A long-standing and incredibly complex scientific problem concerning the structure and behaviour of proteins has been effectively solved by a new artificial intelligence (AI) system, scientists report. | Continue reading
At the very core of your identity a kernel of self awareness combines memories of the past with the fleeting sensations of the present, and adds a touch of anticipation for the future. | Continue reading
The origins of life, a few billion years ago, were humble. Single-celled organisms squirming in the ooze, over millions and billions of years developing into multi-celled plants and, eventually, animals. | Continue reading
Ants are pretty organised little creatures. Highly social insects, they know how to forage, build complicated nests, steal your pantry snacks, and generally look after the queens and the colony, all by working together. | Continue reading
Telling faces apart has been an important social skill in the evolution of our species. But our ability to recognise faces actually varies much more than you might think. | Continue reading
Leonardo da Vinci is famous for his elaborate, nuanced artworks and advanced technological ideas. But new research has revealed another level of complexity to his drawings: a hidden world of tiny life-forms on his artwork. | Continue reading
Every time a cell inside your body replicates, a slither of your youth crumbles to dust. This occurs via the shortening of telomeres, structures that 'cap' the tips of our chromosomes. | Continue reading
Give a corvid a conundrum and it won't stay stymied long - the long-beaked birds have legendary problem-solving skills. In fact, they're so clever that Australian crows have even figured out a way to eat poisonous cane toads. | Continue reading
The Universe seems like a lonely place. | Continue reading
One fascinating quirk of the Universe is that shapes and patterns can be found in hugely different contexts: the Golden Spiral can be seen in the human cochlea and the shape of a spiral galaxy; the fractal geometry of veins echoed in the branching of | Continue reading
The first object within the Milky Way galaxy caught emitting fast radio bursts is now officially a repeater. | Continue reading
Amongst the many problems we've had with the spread of COVID-19 is the coronavirus's ability to survive on surfaces for hours on end. While we can effectively wipe down hard materials or sterilize them with alcohol, what about more delicate surfaces | Continue reading
The bigfin squid (Magnapinna) is one of the most elusive creatures that we know. | Continue reading
Researchers have uncovered a mysterious gene in the genetic code of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 – a segment virtually hidden from view in the virus's genome, and largely overlooked until now. | Continue reading
In 1934, theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner proposed a new type of crystal. | Continue reading
Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren't our ancestors, but a sister specie | Continue reading
Matthew Kasson usually studies fungi that sicken trees and wipe out crops. But lately, he's gotten into moldy desserts. A plant pathologist and mycologist at West Virginia University, Kasson tested how various types of fungi grow on marshmallow Peep | Continue reading
After a long, seven-year development, an experimental fusion reactor in the UK has been successfully powered on for the time, achieving 'first plasma': confirmation that all its components can work together to heat hydrogen gas into the plasma phase | Continue reading
If there's one thing we know about SARS-CoV-2, is that its effects on people vary. A lot. As the pandemic rolls on, this coronavirus continues to bring new surprises. | Continue reading
Part of the challenge in controlling the coronavirus pandemic is in identifying and isolating infected people quickly – not particularly easy when COVID-19 symptoms aren't always noticeable, especially early on. Now scientists have developed a new | Continue reading
Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren't our ancestors, but a sister specie | Continue reading
Titan, the already pretty weird moon of Saturn, just got a little bit weirder. Astronomers have detected cyclopropenylidene (C3H2) in its atmosphere - an extremely rare carbon-based molecule that's so reactive, it can only exist on Earth in laborator | Continue reading
Scientists have created a super white paint that is the yin to Vantablack's yang. | Continue reading
The loss of billions of tonnes of ice from Earth's frozen spaces is likely to increase global temperatures by an additional 0.4 degrees Celsius, according to research Tuesday highlighting the danger of a "vicious circle" of warming. | Continue reading
Playing through the greenery and litter of a mini forest's undergrowth for just one month may be enough to change a child's immune system, according to a small new experiment. | Continue reading
NASA just landed a spacecraft on an asteroid and, if everything went as planned, sucked up a sample of dust and rock from the surface. | Continue reading
Medical researchers have made a surprise anatomical discovery, finding what looks to be a mysterious set of salivary glands hidden inside the human head – which somehow have been missed by scientists for centuries up until now. | Continue reading
In November 2018, after an epic, 41-year voyage, Voyager 2 finally crossed the boundary that marked the limit of the Sun's influence and entered interstellar space. But the little probe's mission isn't done yet - it's now sending home information abo | Continue reading
Solar panels offer huge potential to move more people away from electricity generated from burning coal, and a new innovation devised by scientists stands to more than double the amount of light captured by conventional solar cells. | Continue reading
In the wake of recent fluctuations in Betelgeuse's brightness, astronomers have rigorously examined the star's vital statistics, and come up with a bit of a surprise. | Continue reading
The early Earth would not have been a good place to be hanging out. | Continue reading
The human brain is a remarkable thing; our most complex machines are not even close to competing with our powers of higher consciousness and ingenuity. And yet, those 80 billion or so neurons are also incredibly fragile. | Continue reading
Mirror image is a tricky thing, but it's pretty clear when you look at words in a reflection, that mirrors flip things horizontally rather than vertically. Or, at least it seems that that's the case. | Continue reading
We stride through our Universe with the confidence of a giant, giving little thought to the fact that reality bubbles with uncertainty. | Continue reading
If you could zoom out and look at the Solar System from a distance, you'd see that the illustrations have at least one thing right: the planets are, more or less, aligned on a flat plane, circling the Sun's equator. | Continue reading
New research into the minds of crows has revealed a jaw-dropping finding: the canny corvids aren't just clever - they also possess a form of consciousness, able to be consciously aware of the world around them in the present. In other words, they hav | Continue reading
Eat or be eaten: It's an edict of Mother Nature that connects every corner of the biosphere in a sprawling web of producers, consumers, detritivores, and scavengers. | Continue reading
As the US prepares to return humans to the Moon this decade, one of the biggest dangers future astronauts will face is space radiation that can cause lasting health effects, from cataracts to cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. | Continue reading
No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists. | Continue reading
It was 1952, and Alan Turing was about to reshape humanity's understanding of biology. | Continue reading
We all know and love our Moon. It's been Earth's constant companion for billions of years, a mainstay of the skies. But it's not our only companion. | Continue reading
Magnetism and electricity are linked together in many weird and wonderful ways throughout science, including the fascinating magnetoelectric effect noticeable in some crystals – where the electrical properties of a crystal can be influenced by a ma | Continue reading
We're seeing incredible scientific discoveries being made every day, but new research indicates there's a pretty huge gap in our knowledge when it comes to our own bodies – it turns out more than 99 percent of the microbes inside us are currently u | Continue reading
When humanity finally detected the collision between two neutron stars in 2017, we confirmed a long-held theory - in the energetic fires of these incredible explosions, elements heavier than iron are forged. | Continue reading
Whether it's robots working in a disaster area, autonomous cars getting around town, or satellites peering down through space, having machines that can see through clouds, haze and fog is incredibly useful – and scientists may have just made the be | Continue reading
We talk a lot about the Standard Model of Particle Physics here at ScienceAlert - you know, the "theory of almost everything" that's the best set of equations we have to describe the behaviour of the Universe and everything in it. | Continue reading
Last year, the astronomical community achieved an absolute wonder. For the very first time, the world collectively laid eyes on an actual image of the shadow of a black hole. It was the culmination of years of work, a magnificent achievement in both | Continue reading
One of the most consumed drugs in the US – and the most commonly taken analgesic worldwide – could be doing a lot more than simply taking the edge off your headache, new evidence suggests. | Continue reading