Moth that causes rash is spreading due to warming temperatures, scientists find

The browntail moth is a scourge in America's most forested state, where it defoliates trees and causes a rash in humans that resembles poison ivy.

Continue reading...

Brains of cosmonauts get ‘rewired’ to adapt to long-term space missions, study finds

Our brain can change and adapt in structure and function throughout our lives. As human exploration of space reaches new horizons, understanding the effects of spaceflight on human brains is crucial. Previous research has shown that spaceflight has the potential to alter both the shape and function of an adult brain.

Continue reading...

Russia pulls out of European spaceport, abandoning a planned launch

Russia has decided to suspend cooperation with European launch officials, and says it will withdraw its personnel from Europe's main spaceport. The chief of Russia's main space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the decision on Twitter Saturday morning, saying his country was responding to sanctions placed on Russia by the European Union. Europe, the United States, and other nations around the world issued significant sanctions on Russia this week after the country's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Continue reading...

Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out How to Grow New Bone Using Sound Waves

Scientists from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia have managed to regrow bone by firing high-frequency sound waves at stem cells.

Continue reading...

SpaceX launching 50 Starlink satellites, landing rocket today: Watch it live

SpaceX will launch 50 satellites and land the returning booster today (Feb. 25), and you can watch the action live. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 50 Starlink internet spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California today at 12:12 p.m. EST (1712 GMT; 9:12 a.m. local California time). You can watch live here at Space.com courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage will start about 15 minutes before liftoff.

Continue reading...

Science Says You Need to Have More 3-Day Weekends

It's time to start taking Fridays back -- blame science.

Continue reading...

Why Women Suffer More Migraines Than Men

One in four women has had a migraine. And, it turns out, the debilitating headaches affect three times more women than men. Decades ago, these headaches were attributed to women's inability to cope with stress, a sort of hysteria. Now experts are starting to figure out the factors that really make a difference.

Continue reading...

Scientists are recruiting elephant seals to eavesdrop on whales

Roughly a decade ago, a team of biologists glued audio recording devices onto the backs of a handful of elephant seals on the California coast. They wanted to know if the seals — identified as males by their cartoonish faces with trunk-like noses — make noises as they swim out to sea in search of food.

Continue reading...

The majority of psychology journal editors are men and based in the US

Journal editors are like science’s gatekeepers: they decide what gets published and what doesn’t, affecting the careers of other academics and influencing the direction that a field takes. You’d hope, then, that journals would do everything they can to establish a diverse editorial board, reflecting a variety of voices, experiences, and identities.

Continue reading...

Two supermassive black holes on verge of colliding spotted by scientists

Astronomers believe they have spotted two colossal black holes orbiting each other that are set to collide in the future—an event so energetic it will shake the fabric of space and time. The discovery was made by scientists observing a quasar, which is the name given to extremely bright cores of galaxies where gas is superheated to millions of degrees by a supermassive black hole.

Continue reading...

Japan Wants to Make Half Its Cargo Ships Autonomous by 2040

Upon reaching its port the autonomous ship was even able to steer itself into its designated bay, with drones dropping its mooring line.

Continue reading...

Government climate advisers say cut fossil fuels to lower energy bills

The best way to ease consumers' pain from high energy prices is to stop using fossil fuels rather than drill for more of them, the government's climate advisers say. Some Tory MPs want the government to expand production of shale and North Sea gas, saying it would lower bills. But advisers said UK-produced gas would be sold internationally and barely reduce the consumer price.

Continue reading...

Chinese Rover Spots Unusual Glass Beads on Far Side of the Moon

A pair of translucent glass spheres, each measuring over a half-inch thick, have been spotted in an impact crater near the lunar south pole. They’re the first of their kind to ever be discovered on the Moon. New research in Science Bulletin describes the “the first discovery of macroscopic and translucent glass globules on the Moon.” The beads likely formed from the heat generated by a violent impact or possibly from early volcanic activity.

Continue reading...

America’s most widely consumed cooking oil causes genetic changes in the brain

New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.

Continue reading...

Do our lives flash before our eyes when we die? A new study thinks so

Scientists unintentionally recorded the brain activity of a dying 87 year-old man providing an insight into what happens to our brain when we die. The elderly man was admitted to hospital after a fall and developed epilepsy. Dr Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu, Estonia and his colleagues used continuous electroencephalography (EEG) to detect the seizures and treat the patient.

Continue reading...

What Carl Sagan Might Think About NASA’s Current State Of Space Exploration

The last half century of space exploration has been a mixed bag of extraordinary achievements muted by moments of disaster and heartbreak. But all in all, our progress in making our way off this blue marble has been surprisingly slow as the late Carl Sagan would likely agree.

Continue reading...

A “hot Jupiter’s” dark side is revealed in detail for first time

MIT astronomers have obtained the clearest view yet of the perpetual dark side of an exoplanet that is “tidally locked” to its star. The planet is WASP-121b, a massive gas giant nearly twice the size of Jupiter.

Continue reading...

First-ever recording of dying human brain reveals dreaming-like activity

“My whole life flashed before my eyes” is a phrase we often hear regarding near-death experiences – and there just might be some truth to it. Scientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain for the first time ever, revealing brain wave patterns related to processes like dreaming and memory recall.

Continue reading...

How Often Are Therapists Attracted to Their Clients?

Therapists’ may experience feelings of attraction, but almost never act on them.

Continue reading...

Two New Studies Just Outlined The Basics of Building an Interstellar Light Sail

fantasized of being propelled at breakneck speed through huge expanses of space by light breezes. As bizarre as it may sound, pushing reflecting sails steadily towards the speed of light with nothing more than the punch of photons may be our sole realistic chance of reaching another star inside a single human lifetime.

Continue reading...

How real is the multiverse?

Imagine setting off in a rocket and leaving Earth. Leaving the solar system. Leaving our galaxy. Breaking through the edge of the observable universe and leaving our cosmos behind (which would be impossible, as you'd have to go faster than the speed of light, but work with me here).

Continue reading...

Kenya to use solar panels to boost crops by ‘harvesting the sun twice’

Solar panels are not a new way of providing cheap power across much of the African continent, where there is rarely a shortage of sunshine. But growing crops underneath the panels is, and the process has had such promising trials in Kenya that it will be deployed this week in open-field farms.

Continue reading...

The downwards head tilt seems to be a universal signal of dominance

One of the best-known but also most contentious ideas in psychology has to be that there are “universal” expressions of at least some human emotions. According to this idea, which was pioneered by Paul Ekman, particular patterns of facial muscular movements are reliable indicators of anger, disgust, fear, surprise, happiness, sadness and contempt, no matter where you are in the world. In other words, these expressions are a fundamental part of being human.

Continue reading...

How to clear the air in the most polluted cities on Earth

How countries like India can have economic growth and cleaner air.

Continue reading...

The world is throwing away 3 million face masks every minute — and the growing mountain of waste is a toxic time bomb

Disposable masks are poisoning the world's drinking water with cancer-causing particles. And governments are ignoring the obvious solution.

Continue reading...

The next private SpaceX flight will be on a science mission

The research will look at key questions about how humans fare during long periods in space.

Continue reading...

How Covid changed medicine for the future

The global pandemic sparked a huge superhuman effort to control coronavirus. But the billions spent have also had an unexpected impact on medicine and science

Continue reading...

Hiatus brain: When your favorite show returns, but you can't remember a thing

When months — even years — separate TV seasons, plotlines are lost to the sands of time.

Continue reading...

NASA: No current plan for return of space station parts for museums

A recently-released plan for how NASA will dispose of the International Space Station makes no mention of preserving historically-significant components from the orbiting complex. But it is not just an omission from a report: the space agency says it has no current plans to return potential artifacts to Earth.

Continue reading...

Animals laugh too, UCLA analysis suggests

Sifting through studies on various species’ play behavior, researchers tracked vocalization patterns that show a strong similarity to human laughter.

Continue reading...

Biomarkers of dairy fat intake, incident cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality: A cohort study, systematic review, and meta-analysis

We aimed to investigate the association of serum pentadecanoic acid (15:0), a biomarker of dairy fat intake, with incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality in a Swedish cohort study. We also systematically reviewed studies of the association ...

Continue reading...

Fusion Breakthrough Once Thought Impossible Brings Energy Device Closer to Realization

Scientists have achieved a remarkable breakthrough in the conceptual design of twisty stellarators, experimental magnetic facilities that could reproduce on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. The breakthrough shows how to more precisely shape the enclosing magnetic fields in stel

Continue reading...

A YouTuber attracted more than 216,000 viewers by livestreaming planes trying to land at London's Heathrow airport in record-breaking storm winds

Jerry Dyer, the host of Big Jet TV, is commentating live as planes struggle to land at Heathrow Airport, while tens of thousands of watch online.

Continue reading...

A giant donut-shaped machine just proved a near-limitless clean power source is possible

Scientists working in the UK announced that they more than doubled the previous record for generating and sustaining nuclear fusion, the same process that allows the sun and stars to shine so brightly.

Continue reading...

New Study of 1 Million People: Happiness Makes You Dramatically More Successful

A massive new study of soldiers underlines why focusing on your happiness is so valuable.

Continue reading...

Why Facebook's metaverse is destined to be the biggest flop in tech history

Zuckerberg is betting the future of his business on something that doesn't really exist.

Continue reading...

Tiny new planet discovered around Sun's nearest neighbor

Astronomers may have detected a new exoplanet around Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our solar system. This tiny new world is one of the lightest ever discovered, which is even more impressive given the technique the team used to find it.

Continue reading...

First ever gene-edited ticks offer new weapons against Lyme disease

From diabetes to rare blood disease, CRISPR gene-editing technology is changing the way we tackle many threats to public health, and there are few bigger than those posed by vector-borne diseases carried by tiny critters. We've seen much exciting progress made in genetically modifying mosquitos to slow the spread of malaria, and now scientists have leveraged the technology to demonstrate gene-editing in ticks for the first time, a significant breakthrough in the battle against Lyme disease.

Continue reading...

Driving While Baked? Inside the High-Tech Quest to Find Out

There is no scientific way to tell if you’re stoned behind the wheel. That’s a problem for police—and you. One company is aiming to fix that.

Continue reading...

Study reveals high rate of possible undiagnosed autism in people who died by suicide

A significant number of people who died by suicide were likely autistic, but undiagnosed, according to new research that highlights the urgent need for earlier

Continue reading...

Starship's advanced design is said to have NASA officials "sh**ting the bed"

Elon Musk recently provided the first big update on SpaceX's Mars-bound rocket, Starship, and its competitors are watching on with "a mix of awe and horror", according to a report from Politico. At his latest Starship presentation, SpaceX CEO Musk highlighted the fact that Starship will be reusable over and over again at a fraction of the cost of previous rockets. It's a development that threatens to leave NASA and other competitors in its wake as it launches to the proverbial stratosphere.

Continue reading...

Virgin Galactic stock jumps 32% as spaceflight ticket sales open with $150,000 deposit

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced Tuesday that it will open ticket sales to the public on Wednesday, requiring a $150,000 deposit.

Continue reading...

Notes apps are where ideas go to die. And that’s good.

Insurance for your mind.

Continue reading...

Mapping the quantum future with smart TV technology

Scientists have created the first ever 2D map of the Overhauser field in organic LEDs, shedding light on the challenges we face in designing accurate quantum-based technologies. Television used to be known as ‘the idiot box’. But the organic LEDs found in modern flat screens are far from stupid. In fact, they’re helping us to draw a map that could unlock the quantum future. No wonder they’re now called smart TVs.

Continue reading...

People Find Nonsense Credible if They Think a Scientist Said It, Shows Study

The profound aphorisms that you don’t quite understand but which you may nod along to or even forward to others may not actually mean anything, new research suggests. It could be an internal bias that suggests a statement is credible — even if it doesn’t appear to mean anything — if it is implied to be coming from a scientist. There’s a name for this phenomenon now: the “Einstein Effect.”

Continue reading...

What happened before the Big Bang?

In the beginning, there was an infinitely dense, tiny ball of matter. Then, it all went bang, giving rise to the atoms, molecules, stars and galaxies we see today. Or at least, that's what we've been told by physicists for the past several decades.

Continue reading...

Quantum internet: the second quantum revolution

Quantum teleportation allows information to be transmitted between two linked quantum particles regardless of the distance that separates them. Unlike science fiction teleportation, which sends matter from one point in space to another, quantum teleportation sends information.

Continue reading...

Astronomers now say the rocket about to strike the Moon is not a Falcon 9

About three weeks ago Ars Technica first reported that astronomers were tracking the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, and were increasingly confident that it would strike the Moon on March 4.

Continue reading...

A mathematician explains what Foundation gets right about predicting the future

The ideas behind psychohistory are more scientific than you might think.

Continue reading...

Michigan beef found to contain dangerous levels of ‘forever chemicals’

Cattle from a small south-east Michigan farm that sold beef to schools and at farmers’ markets in the state have been found to contain dangerous levels of PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals” that can pose a serious risk to human health.

Continue reading...