A swollen star near the end if its life has been caught devouring one of its own planets — a scenario that could one day be replayed on Earth when our own sun dies in billions of years, scientists say. Astronomers discovered the cosmic crime scene while studying an ancient star that has expanded in…
While many scientists have some dire warnings against us trying to geoengineer our way out of the climate crisis, others don’t necessarily see it that way and are working on new methods to solve the problem. Researchers are studying the idea of cloud brightening, utilizing ships to shoot salt water high into the atmosphere over…
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity flexed its 7-foot-long robotic arm for the first time since it landed on Mars. The robotics maneuver had the rover checking its motors and joints by unstowing the arm, extending it using all five joints and then stowing it again. NASA noted that weeks of testing and calibrating arm movements will…
Scientists have discovered that a space inside a special type of carbon molecule can be used to imprison other smaller molecules such as hydrogen or water. The nano-metre sized cavity of the hollow spherical C60 Buckminsterfullerene — or bucky ball — effectively creates a ‘nanolaboratory’, allowing detailed study of the quantum mechanical principles that determine…
Guess who’s not talking about climate change? Besides the usual suspects, we can now add some unusual ones: most of the major media outlets in the U.S., according to a new analysis from Media Matters for America, a media watchdog website. In the face of last month’s record heat wave in the U.S., Media Matters…
Semen doesn’t just ferry sperm. It also bears a mystery ingredient that turns on ovulation in some animals and may even pump up fertility in humans as well. The molecule, nerve growth factor, kick-starts egg release and revs up pregnancy-protective hormones in llamas, researchers report online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences….
The start of the universe should be modeled not as a Big Bang but more like water freezing into ice, a team of theoretical physicists report. As reported in the journal Physical Review D, the researchers from the University of Melbourne and RMIT University suggest that by investigating the cracks and crevices common to all…
Newfound pieces of human skull from “the Cave of the Monkeys” in Laos are the earliest skeletal evidence yet that humans once had an ancient, rapid migration to Asia. Anatomically modern humans first arose about 200,000 years ago in Africa. When and how our lineage then dispersed out of Africa has long proven controversial. Archaeological…
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have built a quantum processor that can factor a composite number – in this case the number 15 – into its constituent prime factors, 3 and 5. While the math may not be much of an achievement, performing it successfully is an important step towards factoring much larger numbers, with…
The authors of a Harvard study published in Nature Climate Change gathered their data from an unlikely source—the trip accounts of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club. Over the past 19 years, the amateur naturalist group has logged species counts on nearly 20,000 expeditions throughout Massachusetts. Their records fill a crucial gap in the scientific record. Once…