A disturbing new video lets you watch as a Mexican red-kneed tarantula (Brachypelma smithi) literally crawls out of its skin. The 40-second time-lapse from The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden captures the adult tarantula as it tosses and turns, spending seven long hours shedding its old exoskeleton. The Mexican red-kneed tarantula is a docile
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About 10,000 years ago, humans evolved a tolerance to cow’s milk; over the past 150 years, we’ve added 10 centimetres to our average height; and over the past 65 years, we’ve added 20 years to the average lifespan, mostly thanks to advances in science. We’ve come so far in such an incredibly short period
Okay, time to stop everything and nut out a brain teaser: if Earth is spinning to the east at 1,180 km/h (733 mph), and we’re in a plane flying west, shouldn’t we get to our destination quicker, seeing as it’s literally spinning towards us? The short answer is no, because our plane is also
We’ve all heard about the infamous number 666, which is rather cryptically referred to as the “number of the beast” in the New Testament, and has more recently become known as the number of the Antichrist. But what is it about this simple, symmetrical number that’s been giving everyone the heebie jeebies for the past
If you really want to teach someone something, starting with a misconception and working backwards is one of the best techniques. A new video from Veritasium does just that. In the episode, host Derek Muller debunks one of the most common misconceptions about science – namely, that science is simply a steady, gradual way of
Deep in western Russia, if you know where to look, you’ll find a small collection of ragged scrap metal and crumbled concrete. Which isn’t that exciting. But if you rifle through the rubble, you will find a large, metal disc bolted to the ground. This isn’t just any old disc – it’s the welded-shut cap of
We all know that Earth is old, but it’s hard to put into perspective just how old it is. After all, what does 4.5 billion years really mean? How do you even comprehend that amount of time with our short-lived human brains? Well, Business Insider has done a pretty incredible job of it in
Mirror image is a tricky thing, but it’s pretty clear when you look at words in a reflection, that mirrors flip things horizontally rather than vertically. Or, at least it seems that that’s the case. For example, when you hold up a sign saying “Food” in the mirror”, it flips reads a backwards “dooF”,
It might not feel like it, but the adult bladder can hold as much as half a litre (2 cups) of pee before you’ll feel the need to ‘go’. Your body knows how much is in there because your bladder wall is filled with tiny receptors that send a message to your brain when the
Around 13.7 billion years ago, our universe sprang into existence, but what was around before the Big Bang? In a new episode of Star Talk, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking sat down with host Neil deGrasse Tyson to talk about what exactly pre-dated the beginning of our universe. Hawking’s answer put simply? Nothing. But just because
First up, let’s just be honest – 95 percent of men and 72 percent of women reading this are just here to feel good about what you’re already doing behind closed doors (hopefully). But if the rest of you have been holding out your entire lives, just waiting for science to give you a
First up, let’s just be honest – 95 percent of men and 72 percent of women reading this are just here to feel good about what you’re already doing behind closed doors (hopefully). But if the rest of you have been holding out your entire lives, just waiting for science to give you a
With 7.5 billion people currently occupying our planet, it’s almost crazy to think how much visibility is afforded to the culture and lifestyle of just 323 million Americans. But what would the world be like if everyone lived like that? Well, we totally have data to find out. From having loads more sex to spending
With 7.5 billion people currently occupying our planet, it’s almost crazy to think how much visibility is afforded to the culture and lifestyle of just 323 million Americans. But what would the world be like if everyone lived like that? Well, we totally have data to find out. From having loads more sex to
Ever since Elon Musk shared his blueprints for the hyperloop – a revolutionary transport system that has the potential to shuttle humans at speeds of more than 1,200 km/h (746 mph) – the engineering community has been in overdrive, with hyperloop prototypes popping up all over the place. And now Musk has put up
Ever since Elon Musk shared his blueprints for the hyperloop – a revolutionary transport system that has the potential to shuttle humans at speeds of more than 1,200 km/h (746 mph) – the engineering community has been in overdrive, with hyperloop prototypes popping up all over the place. And now Musk has put up footage
Correlation and causation can be tricky to grasp – it’s not always clear how they fit together. Just because two things are linked doesn’t mean that one causes the other… except when sometimes it does. The basics of this rather complicated relationship are put very well in the video below, from MinutePhysics. It uses
Correlation and causation can be tricky to grasp – it’s not always clear how they fit together. Just because two things are linked doesn’t mean that one causes the other… except when sometimes it does. The basics of this rather complicated relationship are put very well in the video below, from MinutePhysics. It uses the
We can hardly believe the latest season of Game of Thrones is already near its end, and we’ll be left hanging for another year to see how the fate of Westeros plays out. Over its seven seasons, the show has left a huge mark, and not just on pop culture. The mad popularity of Game
We can hardly believe the latest season of Game of Thrones is already near its end, and we’ll be left hanging for another year to see how the fate of Westeros plays out. Over its seven seasons, the show has left a huge mark, and not just on pop culture. The mad popularity of Game
It’s thought that between 2 and 6 percent of people identify as same sex attracted – but the jury is still firmly out on the science on why and how it occurs. Is being gay genetic, and if so, is there a gay gene? Well, as the boys from AsapSCIENCE explain, having a specific gay
It’s thought that between 2 and 6 percent of people identify as same sex attracted – but the jury is still firmly out on the science on why and how it occurs. Is being gay genetic, and if so, is there a gay gene? Well, as the boys from AsapSCIENCE explain, having a specific gay
Octopuses are super weird creatures. They are total escape artists, have three hearts just because, and they can regenerate limbs if they happen to need it. But until watching this BBC video from The Hunt, we were firmly of the belief that octopuses domain was the water… but after watching, we’re not so sure.
Octopuses are super weird creatures. They are total escape artists, have three hearts just because, and they can regenerate limbs if they happen to need it. But until watching this BBC video from The Hunt, we were firmly of the belief that octopuses domain was the water… but after watching, we’re not so sure. The
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
If your secret dream is to push a big red button that instantly launches a zombie apocalypse, because you feel like you’ll really thrive as a machete-wielding survivalist, have we got the tip for you. Turns out, if you need to survive in the woods unprepared, all you need is a sandwich bag and a
If your secret dream is to push a big red button that instantly launches a zombie apocalypse, because you feel like you’ll really thrive as a machete-wielding survivalist, have we got the tip for you. Turns out, if you need to survive in the woods unprepared, all you need is a sandwich bag and
As any successful baker will tell you – everything to do with food and cooking is all about chemistry, whether you’re dealing with pH levels, enzymes, or good old-fashioned temperature fluctuations. Get the balance right, and you can preserve things for longer, increase the quality of your meat, and even reduce the amount of calories
As any successful baker will tell you – everything to do with food and cooking is all about chemistry, whether you’re dealing with pH levels, enzymes, or good old-fashioned temperature fluctuations. Get the balance right, and you can preserve things for longer, increase the quality of your meat, and even reduce the amount of
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
You’ve probably heard countless renditions of how the Universe and everything in it came to be, but you haven’t heard it like YouTuber Bill Wurtz tells it. It’s hard to look away, I can’t explain it, so you’ll just have to watch it and appreciate how delightfully bananas the whole thing is. After some scary
If your internet rabbit holes have ever taken you to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle ‘death trap’, you’ve probably come across one explanation where methane bubbles create a bizarre sinkhole situation in the middle of the ocean. It sounds cool, but as the video below explains, it’s a load of, well, sea farts, because
What would it be like to go about your life without ever seeing colours such as green or purple, and then one day seeing the world in all its colourful glory? Most people with colour blindness can only hope for such a moment to come, but for Noll Stafford from Florida it actually happened at
If there’s an award for being able to explain complex science in a simple way, no matter who’s in the audience, our nomination would be for Bobby Kasthuri from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. In the video below, he explains the difficult concept of connectomes – a map of neural connections in the brain
On 14 March 2017, the world celebrated what would have been Albert Einstein’s 138th birthday. But while all of us know and love the revolutionary physicist by name, how many of us actually understand his work well enough to explain it over the dinner table? If the thought of that makes you break out in
If you’re looking for a really dumb thing to spend your money on, look no further than calcium-48, an extremely rare isotope of calcium that carries such an astronomical pricetag, they won’t even let world-renowned chemist Sir Martyn Poliakoff touch it. This substance is so scarce, it makes up just 0.187 percent of naturally occurring
With all this talk about colonising Mars, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Earth and all its mysteries have been well and truly uncovered by the year 2017. But as these bizarre lifeforms and the recently reclassified ‘Zealandia’ continent can attest, our planet still harbours a crapload of surprises, because as good as we humans
You’ve got a super-cool ability you probably didn’t even know you had: how to tell the difference between hot running water from cold running water – through sound alone. If you don’t believe us, check out the video below from Tom Scott’s YouTube channel, hosted by Steve Mould, which includes a demonstration of cold water
Here’s a weird fact for you – a hydrogen atom has less mass than the combined mass of the proton and electron that make it up. Okay, it’s not just hydrogen – ALL elements on the periodic table weigh less than the sum of their parts. Here’s another mind-bender: if you have two objects are