For 30 years, the lesser long-nosed bat languished on the endangered species list, the federal government’s sick ward for animals on the verge of being wiped out. Its story, like those of most animals on the list, was a downer. Researchers counted fewer than a thousand in 1988 as human development moved in on
It’s no secret that life can be easier for beautiful people. Studies have shown being good-looking has benefits for your health, intelligence, and helps with making friends. Being physically attractive can also literally pay off, as many people believe it can mean you make more money. In short, beautiful people are more confident, have more social
Imagine you’re heading out for a dinner date. You’re hungry and left enough time to get there and not be late, but when you step outside you find that conditions aren’t quite what you expected – you run into a 30-foot wall every few steps. What would you do? If you’re anything like me,
Your computer keyboard is probably dirtier than a toilet seat. In fact, an Australian study found that the typical desk has 400 times the amount of bacteria found on a toilet seat. Toilet seats actually harbour around 50 bacteria per square inch, making that a relatively un-germy zone. Not so with the computer, especially those shared by
People who think their knowledge and beliefs are superior to others are especially prone to overestimating what they actually know, new research suggests. Even after getting feedback showing them how much they didn’t know relevant political facts, these people still claimed that their beliefs were objectively more correct than everyone else’s. On top of
Research suggests there’s a good scientific reason why some of us struggle to look someone in the eye and hold a conversation with them. It turns out we’re not just awkward, our brains actually can’t handle the tasks of thinking of the right words and focussing on a face at the same time. The
Quick: What kind of dog is that? Using its scruffy face, plump black nose and blondish fur as clues, you might guess that it’s part or all Wheaten terrier. And that might lead you to think this dog, being of the vermin-catching terrier stock, would like to chase other animals. (Darwin’s Dogs) But according to a DNA test by researchers
Today, Microsoft is trying to keep up with other tech giants, but sixteen years ago, the company was regarded as a leader in technology. In 1999, Microsoft released a video segment about the connected home of the future. While the bulky 90s products, like a cell phone that looks more like a Game Boy, have since
Okay, time to stop everything and nut out a brain teaser: if Earth is spinning to the east at 1,180 km/h (733 mph), and we’re in a plane flying west, shouldn’t we get to our destination quicker, seeing as it’s literally spinning towards us? The short answer is no, because our plane is also
Since the beginning of last year, 2,000 Finns have been getting money from the government each month — and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, ages 25 to 58, are all unemployed and were selected at random by Kela, Finland’s social-security institution. Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now
A deaf, partially blind dog was made an honorary police pooch after helping rescue a three-year-old girl who got lost in the Australian bush, in Queensland. Seventeen-year-old blue heeler Max stayed with the girl, named locally as Aurora, overnight and then helped lead her grandmother directly to her location after a huge search and rescue
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are conducting an expedition to explore the uncharted waters in the deepest parts of the Gulf of Mexico – and the footage they’re bringing back is stunning, or horrifying, depending on your view of the underwater world. Last week, one of NOAA’s submersibles came across a large octopus on the seafloor just
Yellowstone National Park sits squarely over a giant, active volcano. This requires attention. Yellowstone has been a national park since 1872, but it was only in the 1960s that scientists realized the scale of the volcano — it’s 44 miles across — and not until the 1980s did they grasp that this thing is fully
Last year, neuroscientists used a classic branch of maths in a totally new way to peer into the structure of our brains. What they discovered is that the brain is full of multi-dimensional geometrical structures operating in as many as 11 dimensions. We’re used to thinking of the world from a 3-D perspective, so
Diamond isn’t the first material that springs to mind when it comes to bending and stretching, but scientists have found a way to manipulate one of the hardest minerals on Earth – and it could lead to a slew of technological advances. Not only is diamond hard, it’s also very brittle. But the new study
We have many options when it comes to how we drink water, given the large range of consumer products available. But which option is the smartest choice from an environmental perspective? According to the waste management hierarchy, the best option is one that avoids waste altogether. Recyclable options are less preferable, and landfill disposal
Astronomers have just finished using an X-ray telescope to peer into galactic haloes, only to find Universe’s missing matter isn’t hiding there, either. But it’s gotta be out there somewhere… The Universe is made up of loads of matter. There’s normal, or baryonic, matter – that’s the stuff we can detect. Space dust and
The mass quantities of food Americans waste every year has staggering environmental consequences, according to a study published Wednesday. “Our data suggest that the average person in the United States wastes about a pound of food per day,” said the University of Vermont’s Meredith Niles, one of the study’s authors along with researchers at the
The first scientific expedition to the depths of the Indian Ocean southwest of Java has returned with some amazing treasure: at least 11 unusual deep-sea species that were previously unknown to science. Jointly conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, the expedition collected over 12,000 specimens from
When it comes to defending the nest, ants have developed a whole bunch of unique and painful ways to stop their enemies. But a new and bizarre species of “exploding ant” (Colobopsis explodens) blows them all away. During territorial combat, these tree-dwelling ants latch onto their enemies, split open their own insides, and spill yellow,
An unusual pair showed up in the pre-dawn hours at Fire Station 82 in Wayne Township, Indiana, last week. Repeatedly pressing the doorbell was a frantic woman. In her arms was a furry, masked animal that firefighters later described as “lethargic,” fire department spokesman Michael Pruitt said. Through her panic, the woman divulged that
The deepest dive recorded by the free-diving Bajau Laut people of Southeast Asia was to an impressive 79 metres (259 feet), and the longest time spent underwater by them was just over three minutes. Although the Bajau do not dive to these depths or for this length of time during their day-to-day fishing, they
Dogs can quickly feel like part of the family, and a new study shows that our canine pals share more similarities with human beings than we thought – particularly when it comes to gut microbiomes and responses to diet. By analysing poop samples, both with and without special diets in place, researchers found that
In chaos theory, they say the infinitesimal flapping of a butterfly’s wings can hypothetically cascade into a fierce tornado. Now, scientists have demonstrated how some of the smallest creatures in the ocean could have the same outsized impact under the waves – with swarms of marine organisms inadvertently producing powerful currents that mix and churn
On 27 August 1883, Earth made the loudest noise in recorded history. Emanating from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia, the sound could be heard clearly almost 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) away and by people across 50 different geological locations around the world. According to
Amateur mathematician Aubrey de Grey has stunned the maths world by making the first significant progress in decades towards solving a longstanding riddle – one that’s perplexed mathematical thinkers for over 60 years. The riddle, called the Hadwiger-Nelson problem, is basically all about untouchable colours, and how many of them – or, rather, how
Experiments with the metal thorium have revealed a strange quirk that could be used in a totally new class of atomic clock, paving the way to a more precise timekeeping method than we’ve ever had before. Right now, the kinds of high-precision clocks we use to coordinate global positioning satellites are based on striking an electron
In 2016 the Great Barrier Reef suffered unprecedented mass coral bleaching – part of a global bleaching event that dwarfed its predecessors in 1998 and 2002. This was followed by another mass bleaching the following year. This was the first case of back-to-back mass bleaching events on the reef. The result was a 30
An unexpectedly heavy cardboard box, filled with flat-packed formations. Seemingly superfluous pieces of particle board. A madness-inducing number of screws, nails, and washers, plus the lingering fear that one might be left over. Even if you like putting together IKEA furniture, you’ve gotta admit that it’s no walk in the park. It’s the ultimate
NASA’s newest satellite is scheduled to launch on the evening of Wednesday 18 April, 22:51 UTC. Known as TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will play a crucial role in humanity’s search for planets outside our own Solar System. And it’ll be blasted into orbit by SpaceX’s famous, reusable Falcon 9 rocket. Shortly after the launch, SpaceX
How’s the air in your neighbourhood today? A new State of Global Air report suggests more than 95 percent of the planet’s population currently have to breathe polluted air – air containing fine particle levels that exceed the global air quality guidelines. What’s more, the burden of bad air quality is affecting the poorest
It’s the prettiest powder keg on the planet – the Yellowstone supervolcano, simmering under the mystique and grandeur of the national park that adorns the fearsome caldera. And scientists just got one step closer to understanding the hidden geology of this epic blowhole. Using supercomputers to model the behaviour of two known magma chambers concealed
There’s something sorely lacking in the scientific fields of astronomy and astrophysics. As it turns out, we’re still lacking logical consistency in how we measure what goes on in space. Writing for the journal Astronomy & Geophysics, retired physics professor Keith Atkin of the University of Sheffield says that our current global “system” – if
Evolution never really stops, so it stands to reason that we humans are still undergoing evolutionary changes. Now some researchers have figured out how, finding evidence in the human genome that our fertility and heart function is changing. Natural selection isn’t like getting superpowers. It involves slowly wrought changes that take generations, and are
An inspired display of animal ingenuity at a biomedical research institute in Texas saw a team of baboons work together to escape from the facility, briefly tasting sweet freedom outside its walls before eventually being recaptured. The breakout, which took place on Saturday at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute (TBRI) in San Antonio, was
Off the coast of Costa Rica, about 3 kilometres (roughly 2 miles) beneath the ocean’s surface, there is a literal mother-lode of octopuses, where octopuses have no business being. Not only does this concentration of cephalopods represent an entirely new species – which is exciting news in itself – but their numbers and unusual
Hundreds of basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) have been spotted swarming in massive groups, and it’s all a big mystery. A new study has revealed that when researchers were trying to locate the endangered North Atlantic right whales, they came across something strange. Between 1980 and 2013, these researchers spotted hundreds of basking sharks in
A realistic-looking video that seemed to show former President Barack Obama cussing and calling President Donald Trump a “total and complete dips—,” went viral on Tuesday, bringing attention to the dangers of a controversial video-editing technology that many have called “the future of fake news.” About halfway through the video, originally published by BuzzFeed,
The hypothetical cosmic portals linking two points of space-time that we call wormholes are the stuff of science fiction and space theory right now – but if they really do exist, one scientist has come up with a way we might spot them: by the shadows they leave. It’s similar to the way that
One of the fundamental climate constants that has helped define and divide the United States for centuries is shifting in response to global warming, according to new research. The 100th meridian west – the invisible line of longitude that roughly bisects the continental US in half – was historically seen as a boundary separating
Scientists have discovered that tiny diamonds found inside a meteorite show signs of originating in a lost planet – one that dates back to the earliest days of the Solar System. This amazing finding could help us figure out one of the most enduring questions of astronomy, that of the formation of planets. According
As a species, we humans tend to take it for granted that we are the only ones that live in sedentary communities, use tools, and alter our landscape to meet our needs. It is also a foregone conclusion that in the history of planet Earth, humans are the only species to develop machinery, automation, electricity,
They found the first ones in Japan. Hidden in the soil at a plastics recycling plant, researchers unearthed a microbe that had evolved to eat the soda bottles dominating its habitat, after you and I throw them away. That discovery was announced in 2016, and scientists have now gone one better. While examining how
An incredibly rare cache of Viking Age treasure has been unearthed on the German island of Rügen in the Baltic sea. Discovered by a 13-year-old boy and his teacher, the find consists of necklaces, pearls, brooches, bracelets, rings and up to 600 silver coins – and some of the treasure has been linked to a
The US and British governments on Monday accused Russia of conducting a massive campaign to compromise computer routers and firewalls around the world – from home offices to Internet providers – for espionage and possibly sabotage purposes. The unusual public warning from the White House, US agencies and Britain’s National Cyber Security Center follows a years-long
While the world was busy doing its thing on Saturday, a giant asteroid the size of a football field whizzed by our planet. NASA scientists noticed the massive asteroid at an observatory in Arizona just a few hours before it gave Earth a surprise flyby. A mere 21 hours after that initial sighting, Asteroid
The dazzling Lyrid meteor shower is starting this week. The annual shower, which happens between April 16 and 25 each year, occurs when the Earth passes through the tail of a comet. While meteor showers are difficult to accurately predict, you’ll probably get your best glimpse of it in the early morning hours of
Stonefish are already pretty badass – they’re the most venomous type of fish we know of, and have a number of sharp fin spines on their body that can unsheathe and attack you at a moment’s notice. But stonefishes have just gone up a level, with scientists discovering the group also has what is
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