~cosmos-magazine | Bookmarks (557)

People with nut allergies might breathe a little easier on tightly-ventilated airplanes, with new research finding they don’t pose a risk through the vents. A study published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, finds no evidence that nut allergens can spread through the air on planes. This means, according to the researchers, that banning nuts […]

Last week in Sydney, Australia hosted the inaugural Global Nature Positive Summit. It brought together government, corporate sectors, research and environmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples to “accelerate collective action to drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment”. But what does Nature Positive mean and did the summit actually do […]

Hands capable of using tools might have evolved much earlier than previously thought according to a new study of Australopithecus finger bones. The researchers analysed muscle attachment sites on the fossilised hands of 3 species of Australopithecus: A. afarensis (lived 3.9–2.9 million years ago), A. africanus (3.3–2.1 million years ago) and A. sediba (about 1.98 […]

Representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the international Solar Cycle Prediction panel met on Tuesday and announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum. The solar cycle is 11 years. At the height of the cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip and its activity intensifies. “During solar maximum, the number […]

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas) will be visible over Australian skies in the coming days. The comet has already made international headlines for the incredible views it has produced over the northern hemisphere. It became visible to the naked eye soon after it passed its perihelion (the point at which its orbit is closest to the […]

About 700 light-years away is a pair of stars which have put on quite a show. Dramatic and colourful close-ups from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show a binary system of rambunctious stars. See the high-resolution image here. The system is called R Aquarii. The primary star is an aging red giant more than 400 times […]

What sound does a frog make? If you said “croak” or “ribbit” or even “bonk” like the  Australian pobblebonk frog, you’d be right. And now, thanks to new research, “Star Trek whistle” is also a correct answer! Seven newly discovered species of frogs in Madagascar have been named for their unique calls, some of which […]

A new fossil found in South Australia’s Nilpena Ediacara National Park represents the earliest evidence of an animal with left-right asymmetry. It is also one of the first animals which could move on its own. The animal, Quaestio simpsonorum, is described in a paper published in Evolution & Development. It lived 555 million years ago […]

Astronomers have solved a nearly 30-year-old mystery about a brown dwarf. It is, in fact, brown dwarfs: there are 2 of them. Brown dwarfs are astronomical objects that are bigger than planets, but smaller than stars – they’re massive enough to emit faint light. The brown dwarf Gliese 229B was discovered in 1995, and has […]

The Earth has been constantly hit by meteorites in its long life time, but scientists only now working out where they came from have found surprising results. Previously, the origin of only 6% of meteorites was known. Scientists determined that this small fraction of meteorites came from the Moon, Mars and Vesta – one of […]

A secret tomb has been discovered underneath Al-Khazneh – the Treasury building at the World Heritage Site of the ancient city Petra in Jordan. The unexpected find includes the remains of 12 skeletons. Petra (originally known to inhabitants as Raqēmō) is an entire city carved by hand into the walls of a desert canyon. It […]

Wildlife tourism rangers could be a “powerful” force in conservation monitoring, according to the results of a research project in Uganda. Surveying wildlife is a costly and difficult part of conservation. But this project, done with African lions in Uganda, found that local rangers were well-equipped to dramatically improve the data. A paper describing the […]

Australia’s Red Cross blood service wants to stop doctors throwing away tens of thousands of litres of valuable blood every year. New research from the blood service known as “Lifeblood” reveals that 73,000 bags of discarded blood from people with an iron disorder could be used to save thousands of lives. The Red Cross says […]

A leading digital health expert says that current models of healthcare – driven as they are by economic and environmental pressures – are no longer sustainable. The Director of the Queensland Digital Health Centre (QDHeC), a leading digital health research unit based at the University of Queensland, Clair Sullivan is working to create what she […]

An international team of researchers has literally uncovered animal life thriving beneath sections of the seafloor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. While microbes and viruses have been found in similar subseafloor habitats, this study demonstrates that larger animals can live there, too. The researchers focused on the East Pacific Rise, a volcanically active […]

The genome extracted from a 2,300-year-old skeleton has helped map out ancient immigration to the Japanese archipelago. Japan has been inhabited by people since about 35,000 years ago. Roughly 16,500 years ago a group of Neolithic hunter-gatherers, referred to as the “Jomon” culture, developed a complex society including the production of pottery and jewellery. About […]

A randomised-control trial has found that acupuncture can help reduce leg pain in patients with sciatica. The study is published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese practice involving the insertion of needles into specific points in the body, known as “acupoints”. While there’s evidence it can help treat chronic pain, the researchers […]

High-tech textiles might be a smart way to reduce the toll on humans in heating cities. Some, based on lotus leaves, might even repel rain. A new paper published in Science Bulletin highlights several fabrics developed by different teams of researchers, which can passively cool bodies and buildings. These fabrics, argue the authors, could keep […]

A rise in the number of articles about adult ADHD on social media might have led to an increase in people who believe they have the illness, according to a new survey. The survey of US citizens by Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre shows that 25 per cent of adults believe they might have […]

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, designed to probe for habitable environments beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa, is on its way to the outer Solar System. After a textbook launch at 12:06:00 PM, local time, into beautiful blue skies above NASA’s Kennedy Spaceflight Center (KFC), Cape Canaveral, Florida, it rocketed through Earth orbit and […]

The Australian government has announced an additional $95 million package to prepare for the arrival of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which is causing the deaths of poultry, wild birds and mammal species worldwide. The funding includes extra vaccines for humans. Australia is currently the only continent free from the H5N1 strain, […]

Metabolic factors like high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity are linked to bowel cancer risk, according to a new review. Researchers, who have published a study in Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology, suggest that metabolic health programs should be run in conjunction with bowel cancer screening. Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer […]

In some positive news, a big and broad study has found that 7 of Europe’s most common forest trees have adapted to major climatic shifts and protected their genetic diversity. The trees, the researchers found, were able to do this despite sharp declines in population range and numbers, especially during ice ages. The results of […]

One of the earliest examples of a winged seed has been found in a mine in China’s Anhui province. The fossil dates to 365 million years ago – a period known as the Femennian. An examination of fossil seeds enables palaeontologists to understand how plants evolved and reproduced. Before seeds, plants reproduced through spores. Ferns […]