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Australian scientists studying coral have identified heat-tolerant individuals at sites spanning the entire Great Barrier Reef. This good news suggests that some corals already have naturally occurring variation that could help them adapt to a warming climate. The Great Barrier Reef consists of over 2,500 individual reefs stretching over 340,000 square kilometres off the northeast […]

Music charts, bestseller lists and sport ladders are well-established measures of success. Fans will anxiously watch their favourites climbing the charts, crowing with delight when they make the top of a list. The photovoltaics industry has its own leaderboards, and in the world of solar, they’re just as exciting as a Hottest 100. Every 6 […]

Despite being a solitary creature, the day octopus (Octopus cyanea) has sometimes been spotted hunting with inter-species groups of fish. Scientists assumed that the octopus is in charge of the hunting pack, but a new study finds that influence is actually shared around, depending on the situation. But, say the international team of researchers, an […]

Powerful X-rays could be a viable way to divert asteroids on collision courses for Earth, according to a new study. The study, published in Nature Physics, uses lab-based experiments to suggest that X-rays might be useful for deflecting asteroids up to 4km in diameter. The chances of a large asteroid hitting the Earth are very […]

Physicists rocked the boat in 2022 when they measured the mass of the W boson particle and came up with a result that was “in tension” with Standard Model of particle physics predictions. A new precise measurement of the W boson mass by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) […]

A researcher finding existing drugs to repurpose for treating psychiatric disorders and chronic fatigue syndrome is amongst the winners of the 2024 Australian Mental Health Prize. The awards celebrate individuals who have made significant impacts in mental health through cultural security, lived experience, professional innovation, and community support. Michael Berk, Director of the Institute for […]

Physicists trying to understand a bizarre quantum phenomenon called a “pseudo-gap” believe their research could lead to room-temperature superconductivity – a holy grail for condensed matter physics. Superconductors can be used for lossless power transmission, faster MRI machines and superfast levitating transport. The drawback is that most superconductors require temperatures close to absolute zero (–273°C) […]

Rural ambulance volunteers are worried that they don’t have enough training to deal with birth emergencies: if a baby gets stuck and doesn’t progress, “calling for help is essentially our level of training,” says a rural volunteer ambulance officer who participated in a recent study from Edith Cowen University in Perth, Western Australia. The research, […]

Astronomers have discovered a unique arrangement of distant galaxies which form an exquisitely aligned gravitational lens, magnifying deep space. Called, the “Carousel Lens”, the configuration is detailed in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. It will give astronomers an opportunity to look deep into the universe and could aid in illuminating mysteries such as […]

After a century of presumed extinction, the ground dwelling Australian night parrot was revealed a decade ago to not be gone at all – just vanishingly, hauntingly rare. Researchers and Traditional Owners have caught glimpses of night parrots in Queensland and Western Australia (WA), but their numbers are heavily diminished from their 19th Century peaks. […]

Countries around the world are demanding more solar panels, electric vehicles and other technologies as they make the transition to greener sources of energy — part of the global push to address climate change. But the mining and particularly the processing of the critical minerals required to build these technologies is controlled by only a […]

A newly discovered fossil site in the northeast US provides a glimpse into an ancient ecosystem nearly 100 million years older than the first dinosaurs. The exceptionally well-preserved find is described in Nature Communications. The site is about 50km southwest of Boston, Massachusetts in the Wamsutta Formation. It dates to about 320–318 million years ago, […]

Biologists in Japan studying emus have identified a new developmental reason for their shortened and differently shaped wings. Emu embryos don’t develop muscles near the tips of their wings. A new study from the Tokyo Institute of Technology shows that without regular muscle movement, the wing bones don’t lengthen as much, and they fuse together […]

Best put your stones away, because the future of sustainable construction could mean living in glass houses. Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have developed a new kind of masonry made from 3D-printed, recycled glass. The bricks are the shape of a figure 8 and are designed to interlock, kind of […]

Smashing protons together at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has led to the first observation of quantum entanglement of quarks. Einstein once called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.” It is an effect in quantum mechanics where 2 or more particles become linked. The “entangled” particles share a single physical state and share information instantaneously. […]

Everyone who cycles knows the tribulations of a headwind and the joys of a tailwind. But according to a new study, in one tricky type of cycling, the tailwind is of little use. One of the more coveted challenges in the world of cycling is ‘Everesting’ – cycling up and down a hill until you […]

Scientists and eclipse enthusiasts alike will no longer need to worry about accidentally missing out on their view of upcoming solar eclipses. NASA has developed eclipse maps that plot in fine detail the pathway of the Moon’s central shadow (umbra) as it crosses Earth. Their new study reveals not only the true shape of the […]

Scientists are unravelling the role of dust from the Sahara in supporting life as far away as the Amazon Basin and the Bahamas. It’s not the dust but the iron it contains which helps life to thrive, and as the dust travels through the atmosphere, the iron components change. The further dust-bound iron travels from […]

The first study to coin the term “microplastics” was published in the journal Science 2 decades ago. Now, a new review by the same team argues we have enough evidence to inform our approach to tackle the global microplastics “pollution crisis.” “In our view, science will be just as important guiding the way towards solutions […]

Professor Gabrielle Belz is Chair in Immunology at the Frazer Institute at the University of Queensland, and a 2024 Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellow. She aims to understand how cells and the immune system function to protect us from illness and preserve life. Too many people have to live with disease. But when you […]

An international team of researchers has found more evidence that COVID-19 came from animals in a Wuhan food market. The researchers have identified wildlife present at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in early 2020 via traces of their DNA, and say it’s likely that some of these animals were infected with COVID-19. The study is […]

Australian researchers have constructed a safe, cheap zinc battery – using an office laminator! They say their “aqueous zinc-ion batteries” could be recyclable, easy-to-make power sources for small devices. “We made it on my desk, once,” Associate Professor Zhongfan Jia, a nanotechnology researcher at Flinders University, tells Cosmos. Most commercial batteries, like lithium-ion batteries, need […]

Antarctic krill are likely amongst the world’s most important carbon-storing organisms, according to a new study published in the influential Nature Communications journal. The findings, after a decade of research, have amazed the team behind the evaluation. The researchers estimate that Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) annually lock at least 20 million tonnes of carbon into […]

There’s new evidence that humans drove to extinction the unique megafauna on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Dwarf hippopotamuses and elephants once roamed the island, but they disappeared soon after palaeolithic humans arrived on the scene about 14,000 years ago. A new modelling study estimates that the likely population of hunter-gatherers in Late Pleistocene Cyprus […]