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Professor Alan Collins, the Douglas Mawson Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Adelaide, is building a dynamic map of the Earth’s plate tectonics spanning nearly a third of our planet’s existence, from 1800 to 500 million years ago. The map might reveal critical mineral locations, but Collins also believes tectonics are part of […]

When an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, it caused a mass extinction. Now researchers have evidence that this catastrophe ushered in the invention of agriculture by ants. “Extinction events can be huge disasters for most organisms, but it can actually be positive for others,” says Ted Schultz, curator of ants at the […]

An exoplanet has been discovered orbiting the nearest single star to Earth (apart from the Sun), only 6 light-years away. The nearest stars to our solar system are in the Alpha Centauri system at just 4.2 light-years away. This triple star system is in the Centaurus constellation. The closest exoplanets to Earth were discovered orbiting […]

Saying “who’s a good boy?” in a singsong voice has been the demand of dog trainers for years – but now scientists have explored why it is so effective. Researchers studying humans and dogs have found that certain patterns of speech does help our canine companions understand our verbal commands. A team of Swiss and […]

Scientists have developed a way to transport a drug to a specific part of the body, then be excreted out. The method, which has been demonstrated in mice, could one day be a safer way to treat cancer and other diseases. The study, done by a team of Japanese researchers, is published in Nature Communications. […]

Small iron-rich nodules decorating the world-famous Pinnacles in Western Australia have finally allowed researchers to date the formation of these striking landforms to about 100,000 years ago. The Pinnacles are made up of thousands of limestone formations up to 5m tall and 2m wide, spaced 1.5 to 5m apart in Nambung National Park on the […]

Humans use smiles and laughter to communicate playfulness. Now, the behaviour has been confirmed in a species of dolphin too, Scientists found that bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) also use these friendly gestures, or “open mouth” facial expressions, to communicate during social play. “The relaxed open mouth, seen in social carnivores, monkeys’ play faces, and even […]

An international team of scientists and citizen scientists has just completed a herculean task: creating a complete map – called a connectome – of the entire fruit fly brain. It’s not only a scientific breakthrough, but a project – unveiled a few hours ago – that could produce major improvements in understanding how other brains […]

Scientists believe they are beginning to understand the conditions which sparked life on Earth by demonstrating in the lab a massive multiplication of DNA in just minutes. More than 4 billion years ago, chemical compounds came together to form life. This event occurred when earth was very young – just a few hundred million years […]

Baby green sea turtles are the latest in a long list of animals given their very own backpacks to help scientists study their behaviour. Hatchlings are tiny and vulnerable and make a mad dash to the sea to avoid predators. But Australian researchers wanted to understand more about how they make their way to the […]

A large-scale study of primate populations around the world has revealed which of our closest cousins are most at risk of extinction. The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It includes data from 22,705 locations across 4 regions: mainland Africa, Madagascar, Asia and the Neotropics – an area including Central […]

Hurricanes John and Helene have made international headlines this week for the destruction wrought on Mexico and the southeastern US. Climate experts and meteorologists warn that such extreme weather events are going to be more frequent due to global climate change. Storms are getting stronger, lasting longer and causing more damage to infrastructure and lives. […]

It’s not the famous Star Trek tricorder but it’s close: researchers have developed a hand-held scanner that can generate highly detailed 3D images of body parts in almost real time. The technology can accurately image blood vessels up to 15mm deep in human tissue, which the researchers say could help to diagnose conditions such as […]

Engineers inspired by marine creatures have made a fabric that adjusts to your body heat and keeps you at a temperature of your choosing. Better yet, it is breathable and washable. The US-based team say their fabric could be used in athletic apparel, food packaging, infrared camouflage, soft robotics and biomedical sensing. Their research is […]

An international collaboration is trying to solve the world’s energy crisis by building a unique kind of fusion reactor. SMART (SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak) is a fusion device being put together at the University of Seville in Spain. Over the past month, the team behind its construction has published several papers outlining the fusion technology […]

The discussion over whether to call the mildest form of prostate cancer “cancer” has returned, with a new paper suggesting that patients may benefit from avoiding the term. Prostate cancer is one of the world’s most common cancers. But it’s also one of the most treatable: caught early, patients’ chance of surviving more than 5 […]

Mount Everest is tall. In other news, the sky is blue. But Everest (also called Chomolungma and Sagarmāthā) is taller than it logically should be – towering 238m above the world’s next highest peak, K2, and more than 250m higher than any of its counterparts in the relatively uniform Himalaya range. Plus, it’s growing at […]

Astronomers have overturned long-held beliefs about the composition of dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered, when in 1801 it was spotted by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. It is the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system and is the largest object in the main asteroid belt between the orbits […]

A team at Monash University in Victoria developing a hormone-free, reversible male contraceptive has now figured out the 3D structure of one of their primary therapeutic targets – the P2X1-purinergic receptor (P2X1). According to Dr Sab Ventura from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), this has been the main stumbling block that has so […]

Record breaking hurricanes have killed at least 16 in Mexico and nearly 100 in the southeastern US in the past week. Last Tuesday, Category 3 Hurricane John made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast. The hurricane then moved along the coast before striking land again as a tropical storm. Most of the deaths have come in […]

A new study warns that sloths living in high-altitude rainforests of South and Central America could face extinction if temperatures there continue to rise according to climatic predictions. The research, published in PeerJ Life & Environment, suggests that some sloths’ restricted ability to migrate to cooler regions and limited metabolic flexibility make them particularly vulnerable […]

Scientists inspired by marine sponges have developed a new antimalarial drug that is effective against drug-resistant strains of the deadly disease. The American-led research team published details of their new drug and how it works in the prestigious journal Science this past week. Malaria is spread by mosquitos carrying single-celled Plasmodium parasites. After a period […]

Chemists have made an extremely energy-dense, environmentally friendly fuel out of nitrogen. They’ve done it by employing one of chemistry’s favourite hobbies, bullying nitrogen n (N2) into weird structures. An explosion occurred, but it was a small one. The Chinese team has successfully made the element adopt a diamond-like structure, called cubic gauche nitrogen (cg-N) […]

Lupus is thought to affect at least five million people worldwide, but treatments for the severe autoimmune disease have changed little in 60 years. While the commonly used medications glucocorticoids, also called corticosteroids or “steroids”, are effective at treating the symptoms of the disease, they also cause toxic side effects. But a leap forward has been made […]