Scientists have identified an enigmatic virus whose genome seems to be almost entirely new to science, populated by unfamiliar genes that have never before been documented in viral research. | Continue reading
In 2018, Canadian scientists unveiled a handheld device that "prints" sheets of artificial skin directly onto the wounds of burn victims. | Continue reading
Amongst all the different types of cancer treatment, photodynamic therapy - where light in is used to destroy malignant cells - might have one of the strangest side effects: patients are often better able to see in the dark. | Continue reading
Mathematicians have finally figured out the three cubed numbers that add up to 42. This has settled a problem that has been pondered for 65 years: namely, can each of the natural numbers below 100 be expressed as the sum of three cubes? | Continue reading
Mathematicians have finally figured out the three cubed numbers that add up to 42. This has settled a problem that has been pondered for 65 years: namely, can each of the natural numbers below 100 be expressed as the sum of three cubes? | Continue reading
Betelgeuse keeps getting dimmer and everyone is wondering what exactly that means. The star will go supernova at the end of its life, but that's not projected to happen for tens of thousands of years or so. So what's causing the dimming? | Continue reading
Gravitational waves are caused by calamitous events in the Universe. Neutron stars that finally merge after circling each other for a long time can create them, and so can two black holes that collide with each other. But sometimes there's a burst of | Continue reading
Your eyes aren't blue (or green) because they contain pigmented cells. | Continue reading
After analyzing data from the 1950s through 2019, an international team of scientists determined that the average temperature of the world's oceans in 2019 was 0.075 degrees Celsius (0.135 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 1981–2010 average. | Continue reading
In another lifetime, if they had been allowed to follow their natural development, the stem cells taken from embryonic frogs would have turned into skin and heart tissue within living, breathing animals. | Continue reading
A defining trend in human intelligence tests that saw people steadily obtaining higher IQ scores through the 20th century has abruptly ended, a new study shows. | Continue reading
For more than a century, 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit – 37 degrees Celsius – has been used as a landmark of human health. We've suspected for a while now that the number needs adjusting, but a new study shows it's not for the reasons we thought. | Continue reading
A mysterious repeating radio signal from space revealed last year is now the fifth fast radio burst to be tracked back to its source galaxy. | Continue reading
Scientists have discovered a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain that's not been seen before. | Continue reading
Sometimes you just have to stand back in awe at the beauty of the Universe – and that's absolutely the case with this image from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which captures the side view of a spiral galaxy know as the Whale Gala | Continue reading
Some 7,800 light-years away, in the constellation of Cygnus, lies a most peculiar black hole. It's called V404 Cygni, and in 2015, telescopes around the world stared in wonder as it woke from dormancy to devour material from a star over the course of | Continue reading
As 2019 winds to a close, the journey towards fully realised quantum computing continues: physicists have been able to demonstrate quantum teleportation between two computer chips for the first time. | Continue reading
Our brains are capable of detecting the location of touch even when it's not directly on the body, new research shows. An intriguing new study indicates that we can sense how an object we're holding comes into contact with something else - almost as | Continue reading
As far as hypothetical space megastructures go, the stellar engine is one of our favourites – a gigantic contraption built with the purpose of transporting our Solar System somewhere else, if we ever need to move to a different cosmic neighbourhood | Continue reading
We love sweet treats. But too much sugar in our diets can lead to weight gain and obesity, Type 2 diabetes and dental decay. We know we shouldn't be eating candy, ice cream, cookies, cakes and drinking sugary sodas, but sometimes they are so hard to | Continue reading
Things are pretty dire right now. Giant swaths of my country are burning as I write this, at a scale unlike anything we've ever seen. Countless animals, including koalas, are perishing along with our life-supporting greenery. People are losing homes | Continue reading
It was found along the side of a road in a remote Australian gold rush town. In the old days, Wedderburn was a hotspot for prospectors – it occasionally still is – but nobody there had ever seen a nugget quite like this one. | Continue reading
Across the Milky Way there are vacant spaces where a star once brightly shone. Some left clues in a dramatic death, or faded into retirement. Others simply moved into a new neighbourhood. | Continue reading
Our planet is restless, and its poles are wandering. Of course, the geographic north pole is in the same place it always was, but its magnetic counterpart – indicated by the N on any compass – is roaming towards Siberia at record-breaking speeds | Continue reading
Our planet is restless, and its poles are wandering. Of course, the geographic north pole is in the same place it always was, but its magnetic counterpart – indicated by the N on any compass – is roaming towards Siberia at record-breaking speeds | Continue reading
Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters adapted to Europe's cold steppes. | Continue reading
Everything in our Universe is held together or pushed apart by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and two nuclear interactions. Physicists think they've spotted the actions of a fifth physical force emerging from a helium atom. | Continue reading
Five people have been confirmed dead, 31 remain in hospital with injuries and eight are still missing after sudden volcanic eruptions on Whakaari/White Island off the east coast of New Zealand. | Continue reading
There are a number of health risks that come with going to space. Aside from the increased exposure to solar radiation and cosmic rays, there are the notable effects that microgravity can have on human physiology. | Continue reading
The Chang'e-4 mission, the fourth installment in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, has made some significant achievements since it launched in December of 2018. In January of 2019, the mission lander and its Yutu 2 (Jade Rabbit 2) rover became | Continue reading
The European Parliament declared a climate emergency on Thursday, in a largely symbolic move that nonetheless increases pressure on member states to pass more decisive legislation to curb emissions. | Continue reading
Researchers have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat - an incredibly useful property that defies our current understanding of how conductors work. | Continue reading
Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world by claiming he had helped make the first gene-edited babies. One year later, mystery surrounds his fate as well as theirs. | Continue reading
Everything in our Universe is held together or pushed apart by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and two nuclear interactions. Physicists now think they've spotted the actions of a fifth physical force emerging from a helium atom. | Continue reading
For the modern astronomer, satellites are just a part of life. There are more than 2,000 active ones currently orbiting Earth, and the smartest minds in space photography have managed to work out clever ways of removing the occasional fly over from t | Continue reading
As the scale and impacts of climate change become increasingly alarming, meat is a popular target for action. Advocates urge the public to eat less meat to save the environment. Some activists have called for taxing meat to reduce consumption of it. | Continue reading
Getting everything right all of the time might sound like the ideal scenario, but such a perfect success rate can mean you're not actually learning anything new. | Continue reading
Sea levels rose 10 metres above present levels during Earth's last warm period 125,000 years ago, according to new research that offers a glimpse of what may happen under our current climate change trajectory. | Continue reading
The scientific community is in danger of overstepping (or may have already breached) its ethical responsibilities in a rush to study and understand the mysteries of the brain via experimentation with artificially grown substitutes, researchers warn. | Continue reading
We all know that Earth is old, but it's hard to put into perspective just how old it is. | Continue reading
One of the ways in which quantum technology promises to revolutionise computing is through quantum key distribution (QKD) – a quantum device that lets people securely encrypt and decrypt communications. | Continue reading
One of the ways in which quantum technology promises to revolutionise computing is through quantum key distribution (QKD) – a quantum device that lets people securely encrypt and decrypt communications. | Continue reading
In September 2018, a San Diego lab worker was undergoing training for her new job. She would be working with Vaccinia virus (VACV) and, as part of her occupational health and safety session, was offered a vaccine for smallpox in case she was accident | Continue reading
To be an ant is to never get stuck in traffic. It's one of the many perks (along with super-human strength, an armour-like skeleton and two stomachs, of course). | Continue reading
A pair of mathematicians from Australia and France have devised an alternative way to multiply numbers together, while solving an algorithmic puzzle that has perplexed some of the greatest math minds for almost half a century. | Continue reading
Those Knightscope security robots may not be so great at their jobs. | Continue reading
Scientists have observed a quantum vibration at normal room temperature for the first time, a phenomenon that usually requires ultra-cold, carefully calibrated conditions – bringing us another step closer to understanding the behaviour of quantum m | Continue reading
As a scientist, there are few things more soul-crushing than spending months or years working on a paper, only to have it rejected by your journal of choice - especially when you really feel like you're onto something important. | Continue reading