Three years after construction started, the most sensitive dark matter detector ever built has served up its first set of results – and it’s working just as its makers intended. The XENON1T machine, which we first reported on back in 2015, is our best shot yet at finding the notoriously elusive dark matter, which physicists
Recent analysis of a 3.3-million-year-old hominin fossil found back in 2000 has provided researchers with the most complete spinal column of any early human relative – and gives us a unique snapshot of a crucial transition point as our early ancestors evolved towards bipedalism. According to the results of the analysis, key segments of the
Scientists have discovered 40 new genes that appear to be linked to intelligence, and the find could help neurologists understand how the human brain develops key functions associated with thinking. While the influence of these genes on intelligence is expected to be “minuscule” – a wide variety of factors are known to contribute to our IQ
A new examination of two 7.2 million-year-old fossils from southern Europe suggests that humans split off from the great apes several hundred thousand years earlier than we thought. Thanks to DNA sequencing, we know that humans and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) once split from a common ancestor, but there’s hot debate over the timing and location
Researchers have created the strongest organic acid ever – and the team thinks it could revolutionise how we analyse proteins. The strongest acid on record is fluoroantimonic acid – it’s known as a superacid, meaning it has an acidity greater than completely pure sulphuric acid. To give you an indication of how potent that is,
Researchers have constructed the world’s thinnest metallic nanowire, creating a stable string of the chemical element tellurium, that measures just one atom thick. The team behind the nanowire says the material is the most precisely configured ‘one-dimensional‘ system yet, and the technique used to produce the one-atom-thick atomic chain could lead to new advances in
Researchers have proposed a method for detecting exotic events in physics by looking for the scars they leave behind on the fabric of space. By identifying how objects like cosmic strings or evaporating black holes leave behind memories of their existence on the Universe, it might be possible to move some rather strange phenomena from
The strangest star in the Universe has suddenly kicked into gear again, with researchers reporting that its light has started dimming in bizarre ways – just like it did two years ago when it baffled scientists with its irregular light emissions. This time around, we get to watch the investigation in action, because over the
Three Russian satellites that were sent into low orbit in 2013 are on the move again, and no one knows what they are for, The Daily Beast reports. Having been idle for more than a year, one of the satellites went hundreds of metres off its orbit last month to within 1,200 metres of a piece of a
On 13 May 2017, California smashed through another renewable energy milestone as its largest grid, controlled by the California Independent System Operator (CISO), got 67.2 percent of its energy from renewables – not including hydropower or rooftop solar arrays. Adding hydropower facilities into the mix, the total was 80.7 percent. Sunny days with plenty of wind
It’s been 37 years as of last Thursday since the Mount St. Helens volcano in the US state of Washington exploded, taking 57 lives and destroying hundreds of square kilometres of forest, bridges, and homes. The US Geological Survey (USGS) has been keeping an eye on the volcano’s activity ever since, and says while it’s
Imagine a jet engine that could propel an aircraft faster than a traditional engine, taking us all the way to the edge of the atmosphere, all without burning fossil fuels – and for a low cost. That’s exactly what plasma jet engines should be able to do, although thus far they have been confined to
From our standpoint 66 million years later, it’s easy to assume the demise of the dinosaurs was an inevitability. But an international team of researchers is making a radical argument for why that may not be the case: Had the asteroid that likely wiped out the dinosaurs slammed into the planet a few minutes earlier
As well as beating us at board games, driving cars, and spotting cancer, artificial intelligence is now generating brand new sounds that have never been heard before, thanks to some advanced maths combined with samples from real instruments. Before long, you might hear some of these fresh sounds pumping out of your radio, as the
Engineers have created a nano-sized optical fibre that can sense impossibly small forces, from the turbulence generated by swimming bacteria to the sound waves made by the beating of heart cells. Sensing in biological systems could even allow us to monitor individual cells and alert us to the subtle process of a normal cell turning
Perhaps it’s global warming or climate confusion. Maybe it’s just really hard for a 17-year cicada to count down the years while he’s buried underground. Why this is happening is a total question mark, but a small fraction of the 17-year cicadas – the ones we’re supposed to see in 2021 – are creeping out of their zombie
Of the many ‘white whales’ that theoretical physicists are pursuing, the elusive magnetic monopole – a magnetic with only one pole – is one of the most confounding. Compared to the Higgs boson in terms of its potential impact on modern physics, the magnetic monopole has been on scientists’ minds for even longer. And now
Over the past 30 years, three-quarters of eastern US tree species have been shifting to the west, and at an astonishing rate of around 15.4 kilometres per decade (9.5 miles). That’s weird, because scientists have long predicted that the effects of climate change would send species towards the poles in search of familiar climates, but
Researchers in Antarctica have discovered rapidly growing banks of mosses on the ice continent’s northern peninsula, providing striking evidence of climate change in the coldest and most remote parts of the planet. Amid the warming of the last 50 years, the scientists found two different species of mosses undergoing the equivalent of growth spurts, with
Google has announced another big push into artificial intelligence, unveiling a new approach to machine learning where neural networks are used to build better neural networks – essentially teaching AI to teach itself. These artificial neural networks are designed to mimic the way the brain learns, and Google says its new technology, called AutoML, can
A new study on how genes function across the living world has added weight to the hypothesis that life on Earth was capturing energy from chemical reactions before it was copying its codes. The result throws fuel onto the original evolutionary ‘chicken and egg’ debate that asks, which came first, replicating RNA or metabolism?
The first direct detection of gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity, was reported by scientists in 2016. Armed with this “discovery of the century”, physicists around the world have been planning new and better detectors of gravitational waves. Physicist Professor Chunnong Zhao and his recent PhD students Haixing
It seems like it’s getting harder and harder to get a good night’s sleep. Myriad distractions are in cahoots, keeping you from getting enough shut-eye. We’re supposed to get seven to nine hours of sleep, but many Americans don’t hit that target every night. Sleep can provide incredible health benefits, like helping us lose weight, improving our memories, and even
NASA space probes have detected a massive, human-made ‘barrier’ surrounding Earth, and tests have confirmed that it’s actually having an effect on space weather far beyond our planet’s atmosphere. That means we’re not just changing Earth so severely, scientists are calling for a whole new geological epoch to be named after us – our activities
If you live in the US, you’re probably used to talking about weight in pounds and ounces (and having to convert things when Australians like us start talking in kilograms and grams), but here’s the thing – all your measurements are actually based on one very metric standard: the international kilogram. Veritasium host Derek Muller
Scientists have found that Proxima b – the closest Earth-like exoplanet to our own Solar System – could indeed be habitable, giving new hope that the right conditions to host alien life may lie on our cosmic doorstep. The discovery of the planet made shockwaves through the science community last year, as this newly discovered
After a little more than a year of research and more than 20 attempts to get the right materials, an Air Force Academy cadet and professor have developed a kind of goo that can be used to enhance existing types of body armour. As part of a chemistry class project in 2014, Cadet 1st Class
Scientists have shown for the first time that changes in entropy – the measure of disorder in a system – can accurately predict when a mysterious quantum flip, known as a quantum phase transition, is about to happen. That’s a big deal, because not only do we know very little about these quantum phase transitions
Scientists estimate that there are fewer than 30 vaquita porpoises left in the wild, and if serious conservation efforts aren’t enacted now, the species could reach extinction by 2018. If you’ve never seen one of these creatures before, it’s for good reason – these incredibly rare mammals are only found in the upper Gulf of
An Indian teenager has won an international competition to build a functioning satellite, and not only has he produced what is reportedly the world’s lightest satellite device – NASA has also agreed to launch it next month. The tiny satellite weighs just 64 grams (0.14 lb), and will embark on a 4-hour sub-orbital mission launched
Scientists have discovered that being an only child doesn’t just lead to behavioural differences that can set kids apart from those with siblings – it actually affects a child’s brain development, too. A new study comparing brain scans of only children and others who grew up with siblings has revealed significant differences in the participants’
For the first time, scientists have detected evidence of a magnetic field that’s associated with the vast intergalactic ‘bridge’ that links our two nearest galactic neighbours. Known as the Magellanic Bridge, the bridge is a huge stream of neutral gas that stretches some 75,000 light-years between our two neighbouring galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic
As concerns grow over the condition of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which has endured widespread coral bleaching in the past several years, scientists are finding similar damage on reefs all over the world, including in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Now, a recent expedition to the Chagos Archipelago, a collection of at least
Scientists just found a new way to split water into hydrogen and oxygen that’s cheap and effective – and it could mean we’re able to produce an abundance of clean hydrogen fuel in the future. Hydrogen is a fantastic source for clean energy, but the challenge is making enough of it to be efficient and
Astronomers have found a giant exoplanet larger than Jupiter, but with extremely low mass – a composition that gives this mysterious ‘puffy planet’ a density very similar to styrofoam. The team who found KELT-11b, which orbits a star located about 320 light-years from Earth, says this “extraordinarily inflated” world is the third-lowest density planet with a
Hundreds of large flashes have been filmed reflecting off our planet, and they’ve helped NASA solve a mystery that stumped the likes of Carl Sagan more than two decades ago. These flashes are so large, you can see them from space, and they were originally thought to be caused by sunlight reflecting off the surface
If you could travel back in time 41,000 years to the last ice age, your compass would point south instead of north. That’s because for a period of a few hundred years, Earth’s magnetic field was reversed. These reversals have happened repeatedly over the planet’s history, sometimes lasting hundreds of thousands of years. We know
Researchers have added to a growing body of evidence linking criminal psychopathy and changes in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. After scanning the brains of 124 inmates in the US, the team found that psychopathic traits such as a lack of empathy and impulsive antisocial behaviour were associated with larger than average grey matter
In the middle of the South Pacific, there’s a remote, uninhabited island, virtually hidden more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) from the closest major population centre. You’d think that this isolated sanctuary would be pretty unspoilt, but Henderson Island, which is so remote it’s only ever visited by scientists every five to 10 years, is in
On Wednesday, the Weather Channel posted a video of a digging clam to its Facebook page with the caption, “This bizarre video of a clam digging in sand has gone viral.” Never has an invertebrate prophecy been so self-fulfilling. The digging clam wracked up about 5 million views and counting. Commenters took to the clam with gusto, debating what sort of
Almost 500 years ago, Italy’s Campi Flegrei supervolcano erupted, spewing molten rock and thick plumes of smoke into the atmosphere for eight days straight, and literally forming a new mountain from the chunks of Earth it drew from below. Now, researchers are warning that this vast, fiery cauldron could be ready to blow once more,
In classical computing, information is stored in bits that are read by physical phenomena such as electricity. You might recognise them as 1s and 0s, also called binary code. In quantum computing, it’s stored in quantum bits, or ‘qubits’. However, computers aren’t the only way we can store information: chemistry is also capable. Scientists at the
You’re probably familiar with the creeping sensation you get when you think someone’s watching you. You don’t know why, but suddenly you’re convinced that someone is looking your way, even if you’re alone in your house… But is this just a trick our brain plays on us, or are we actually sensing something that’s really
No one can ever say for sure what the future will bring, but a new video has summed up all the science-backed predictions that we can reasonably make about how Earth will change over the next 1 billion years, and our poor little brains are reeling. The reality is that it’s highly unlikely that anyone
Symbolically at least, the MP3 is now officially dead, after the German research institution that helped to develop the famous (and equally infamous) standard announced that all licensing for the file format had been terminated. While any MP3s in your possession will still play fine on any devices that support the audio format – no
Despite the NSA confirming the existence of Skynet, we all should be grateful that technology has not yet advanced to the stage where a liquid metal T-1000 terminator can shape-shift its way into your home and demand to see John Connor. But scientists in China are making a solid effort make a less sinister version
For the first time ever, physicists have managed to directly detect a hydrogen bond within a single molecule – meaning we can now observe the smallest and most abundant element in the Universe in ways that scientists could only ever theorise about. The experiment also reveals just how sensitive our imaging devices have become –
An unprecedented ransomware attack spread across the globe on Friday and into the weekend, amounting to what may be the largest online extortion scam the internet has ever seen. So far, the ‘WannaCry’ ransomware worm has infected an estimated 230,000 computers in 150 countries, causing chaos and shutting down hospital systems, transport networks, manufacturing plants,