Bookmarks (564)

A new discovery adds to the mystery of the source of fast radio bursts. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely energetic pulses of radio-frequency light which travels across the universe that last just a few seconds or even milliseconds. More than 1,000 FRBs have been reported since the first was discovered in 2007. FRB 20240209A, […]

Advances continue to be made in neurobionics – integrating electronics with the nervous system to repair or replace impaired function – with the latest example helping a tetraplegic person to control a video game with their brain. A surgically implanted brain-computer interface has allowed the person to play a video game, using only their thoughts […]

After noticing that 20 captive chimpanzees at Kumamoto Sanctuary, Japan, appeared to urinate at about the same time, a team of researchers decided to spy on their toilet habits… for science. Just as a sleepy individual can set off a whole round of synchronised yawns in humans, we now know that when one chimpanzee pees, […]

A new superconducting material has been discovered by researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University in Japan. The material fits into a class of “unconventional superconductors” which could lead to high-temperature superconductivity that then could be used in transport, quantum technologies, power transmission and other applications. Superconducting devices are also used in advanced technologies such as superconducting […]

Clues into the mysterious lives of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany’s first farmers have been revealed in a new archaeological study. These ancient people were part of the Funnel Beaker Culture which emerged in the region about 6,000 years ago and persisted until new technologies emerged about 4,800 years ago. Grinding stones from a Middle […]

A big global survey has revealed people want scientists to be more involved in the policy-making process of most governments. The survey, of nearly 72,000 people in 68 countries, has found that most people have a high trust in science. The study, which is published today in Nature Human Behaviour, found no evidence for a […]

A large analysis of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy has surprised health researchers, who found links to multiple new benefits – and some new side effects. The research has found that weight-loss drugs – known as glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) – may be associated with increased risks for pancreatitis and kidney conditions. […]

Tensions among astrophysicists continue to mount over Edwin Hubble’s 100-year old calculations about the speed which the universe is expanding. “The tension now turns into a crisis,” says Dan Scolnic, an associate professor of physics at Duke University in the US. Scolnic is part of a team who have measured the rate of expansion of the […]

A prototype wind turbine is about to be installed just south of Adelaide. At a mere 6kW, it’s not going to make any difference to our energy grid – yet. But its shape means that it could end up making big changes. Instead of the windmill-style horizontal turbine, it rotates vertically. According to the researchers […]

Almost exactly 100 years ago, Edwin Hubble made a claim which changed the way we view the universe – and our place in it – forever. On December 30, 1924, Hubble announced the discovery of a spiral nebula outside our galaxy. His breakthrough proved for the first time that our Milky Way galaxy didn’t make […]

A new species of large carnivorous dinosaur found in what is now Egypt has been identified from fossils which no longer exist. The original fossil was destroyed 80 years ago during World War II. Palaeontologists discovered the new species by looking at photographs of the skeleton taken before 1944. Tameryraptor markgrafi lived 95 million years […]

The H5N1 bird flu strain circulating in the USA is good at mutating to infect new hosts, according to a genetic study – but it’s still vulnerable to antivirals. The current H5N1 flu strain, which started spreading on US dairy farms in March 2024, has been transmitted to a handful of people working with infected […]

Octopus arms are a marvel of nature. Their 8 appendages can move with a near infinite degree of freedom and are packed with hundreds of suckers, which can change shape independently, and taste and smell the things they touch. So, how do octopuses control all that complexity? Inside each octopus arm is a massive nervous […]

A study of thousands of hours of flight calls suggests that songbirds may be forming social connections with other species as they migrate, possibly even exchanging information about the journey. It’s time to rethink songbird migration through a social lens, says Benjamin Van Doren, assistant professor at the University of Illinois and lead author of […]

Australia’s natural environment is changing rapidly as the world warms, and many species are struggling to keep up. The pace of change is staggering, with 2024 declared Earth’s hottest year, shattering the previous record set in 2023. Conservation managers recognise the need for new ways to help species and ecosystems adapt to climate change. But […]

Researchers have replicated the pattern of chain mail and created a new polymer which could be used to improve body armour. The material is made of X-shaped monomers which interlock to form a sheet somewhat resembling chainmail. A monomer is a molecule that reacts with other monomer molecules to form a larger polymer chain. This […]

Astronomers have found a trio of exoplanets which contradict our understanding of how these planets form. The planets, which orbit around the star WASP-132, consist of a “hot Jupiter,” an inner “super-Earth,” and a huge planet much further out. Hot Jupiters – gas giants with orbits super-close to their suns – were once thought to […]

Just past 2 a.m. eastern US time on Jan. 16, 2025, a new rocket blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. By reaching orbit, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket launch has marked a milestone for a commercial space company that has big ambitions. As a space policy expert, I see New […]

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are a familiar, squawking, presence across much of Australia and Melanesia. But according to a genetic study, they are actually 2 separate species. And while one of those species is so abundant it’s winning the war against wheelie bins, the other could be in deep danger. The study, published in Molecular Biology and […]

Homo erectus may have been more adaptable and resilient than it’s often given credit for – new research provides evidence it adapted to live in desert-like conditions 1.2 million years ago. Archaeologists have published findings in Nature Communications Earth & Environment based on data about the early human ancestors who lived in Engaji Nanyori in […]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has confirmed a type of planet exists unlike anything in the solar system. They’re dubbed a “Super-Venus” world, and one of these exoplanets – a planet which orbits another star from our Sun – is described in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Many of the more than […]

Stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will be treated to both a comet, and a gathering of almost all the planets, in the night sky over the next week. Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is glowing after its close encounter with the Sun, and will be best spotted at sunset over the next few days. Meanwhile, the […]

Whether it’s the screen on your expensive device shattering from a mere tap, or a rubbish dump rapidly running out of room in your council, it’s clear to most of us that our one-way, waste-generating economy is bad for us as well as the environment. “People are getting sick of products that short have short […]

Not simply Roman propaganda, new research has found that women were at the centre of social networks in Celtic communities and may have been influential in many spheres of Iron Age life. “When the Romans arrived [in Britain], they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power,” says archaeologist Dr Miles Russell. “Two of […]

Ancient artefacts unearthed from a Bronze Age city in modern-day Iraq could help shed light on the history of Mesopotamia. The objects date to about 1800 BCE and include a game board, large structural remains and clay tablets with cuneiform writing unlike anything found in the region. They are described in fieldwork summary published on […]

Before New Zealand’s giant flightless birds, moa, went extinct about 600 years ago, they played a critical role in the archipelago’s ecosystem. Their loss may have flow on effects for other species. The ecological role that moa played is still not fully understood. New research, published in Biology Letters, sheds light on the relationship between […]

A transient object has been detected by Australian radio astronomers which has the longest rotation of any such object yet discovered. It may help astronomers work out what makes these enigmatic long-period radio transient objects. Long-period radio transient objects are relatively new to science, having been first observed in about the past 10 years. They […]

People requesting abortions in England and Wales have been using less reliable contraception methods in the past decade, according to a new study. The report also shows a large increase in those using no contraception. The research, published in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, finds that fewer abortion patients are using reliable hormonal contraceptive methods, […]

The way clinicians diagnose obesity is set to change with new guidelines acknowledging that some obese people are perfectly healthy, while others live with chronic disease. “Obesity is a spectrum,” says Professor Francesco Rubino from the UK, who chaired the Commission that developed the guidelines. “You can have people who have excess body fat but […]

Engineers have come up with a way that the famous thought experiment, “Schrödinger’s cat”, could be used to detect errors in quantum computers. The thought experiment was derived by Austrian-Irish physicist Erwin Schrödinger. In 1925, he came up with the Schrödinger equation which describes how particles behave in quantum mechanics. Just 10 years later, Schrödinger […]

Researchers perusing a Vietnamese seafood market have discovered a new species of crustacean that can weigh more than a kilogram. The discovery of the new supergiant isopod species, which can reach about 30cm, highlights how little is known of the deep-sea ecosystem in Southeast Asia. Supergiant isopods in the genus Bathynomus, also called sea bugs […]

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope to study distant quasars – the brightest objects in the universe – have captured a rare image that raises new questions about how they form. Quasars can reach luminosities thousands of times brighter than the Milky Way. They are caused by supermassive black holes at the cores of distant […]

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin south of the French capital. The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, […]

A new framework using insights from the humanities and the social sciences could help prevent artificial intelligence (AI) tools from spreading misinformation and discriminatory content according to analysis from the UK. To address shortcomings of Large Language Model (LLM) systems, like ChatGPT, researchers targeted the databases on which the AI is trained and integrated principles […]

Dialysis – a method of treating kidney disease – might also be the best method for treating certain types of wastewater, according to a new study. The researchers, who have published a paper in Nature Water, are not suggesting we send expensive medical equipment to sewers. Instead, they’ve developed a method that uses the same […]

Fossils found in China dating to 535 million years ago are some of the oldest examples of a nervous system. They reveal how the first nervous systems evolved in early relatives of worms and insects. The new analysis, published in Science Advances, sheds light on the origins of ventral nerve cords – a major structure […]

A question that has puzzled oncologists for 30 years has been solved by researchers, who say their findings have implications for increasing the efficacy of radiation therapy. Radiation therapy works by damaging the DNA in cancer cells to trigger cell death. But not all cancerous cells inside of a tumour die in the same way […]

International monitoring bodies have confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record, beating 2023 as the previous record-holder. The record was confirmed by 7 organisations: the World Meteorological Organization, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the UK’s Met Office, the USA’s NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]

The first animals with mineral skeletons changed the way sediments develop on Earth forever, according to new research. Sediments are often modified by the mineral-rich skeletons of living organisms. Famously, the White Cliffs of Dover in southern England are made up of chalk created by the skeletons of tiny coccolith algae that sank to the […]

Geologists have highlighted new places to hunt for critical minerals like copper, cobalt and rare earth elements. Their study, published in Nature, helps to understand how molten rock under the Earth’s crust moves to push these metals to the surface. According to the researchers, critical metals are likely to be found at the edges of […]

Physicists have mathematically demonstrated that there may be particles in the universe that have long been thought impossible. Quantum mechanics research 100 years ago showed that all particles can be categorised into 1 of 2 groups: bosons and fermions. Which group they fall into depends on how the particles behave when near other particles in […]

Previous research has shown that ant colonies are more likely to behave aggressively towards neighbouring colonies, but less likely to do so against unfamiliar ones. It’s known as the “nasty neighbour effect” and, until now, researchers weren’t sure why it exists. A new Current Biology study has discovered that ants remember the smell of their […]

A study combining data from amateur and professional astronomers has stunned scientists by revealing that Jupiter’s clouds are not what we thought. It was previously believed that Jupiter’s clouds were made of ammonia ice. The new research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, suggests that they may actually be composed of ammonium hydrosulphide and […]

Frogs are sometimes described as not hopping, nor jumping, but “skittering” across the surface of water, almost appearing to levitate above it. But what does this skittering actually involve? Researchers have captured cricket frogs on camera to figure it out. “Skittering is not actually a well-defined word for this behaviour,” says Talia Weiss, a graduate […]

Researchers have developed a new way to identify gases at very low concentrations in just seconds. The technique could allow for highly sensitive, real-time sensors for applications in environmental monitoring and medical breath analysis. The approach, called coherently controlled quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy, can capture a complete methane spectrum in just 3 seconds where existing methods […]

A 3,000-year-old “mega fortress” in the Caucasus mountains has been mapped using drones, revealing the Bronze Age structure to be 40 times larger than previously thought. The fortress, named Dmanisis Gora, is about 65km southwest of Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. Dmanisis Gora was built between 1500–500 BCE. At the time, other massive fortresses were being […]

Researchers have made bioluminescent “RNA lanterns” which make RNA glow. Their lanterns, described in Nature Communications, could help to better understand how cells work – in everything from virus research to the human brain. RNA, which transmits the information stored in DNA, plays a big role in the functioning of cells. “The first step in […]

A recent study suggests that new buildings and infrastructure could become huge sinks for carbon dioxide if they switched out their construction materials. Building materials that store carbon, like biomass-derived plastics and CO2 mixed into concrete, are at varying levels of technological readiness. The study, published in Science, suggests that if all building materials were […]

Scientists have found a way to make antibacterial silver nanoparticles, with goji berries. They say their method, published in AIP Advances, is a simple and more sustainable way to make the useful materials. Silver-based particles on the scale of nanometres – or silver nanoparticles – are used in medicines, cosmetics and the food industry, and […]

Physicists investigating films of indium oxide found an odd quantum effect which they say is rare and could open up new avenues of research into quantum materials and superconductors. The researchers used microwave spectroscopy to study the transition between superconducting and insulating states. They looked at the internal properties and behaviour of the indium oxide […]