After 12 successful seasons, “The Big Bang Theory” has finally come to a fulfilling end, concluding its reign as the longest running multicamera sitcom on TV. If you’re one of the few who haven’t seen the show, this CBS series centers around a group of young scientists defined by essentially every possible stereotype about nerds
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Consider yourself lucky if you’re in a job that you love, but be aware that there’s a potential downside – other people might take advantage of your passion for your work. New research shows that managers often set extra hours without pay, or give out demeaning tasks to employees, to those who are particularly passionate
Using the combined might of two of Hawaii’s powerful telescopes, astronomers have captured what they are describing as “groundbreaking” sharp new images of a planetary system still in the process of being born. They also found no evidence of three previously detected planets. The star is LkCa 15, a young, Sun-like T Tauri star
Climate breakdown is already having a massively negative impact on the world’s wildlife, but it seems there are even more ways animals can be harmed by our negligence. Marine biologists have just demonstrated for the first time that low oxygen levels in the water can send marine invertebrates blind. With rising global temperatures already
In the Chinese science fiction film The Wandering Earth, recently released on Netflix, humanity attempts to change the Earth’s orbit using enormous thrusters in order to escape the expanding Sun – and prevent a collision with Jupiter. The scenario may one day come true. In five billion years, the Sun will run out of
Unknown to many travellers in southeast Asia, the ‘jars of the dead’ in Laos are a 2,000-year-old mystery that has never been solved. Speckled across thousands of square kilometres of the Xieng Khouang plateau – now known as the ‘Plain of Jars’ for that very reason – these empty megalithic structures from the Iron Age
When Victor Vescovo’s submarine hit the floor of the Mariana Trench, it sent the sediment swirling. “At bottom,” the Texas businessman-turned-extreme-explorer said into his headset. “Repeat: at bottom”. In a control room more than 35,850 feet (10.9 km) above, Vescovo’s dive team clapped and cheered. Congratulations were in order: they had just set a
Peacock spiders are so adorable, they stand a chance to sway the feelings of the most seasoned spider hater. These creatures are tiny – a mere 5 millimetres (0.2 inches). They’re also fluffy, the males have incredibly colourful butts, and they love to dance. Now we’ve discovered these spiders also have an interesting superpower –
Yutu 2, the Chinese rover that landed on the far side of the Moon earlier this year, just examined the first-ever samples of the Moon’s mantle. The samples are believed to have been dug out by a meteorite impact so strong that it crashed through the Moon’s crust, according to research published in the journal
Scientists have reworked the DNA of Escherichia coli to help us understand apparent redundancies in its genetic code. At four million base pairs in size, they now have the results of the most ambitious attempt at a completely synthetic form of life. For all its immense variation, life on Earth all shares a common language in
Reactor number four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered an explosion during a technical test on April 26, 1986. As a result of the accident, in the then Soviet Union, more than 400 times more radiation was emitted than that released by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Japan) in 1945. It remains
In our world, there exists an ancient and cryptic book that reads beyond human understanding. Known as the Voynich manuscript, this artefact, dating from the 15th century, has practically turned into modern legend. Like King Arthur’s ‘sword in the stone’, the modern ‘world’s most mysterious book’ has attracted a host of curious readers determined
Global messaging app WhatsApp, which boasts over 1 billion users, was targeted by hackers last month in a breach that saw mobile devices attacked through the voice-calling functionality of the app. The security flaw potentially gave hackers access to private messages, location data and other personal user information. While WhatsApp hasn’t specifically stated who or how
Scientists have found a bunch of microscopic creatures that could be totally new to science – but it’s an exceptional challenge to determine who is who when the tiny things you’ve discovered are actually the larva of animals that look completely different in their adult stage. The little-known animals in question are called phoronids,
San Francisco on Tuesday became the first city in the United States to ban the use of facial-recognition software by city agencies and the police, dealing a swift symbolic blow to a key technology rapidly being deployed by law enforcement nationwide. The 8-to-1 vote by the city’s Board of Supervisors will forbid public agencies
Only 12 people have ever travelled so far as to touch the brightest object in our night sky – the Moon. All of these astronauts were male. If the very first lunar mission was a small step for man, the next shall be a giant leap for women. At the start of this week
What happened to Hiroshima? Everybody thinks they know the answer, and yet, strangely, nobody does. History tells us Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb deployed in war on 6 August 1945. But what happened to the actual city when it was consumed in its awful, unforgettable fire? Where did Hiroshima go? We
Warning: Full spoilers below for Game of Thrones Season 8, episode 5, “The Bells.” What do you do if you’ve named your baby after a genocidal maniac? That’s the question facing thousands of parents in America this morning after last night’s Game of Thrones took a very dark turn in the story arc of one
The grand, sprawling palace built by the Roman Emperor Nero nearly 2,000 years ago has been keeping a secret. While working on restorations, archaeologists found a secret chamber – a large underground room decorated with murals depicting both real and mythical creatures. In red and ochre hues, with traces of gilding, centaurs dance across
We tend to think of the Moon as the archetypal “dead” world. Not only is there no life, almost all its volcanic activity died out billions of years ago. Even the youngest lunar lava is old enough to have become scarred by numerous impact craters that have been collected over the aeons as cosmic debris
A new ‘biological glue’ developed by Chinese researchers could one day stop hearts and arteries from uncontrollably bleeding. Placed on an open wound and activated through UV light, this life-saving sealant rapidly morphs into a non-toxic hydrogel, capable of withstanding both slippery surfaces and the pulsing of heart tissue. The adhesive sealant hasn’t been
Scientists have measured the accuracy of two-qubit operations for the first time in silicon, bringing the world a big step closer to reliable quantum computing. The great promise of quantum computers is that they will enable a vastly more powerful and faster way of making calculations than the computing power we’ve had until now.
Amber from Myanmar in Southeast Asia is turning out to be an incredibly rich resource for examining the natural world of 100 million years ago. In the last year, it’s turned up frogs, snails, a snake, weird feathers, and some pretty wacky bugs. What do all of those have in common? They’re land-dwellers. But
Yet another alarming milestone of humanity’s damaging effect on the environment has now officially been reached – crossing a barrier into a hot, polluted future like the planet hasn’t witnessed in millions of years. This weekend, sensors in Hawaii recorded Earth’s atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) passing 415 parts per million (ppm) for
We learn about some awesome science in high school – like Einstein’s theory of relativity, the Periodic table, and DNA replication. The knowledge we pick up there sets the foundations for all the other amazing things we go on to study. But science definitely doesn’t end at high school, and it’s once you take your
There’s no denying that keeping livestock has deeply benefited humanity over the millennia. But, while sheep and cows may have adapted well to farm life, there’s one animal humans like to eat that would fare poorly in farms. Octopuses, scientists have argued in a new essay, should never be farmed – not just because
At the University of California, Santa Barbara, researchers with the UCSB Experimental Cosmology Group (ECG) are currently working on ways to achieve the dream of interstellar flight. Under the leadership of Philip Lubin, the group has dedicated a considerable amount of effort towards the creation of an interstellar mission consisting of directed-energy light sail
Nothing says “Happy Mother’s Day” quite like pancakes. That’s probably what IHOP had in mind when it tweeted about the holiday this morning. But things quickly got a lot weirder. “If you have pancakes in your tum tum, does that make you a pancake mum mum? Happy Mother’s Day to ALL the mums out
Our first picture of a black hole was a huge moment for science. But we can’t stop there. We need better pictures that deliver more information. That’s how we’ll learn even more about these strange, rule-breaking behemoths. Now a group of astronomers from the Radboud University in the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, along with the European
Numbers figure pretty high up on the list of what a computer can do well. While humans often struggle to split a restaurant bill, a modern computer can make millions of calculations in a mere second. Humans, however, have an innate and intuitive number sense that helped us, among other things, to build computers
Today the Australian Koala Foundation announced they believe “there are no more than 80,000 koalas in Australia”, making the species “functionally extinct”. While this number is dramatically lower than the most recent academic estimates, there’s no doubt koala numbers in many places are in steep decline. It’s hard to say exactly how many koalas
Today, an unexpected twist in the whale tale that’s captured the world’s attention: In April, a group of fishermen in Norway discovered an unusually tame beluga whale wearing a harness seemingly meant to hold a camera. Written on the harness? The words “Equipment of St. Petersburg.” Enter speculation that the whale was a Russian
When you’ve been surviving in all sorts of environments for billions of years, you pick up a few tricks for harvesting light as efficiently as possible – and now long-living, light-emitting microalgae could be about to help us develop the next generation of solar panels. These fluorescent algae are able to capture up to
In recent years, it’s emerged that some dinosaurs – considered scaly and reptilian for many years – were actually wearing feathers. But a newly discovered species of scansoriopterygid dinosaur sports a different style. This tiny creature had bat-like wings: leathery, not feathery. It’s called Ambopteryx longibrachium, and it was just 33 centimetres (13 inches)
Torrential rains that have brought flooding to regions across Romania are also highlighting the horrifying human impact on the planet. A video posted to Facebook shows a literal river of garbage surging downstream in the commune of Micești in Argeș County. It’s hard not to gasp in dismay at a frankly shocking amount of
A man has given back a meter-long stone core he took from Stonehenge more than 60 years ago. Robert Phillips removed the sample during an archeological operation in 1958, where he was working to help reinforce a cracked stone, according to Historic England, the charity which preserves the site. Philips kept it with him
Along the Black River in North Carolina, bald cypress trees have been quietly growing for millennia. Quite literally so: Scientists recently found trees over 2,000 years old – including one that is at least 2,624 years old. That makes it the fifth-oldest known non-clonal tree in the world. (Utah’s Pando, an ancient quaking aspen
Jeff Bezos’ private space company Blue Origin revealed its long-awaited plans to go to the Moon at a mysterious press event today. Bezos showed off a brand new design of its “Blue Moon” lander, which is designed to carry 6.5 tons (5.9 tonnes) to the surface of the Moon. According to Bezos, the Blue Origin
If you want to know how far radioactive particles can travel, here’s the answer: all the way to the Mariana Trench, which at 10,994 metres (36,070 ft) is the deepest natural trench in the world. A new study shows that radioactive carbon from Cold War nuclear bomb tests is still present in the crustaceans
The Universe didn’t begin as we see it today, glittering with light. For the first 500 million or so years, it was a murky, neutral hydrogen-filled darkness. Then something started exciting the hydrogen with radiation, ionising it – and lo, there was light. We don’t know what ultimately caused that first ultraviolet light to
It’s been 33 years since the Chernobyl nuclear power plant tragically blew apart in a meltdown, spreading nuclear fallout across the land. A lot has changed, but the surroundings still contain some of the most radioactive patches of soil on the planet. Last month, researchers from the University of Bristol mapped that radioactivity in
It has taken one of the most powerful lasers on the planet, but scientists have done it. They’ve confirmed the existence of ‘superionic’ hot ice – frozen water that can remain solid at thousands of degrees of heat. This bizarre form of ice is possible because of tremendous pressure, and the findings of the
In a perfect world, plastic would never be on a one-way trip into landfill – it’s a vision we’ve strived to realise for decades. Unfortunately, some plastics just don’t recycle as easily as others, limiting how well we can reuse them in new products. But a new kind of plastic might help change all that.
There’s a stark contrast between the freezing temperatures of space and the relatively balmy atmosphere of Earth, and that contrast could help generate electricity, scientists say – utilising the same optoelectronic physics used in solar panels. The obvious difference this would have compared with solar energy is that it would work during the night
The faint, flickering distortions of space-time we call gravitational waves are tricky to detect, and we’ve only managed to do so in recent years. But now scientists have calculated that these waves may leave more persistent traces of their passing – traces we may also be able to detect. Such traces are called ‘persistent
British power plants have broken a new record for the longest continuous coal-free streak since the distant era of the Industrial Revolution. At time of writing, it’s been over six days (and counting) since the UK relied upon coal-burning for electricity generation: establishing a modern record of 159+ continuous hours without coal, eclipsing a previous-best
A grave of neatly arranged bones near the modern day Polish village of Koszyce captures a tragic moment in history, hinting at a man’s return from afar to find his family massacred at the hands of an enemy. While we can only imagine the personal story that unfolded some 5,000 years ago, a fresh
A full set of Gym Badges isn’t the only way to tell a true Pokémon player from a novice. Stanford researchers have now found that those adults who played the video game for hours as a kid, have an area in their brain that still holds the memory. Tucked behind the ear in a region
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