Our brain waves can synchronise with others when we’re in conversation with them, according to new research. It’s not quite mind reading, but it could teach us more about the nature of language and relationships. Based on readings from electroencephalography (EEG) machines, the study shows remarkable similarities between brain activity as two people chat to
Make some room tortoises and whales, because it looks like tubeworms have the real secret to longevity. A new study has found that these deep-sea animals from the Gulf of Mexico can live to be between 100 and 300 years old. “At more than 250 years old, Escarpia laminata achieves a lifespan that exceeds other
Finding time to stop, plug in and recharge could become history, with scientists developing a new electrode design that could charge batteries in seconds instead of hours. They say it could solve not only the pain of recharging phones, but also solve one of the primary issues holding back the electric vehicle market. Previous
One thousand years. That is the minimum length of time it would take us to get to the nearest star – Proxima Centauri – using current methods. But since we discovered that this star houses a potentially habitable planet, scientists have been more enthusiastic about the idea of interstellar travel than ever before. “It’s
Elon Musk has announced via Twitter that he received verbal approval for this plan to build an underground Hyperloop between New York and Washington – which would also stop at Philadelphia and Baltimore. As a result, one could get from New York to D.C. in just 29 minutes. It’s worth noting that the approval
Jude Sparks was out on a family hike in the desert near Las Cruces, New Mexico, testing walkie-talkies, when the then-9-year-old boy tripped over a rocky protrusion. When Jude got up again, he examined what appeared to be two large, fossilised teeth jutting out from the terrain. Farther up, he spotted what looked like a
You might have trouble getting strong Wi-Fi into your attic room but connecting the wider cosmos is on a whole different level – and one expert says it could take 300,000 years to hook up the whole of the Milky Way. Instead of stretching cables from planet to planet we could flash light from our
For the first time in 130 years, researchers have discovered a new species of sunfish that has escaped taxonomy records for almost three centuries. The bizarre new species has been named the Hoodwinker sunfish (Mola tecta), and has been found in the cold waters of New Zealand, southern Chile, South Africa and the south-east coast
The question of when people first arrived in Australia has been the subject of lively debate among archaeologists, and one with important consequences for the global story of human evolution. Australia is the end point of early modern human migration out of Africa, and sets the minimum age for the global dispersal of humans.
Mister Fantastic might not be the hottest superhero in the extensive Marvel Universe roster right now. But there’s no denying the Fantastic Four leader’s power to stretch and contort his plasticky limbs into any nook or cranny has helped save the day (and the world) many times over. While Reed Richards is alas only fictional,
An odd phenomenon in quantum mechanics called backflow has just gotten a little weirder with new research showing not only can particles seem to ignore momentum and leap backwards, they are able to do so while a force urges them on. This is the first time the property has been theoretically mapped out to show
Dogs are heartwarmingly friendly. They lick us, jump on us, would probably buy us a house if they could. We love them for it – even if sometimes they’re a little too overenthusiastic – but the reason behind why these animals are so hypersocially engaging has never been fully understood. Now, a new study examining
More than 9 billion tons of plastic has been produced since 1950, and the vast majority of it is still around. A new study that tracked the global manufacture and distribution of plastics since they became widespread after World War II found that only 2 billion tons of that plastic is still in use.
At the ISS R&D conference today, Elon Musk provided some much-anticipated updates on SpaceX’s upcoming manned mission to the Red Planet, explaining that the trip hinges on the success of the company’s Falcon Heavy. Once it launches this year, the Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world. It will be able
A melting Swiss glacier thawed by rising temperatures has revealed the bodies of a couple missing for 75 years. It’s not exactly a happy ending for their relatives, but at least it’s an ending, after many decades of uncertainty. Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin, rural residents who lived near the Diablerets mountains, went out to tend
Right now the average lead time for a tornado warning in the US is 13 minutes, but a new prediction system promises to push that out to an hour or beyond: it’s called Warn on Forecast (WoF), and it’s just been successfully tested for the first time. The system is being developed by the National
In a classic swords-to-plowshares move, two converted WB-57F aircraft flown by NASA’s Airborne Science Program will greet the shadow of the Moon as it rushes across the contiguous United States on Monday, August 21st on a daring mission of science. “We are going to be observing the total solar eclipse with two aircraft, each carrying
Hong Kong is approaching a severe breaking point, with the brimming urban centre having almost run out of space for storing the 15,000 tonnes of garbage it produces every day. With a population of almost 7.4 million people squeezed into a space just over 1,106 square kilometres (427 square miles) in area, Hong Kong qualifies
If you like stunning cinematography capturing the windswept grandeur and awe-inspiring beauty of this rocky little planet we call home, we have some glorious news. The BBC has uploaded to YouTube a stupendous 40 hours of bonus footage filmed during the production of its award-winning Planet Earth II documentary series – which you can now
If you like stunning cinematography capturing the windswept grandeur and awe-inspiring beauty of this rocky little planet we call home, we have some glorious news. The BBC has uploaded to YouTube a stupendous 40 hours of bonus footage filmed during the production of its award-winning Planet Earth II documentary series – which you can now
Scans taken of fluids moving through rock have shown engineers have had it wrong when it comes to substances flowing through porous materials. For the past century, the movement of gases and liquids through rocks has been modelled using a law that assumes they flow in a stable pattern. Under the microscope, it turns out
Jurassic Park’s most iconic scenes should have run a little slower, based on new research suggesting our favourite dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, couldn’t manage more than a walk. Calculating the top speed of the tyrant lizard king seems to be an obsession for paleontologists, who have debated over the decades whether the giant predator was a
A key tool in the fight against atmospheric carbon just got a big boost, with scientists finding a way to significantly speed up the process of locking away carbon in water or rocks – known as carbon sequestration. Sequestration involves some complex chemical reactions, and the new research demonstrates a way of speeding up one
You know that creepy black sphere used as a floating interrogation droid in Star Wars? It seems like scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) pretty much designed the complete opposite of that, and we want one for our very own. Called Int-Ball, this adorable little camera drone resembles something Pixar might have come up
In January of 2016, astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin published the first evidence that there might be another planet in our Solar System. Known as “Planet 9”, this hypothetical body was estimated to be about 10 times as massive as Earth and to orbit that our Sun at an average distance of 700 AU.
On July 14, Maryam Mirzakhani, Stanford professor of mathematics and the only female winner of the prestigious Fields Medal in Mathematics, died at the age of 40. In just a few hours, her name, both in her native Farsi (#مریم میرزاخانی) and English (#maryammirzakhani), was trending on Twitter and Facebook. Most major news agencies were
The thatched roof held back the sun’s rays, but it could not keep the tropical heat at bay. As everyone at the research workshop headed outside for a break, small groups splintered off to gather in the shade of coconut trees and enjoy a breeze. I wandered from group to group, joining in the discussions.
At least three quarters of the human genome consists of non-functional, ‘junk DNA‘, according to a new study, and the actual proportion is likely to be even greater than that. Ever since Watson and Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA back in the 1950s, scientists have been debating what extent of the genome
As a guest speaker at the 2017 National Governors Association Summer Meeting, entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk covered a number of topics, including artificial intelligence (AI). During his talk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO and founder urged the US governors present on Saturday to set up regulations for the development of AI. Musk is very familiar
Many people spend their workdays indoors under fluorescent lights and in front of computers, then return home to bask in the glow of television screens. But spending too much time inside isn’t good for us. And nature is beneficial – maybe essential – for human health. Psychologists and health researchers are finding more and more
Behold the FlatScope, an innovative implant scientists hope could one day beam sensory information straight to your brain – skipping the need to repair eyes or ears to restore vision or hearing. Not only that, the team behind the FlatScope says it has the potential to capture brain activity in much more detail than currently
Aquatic plants buried underground for more than a century can be revived and regrown, according to a new study investigating the phenomenon of ‘ghost ponds’ – ponds that aren’t properly drained but filled in with soil and vegetation under agricultural land. Restoring some of these buried ponds, and the habitats hidden in limbo beneath the
As an artificial intelligence researcher, I often come across the idea that many people are afraid of what AI might bring. It’s perhaps unsurprising, given both history and the entertainment industry, that we might be afraid of a cybernetic takeover that forces us to live locked away, “Matrix”-like, as some sort of human battery.
Verily is releasing millions of male mosquitos treated with a naturally occurring bacteria that renders them sterile in Fresno. This is the largest such field trial in US history and part of a major effort to fight Zika virus and dengue fever. Verily, the life sciences arm of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has created a robot
Astronomers have discovered a massive supercluster of galaxies located approximately 4 billion light-years from Earth – and not only is it one of the largest known structures in the cosmos, it’s also the most distant supercluster we’ve ever observed. See, in space, everything is a question of perspective. From where you sit, the planet you’re
Planetary scientists and Mars rovers have a special method for choosing vacation days – they wait for the Sun to get in the way. From July 22 to August 1, NASA won’t be sending communications to any of its Mars gear – two rovers and three orbiters – thanks to the joys of a Mars
An amazing hydrogen-powered round-the-world ocean voyage has just gotten underway, with the US$5.25-million Energy Observer setting sail from Paris on the weekend. The French vessel, which is set to make 101 stopovers in 50 countries across the globe during its epic 6-year undertaking, runs on wind and solar power, plus hydrogen generated from seawater through
The discovery began with a rumour about a fishing “honey hole” somewhere off the Alabama coast where the red snapper was plentiful. By the time Ben Raines – an environmental reporter for the Mobile Press Register – heard about the location, the rumour had evolved. Apparently, a local dive shop owner told him, the
If you thought your commute was bad Thursday, it probably wasn’t as bad as what people dealt with while driving along a coastal highway in Depoe Bay, Oregon. A truck carrying 7,500 pounds (3.4 tonnes) of hagfish – or slime eels – tipped over while trying to make a stop, tossing containers of slime-covered prehistoric
Asteroid impact, exploding stars, intense bursts of radiation… a whole variety of astronomical events could see the end of the human species, not to mention the destruction of all manner of global ecosystems. But according to new research, a microscopic animal known as a water bear – or, when applying for jobs, a tardigrade (Milnesium
The Milky Way Galaxy alone is home to between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, and each is potentially orbited by planets. There are probably at least two trillion galaxies like ours in the observable universe, each one populated by trillions of planets orbiting hundreds of billions of stars. Even if planets capable of sustaining
Giant Convecting Mud Balls of the Early Solar System might sound like a horror movie from the 1960s, but as a recently published paper it’s got fewer rubber alien suits and more evidence on how our planet might have formed 4.5 billion years ago. A recent study suggests that as terrestrial planets like ours formed
Former NASA climate chief James Hansen believes climate change’s most dangerous effect will be a continuous rise in sea levels and not necessarily the increase in temperatures. Because so many people live in coastal cities, the mass migrations inland that will follow this rise could leave the world in ungovernable chaos. Simply fixating on the potential
Astronomers say they have detected “strange signals” coming from the direction of a small, dim star located about 11 light-years from Earth. Researchers picked up the mysterious signals on May 12 using the Arecibo Observatory, a huge radio telescope built inside of a Puerto Rican sinkhole. The radio signals appear to be coming from
Since we first spotted the TRAPPIST-1 system in February, scientists have been scrambling to learn more about these seven rocky planets circling around their red dwarf star – but research suggests the planets aren’t as hospitable as we’d hoped. Two more reports on TRAPPIST-1 again identify challenging conditions that would make it difficult for extraterrestrial
Have humans damaged the Earth’s ecosystems so severely that we’re well on our way to the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs vanished 66 million years ago? And are we running out of time to reverse the negative impacts of our actions? Three scientists who have studied extinctions of thousands of species of vertebrates believe
Nearly half of long-haul flights at some of world’s busiest airports could face disruptions on the hottest days because of extreme heat under climate change toward the end of the century, a new study said Thursday. On hot days, flights experience weight restrictions. Focusing on five major aircraft at 19 of the world’s busiest airports,
If all goes according to plan for Moon Express, we could have the beginnings of a Moon mine as soon as 2020. First the private Florida-based space exploration company just needs to land a probe on the lunar surface, a feat so far only managed by national space agencies. Should they do it they’ll earn
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