NEW YORK, UNITED STATES – 1987: Cold slice of superconductor (ceramic metal alloy) floating for a few seconds above magnet at IBM lab. (Photo by Henry Groskinsky/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images) Physics-y social media is abuzz this week about this Twitter thread from Brian Skinner, a postdoc in condensed matter theory at MIT. This is,
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that corvids (crows, rooks and ravens) are remarkably intelligent birds. Now these feathered geniuses have been given a job: six rooks have been trained to pick up rubbish in the Puy du Fou historical theme park in western France. Whenever Boubou, Bamboo, Bill, Black, Bricole and Baco deposit
If you’ve ever snapped a bundle of dry spaghetti before putting it in the pot, you know what a mess it makes. Small pieces of pasta fly off everywhere as the pieces snap into tiny bits along the middle. The way spaghetti breaks is fascinating, though. Go get a single piece of spaghetti, grasp it
Sometimes, you need a reminder that the world isn’t all bad. Today, the reminder we bring you is this adorable ‘Japan pig’ – a brand new species of pygmy seahorse just discovered in southeastern Japan. “Japan is recognised as a global hotspot of marine biodiversity, with 53 recorded species of syngnathids, including ten species of
A fire in Glacier National Park, in Montana’s Rocky Mountains, has sparked evacuations over the weekend as record heat and high winds caused the fire to spread. The Howe Ridge Fire first ignited over the weekend after lightning struck on Saturday. The wildfire spread rapidly as triple-digit temperatures and high winds fed the flames. Over
Cofounder of Google DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images for TechCrunch) DeepMind, a Google-owned artificial intelligence company, has developed an AI system that can accurately identify 50 different types of eye condition as accurately as a doctor. The system — capable of analysing 3D retinal OCT scans for early signs of conditions like glaucoma,
MITZPE RAMON, Israel (Reuters) – Thousands of star-gazers gathered overnight at one of the darkest spots in Israel hoping to be dazzled by the annual Perseid meteor shower, only to be left somewhat disappointed by the show. Cars drive through Ramon Crater during the Perseid meteor shower near the town of Mitzpe Ramon, southern Israel,
Plexal EntranceGrimshaw Architects Plexal is the innovation centre and coworking space at Here East in the heart of the Olympic east London. Tech startups and scaleups from across industries (everything from AI and cybersecurity to HealthTech and EdTech) connect and collaborate in a unique environment. 12 female-founded businesses recently took part in Plexiglass: an eight-week
He wasn’t a pilot, and as far as authorities can tell, didn’t have a pilot’s licence. So how did a man with no apparent flying experience successfully steal and take off in a large commercial passenger plane? According to Richard Russell – the identified culprit behind a brazen and ultimately fatal unauthorised flight above Seattle
Gamma-ray bursts are the brightest and most energetic events in the Universe. They’re also some of the more mysterious – but now researchers have made a discovery that could help us understand the conditions under which they occur. The light curves of six gamma-ray burst events showed evidence of complex time-reversible wavelike structures – that
SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, held a hush-hush conference in Colorado this week to formulate a plan for landing people on Mars and building an outpost. The inaugural ‘Mars Workshop’, first reported by Eric Berger at Ars Technica, happened Tuesday and Wednesday in Boulder, Colorado. SpaceX reportedly sent invitations to about 60
The macro world as we know it is governed by Newton’s laws of motion and gravity – what goes up, must come down. But a team of physicists from Columbia University have put forward a theoretical paper that turns this idea on its head. They say there might actually be particles with negative mass –
Recognising faces is essential for how we interact in complex societies, and is often thought to be an ability that requires the sophistication of the large human brain. But new evidence we published in Frontiers in Psychology shows that insects such as the honeybee (Apis mellifera) and the European wasp (Vespula vulgaris) use visual processing
It might not be a happy ending, but in the circumstances, it’s the happiest we could have hoped for. Tahlequah, aka the orca mother J35, has finally surrendered her deceased newborn calf, after carrying her lifeless body for seventeen straight days in an arduous display of animal grief and denial that made headlines around the
Martian dust storms are a pretty common occurrence, and generally happen whenever the southern hemisphere is experiencing summer. Though they can begin quite suddenly, these storms typically stay contained to a local area and last only about a few weeks. However, on occasion, Martian dust storms can grow to become global phenomena, covering the entire
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Normally, when you think of particle accelerators you think of very large structures that are made of lots of shiny metal, wires hanging from the ceiling and are normally located in remote locations. But imagine an accelerator that you could hold in your hand, or even
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin The Perseids Meteor Shower is considered one of the best meteor showers to watch because of the high rate of visibility and the comfortable summer evenings that make it easy to watch. This year should be better than most because the crescent moon will be setting
Scientists have sequenced the full genome of a tiny fern with leaves the size of gnats that could help in cutting atmospheric carbon dioxide, fixing nitrogen in agriculture, and shooing insects from crops. Azolla filiculoides is a water fern often found fertilizing rice paddies in Asia, but its ancestry goes much further back. “Fifteen million years
The saying goes that the Taj Mahal is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening, and golden when the moon shines. Though this may once have been true for the famously pristine marble monument, a mixture of pollution and poor management has now burdened the Taj with a 24-hour layer of yellowy-brown. Condemning
(Reuters) – NASA launched a space probe early Sunday that will go closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before, the agency announced. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., August 12, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Brown The craft will endure extreme heat while zooming through the solar corona
FOCA, Bosnia (Reuters) – A meteor shower lit up the skies above eastern Bosnia on Saturday night, giving star gazers a rare opportunity to see a display of shooting stars with the naked eye. A meteor streaks across the skies over the Sand Pyramids during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower in the village
The heat wave that has swept Europe over the summer may not be very pleasant for the human population, but rare pink tropical birds at a nature reserve in southwest England sure seem excited. Officials at Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) Slimbridge, a wetland wildlife reserve in Gloucestershire, said in a statement Thursday that six Andean flamingos laid
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Tornadoes are rare in both New Mexico and the mountains. This one hit the state in 2015, but another touched down at an unusually high elevation this week. PHOTOGRAPH BY Marko Korosec / Barcroft Media Yes, a tornado touched down not only right in the middle
Saturday would have been Eijkman’s 160th birthday.Jynto via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thiamine_cation_3D_ball.png) In the 1870s, an epidemic struck Indonesia. The disease was familiar to people in east Asia; Indonesians knew it as beriberi, from the word “beri” which means “weak,” and it had been an occasional problem in the region for thousands of years. But suddenly
It’s no secret that the network of cables that forms the physical infrastructure of the Internet is potentially vulnerable to attacks, accidents and sabotage. In 2008, off Alexandria, Egypt, the anchor of a ship severed two major submarine cables, the FLAG and the SeaMeWe-4: the consequences were felt in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin ‘Earthquake? … No captain, battle formations…’‘300’ (2006) The Thermopylae, the hot gates or also gates of fire, is a mountain pass in modern Greece where legend tells that King Leonidas and 300 of his Spartan warriors fought millions of Persians, during Xerxes’ invasion of Greece in
A grieving orca was spotted off the coast of Washington state Thursday, carrying her stillborn calf through the Pacific Ocean for the 17th day in a journey that has astonished and devastated much of the world. Tahlequah, as the mother has come to be called, gave birth on July 25 in what should have been
When drivers navigate busy intersections, most of them fail to look out for pedestrians or cyclists when turning right, according to a new study. In the summer, cars must share the road with more pedestrians and cyclists than usual, and in Toronto this is causing an epidemic of car accidents. By the start of June,
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin The field of neuroscience has a decent grasp on many of the ways our brain develops, processes stimuli and reacts to the world around us. But with each passing day, that world becomes noisier, more cluttered and chaotic. The fast paced, 24-hour news cycles, never-ending streams
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin A woman gestures as she wades through the water in the flooded Moscu neighbourhood, in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, on July 10, 2018 after heavy downpours from Tropical Storm Beryl. – The National Office of Meteorology (Onamet) reported on Tuesday that tropical storm Beryl is located
A small hydropower dam in Zambia with a capacity of 1 MWUNIDO In 2008, Switzerland introduced a feed-in tariff to promote the expansion of renewable energy sources. While the law incentivized sources such as wind and solar, the developers of small hydropower projects were the biggest beneficiaries: following passage of the feed-in tariff, 116 small
A galaxy in nearby space called Segue 1 is quite the oddity. It’s very small, and very faint, it hangs out very close to the Milky Way, and no one knows quite where it came from. But now astronomers have accurately measured its movement for the first time, which has finally offered some clues. So
When gold hunters in Russia collected the yellowish stone in 2016, they thought it might contain a precious metal. It didn’t – but what it did contain was far more rare and valuable. The rock had come from space, and it contained a new, never-before-seen mineral. It has yet to be officially documented, but scientists
Vice President Pence laid out an ambitious plan Thursday that would begin creating a military command dedicated to space and establish a “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the US military as soon as 2020, the first since the Air Force was formed shortly after World War II. Pence warned of the advancements that
The rooftops of our cities are wowefully under-utilised, despite the constant-battle for land (Image credit: Shutterstock) With space at a premium, cities are exploring new ways to make better use of their rooftops. Our cities have never been denser, taller, or busier than they are now, and with that, comes the constant battle for land.
When it comes to online dating, a majority of men and women pursue partners who are “out of their league”, reaching out to people who are 25 percent more desirable than themselves, according to a new study. University of Michigan professors Elizabeth Bruch and M.E.J. Newman, who study human behaviour, analysed the messages between heterosexual
Life is short, and we spend a lot of our time sleeping, which is why the idea of hypnopedia, or the ability to learn during sleep, has been tantalising scientists for so long. Now, a new study adds more evidence against the whole idea. According to the new research, while the brain is capable of
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday announced an ambitious plan to usher in a new “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the military by 2020, but the proposal was scorned by opponents and may struggle to get liftoff in a divided Congress. Trump has strongly championed the idea of creating a
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday outlined an aggressive plan for creating a sixth branch of the U.S. military by 2020 – a Space Force to better confront emerging security threats – but the proposal will need approval from a divided Congress. Critics view the creation of a Space Force as an
Birds perceive colors in categories just like humans do: a recent study shows that zebra finches perceive red or orange, even when reality is a shade somewhere in between A female zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) with colored discs that she had been trained to flip over. The birds were rewarded with a food treat hidden
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Shutterstock As Russian gold hunters sifted through rocks they came across something entirely more valuable, a meteorite found to host an alien mineral we have yet to document. The mineral was found in the Uakit meteorite, which was named for the tiny town in eastern Russia
Physics is a huge, complex field. It also happens to be one of the most fascinating, dealing with everything from black holes and wormholes to quantum teleportation and gravitational waves. But unless you have an innate knowledge of the field, it’s pretty hard to figure out how all these concepts actually fit together – and
All around the world, countries are seeing dwindling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Ageing populations are leading to greater spending on healthcare and pensions, but the number of people working and paying taxes is steadily going down. As a result, these countries are at risk of becoming “demographic time bombs,” signifying a crisis of
If you’re in Bermuda at the right time of the month, you’re in for a treat. Around 2-5 days after the full moon, and around 55 minutes after sunset, the Bermuda fireworm swims to the ocean surface and flares into brilliance, lighting up with an incredible bioluminescent glow. The creature lives most of its life in mucus
In the Australian town of Jimboomba, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Brisbane, a tawny frogmouth had an unfortunate run-in with a barbed wire fence. “If you can picture a 6 foot chain fence with barbed wire at the top – that’s where it was stuck,” senior wildlife carer and president of Reptile Rehabilitation Queensland
Our DNA and chromosomes are the basic genetic information that make us what we are. Now, in a new first, scientists have figured out how our chromosomes move inside our cells – and that this movement may play a role in our health. There are 3 billion base pairs of DNA packed into 23 human
Scientists are pondering what might be called the volcanic solution to global warming. It would be the ultimate desperate measure, a climatological Hail Mary and, possibly, a very bad idea. The only reason it’s an actual subject of research is that human civilization has failed to take steps to stave off dangerous levels of climate
Aim your binoculars to the sky tonight, because we’re about to be visited by the remnants of a badass, glowing green comet nicknamed the ‘Incredible Hulk’. It’s likely the first time this comet will be visiting our Solar System, and is making its closest pass of our planet, reaching as close as 113.4 million km
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 17
- Next Page »