artemis generation of lunar astronauts. Called the
Octopus is a popular ingredient in many cuisines, with some 420,000 metric tons of this mollusc being caught worldwide each year. The rising global popularity of octopus has been attributed to the increasingly adventurous tastes of younger consumers, its nutritional benefits and the decline of traditional fish stocks such as cod. This helps explain why
Nobody writes an obituary for the last of a species dying alone in the wild. So, knowing precisely when to confirm an extinction comes down to a mix of clever sleuthing, mathematics, and no small amount of guesswork. On 7 September 1936, a thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) held captive in a small Hobart zoo became the
NASA is actively monitoring a strange anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa. This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years, and perhaps none more so than NASA
Skies across the northernmost US states could be graced with stunning displays of the Northern Lights on Friday, blown into view by a giant ‘hole’ on the Sun. The aurora borealis might appear in skies from Washington to New York, lighting up the night with beautiful colors, as a stream of electrically charged particles called
For the first time, an international team of physicists has successfully manipulated small numbers of light particles – known as photons – that have a strong relationship with each other. That may sound a little obscure, but it’s a fundamental breakthrough in the quantum realm that could lead to technology we currently can’t even dream
An interstellar object that is currently on its long journey back out of our Solar System has a completely natural explanation, in spite of its odd quirks. The peculiar acceleration of ‘Oumuamua, new research confirms, can be fully attributed to the release of molecular hydrogen gas. This, according to astrochemist Jennifer Bergner of the University
It’s all well and good to talk big about finding traces of life on Mars, but we also need to know where to look. Getting to Mars is hard – we want to make sure to make the best use of the opportunities available so as not to waste the trip. But there’s a lot
The ghost, at long last, is actually in the machine: For the first time, scientists have created neutrinos in a particle collider. Those abundant yet enigmatic subatomic particles are so removed from the rest of matter that they slide through it like specters, earning them the nickname “ghost particles”. The researchers say this work represents
There are few places on Earth as isolated as Trindade island, a volcanic outcrop a three- to four-day boat trip off the coast of Brazil. So geologist Fernanda Avelar Santos was startled to find an unsettling sign of human impact on the otherwise untouched landscape: rocks formed from the glut of plastic pollution floating in
A sample extracted from an asteroid far from Earth has confirmed that RNA nucleobases can be found in space rocks. Analysis of dust ferried home from asteroid Ryugu has been found to contain uracil – one of the four nucleobases that make up RNA – in addition to niacin, a form of the vitamin B3,
Our planet hides its scars well. It’s a shame, actually, as evidence of previous asteroid strikes might help us better plan for the next catastrophic impact. In fact, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center chief scientist, James Garvin, thinks we might have been misreading traces of some of the more serious asteroid strikes that have occurred
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