A new study has found that while the large-scale biodiversity extinction taking place right now doesn’t qualify as a mass extinction just yet, the earth is rapidly barrelling towards the sixth such event. Since its formation about 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth has had five mass extinction, where about 75 percent of the planet’s … Read more
The Fermi paradox, the “where is everybody?” puzzle, is a persistent question in the search for life in the universe. It asks why, if life is not exceedingly rare in the cosmos, it hasn’t shown up on our doorstep. Equally we might ask why we haven’t even heard from alien life, through radio signals or … Read more
Earth’s continents were formed when our planet was bombarded with giant meteorites around 3.5 billion years ago, a new study has found. Researchers from Curtin University in Perth, Australia analysed crystals of the mineral zircon from the Pilbara Craton to investigate its origins. A craton is a piece of the planet’s crust that has remained … Read more
John Cooling from Cockshut captured a shooting star from the start of the showers earlier this week If you cast your gaze across the night sky this week, you’ll be in with the chance of wishing upon a shooting star. Dubbed by NASA as “one of the best meteor showers of the year”, the Perseid … Read more
Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star, appears as a brilliant, ruby-red, twinkling spot of light in the upper right shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter. However, when viewed close up, astronomers know that it is a seething monster with a 400-day-long heartbeat of regular pulsations. This aging star is classified as a supergiant because … Read more
A team of scientists from Georgia Tech say they’ve built a robot that can move without anything to push against – a discovery that seems to violate the law of conservation momentum. The researchers were able to generate momentum without a surface to push off from by building a robot isolated from outside influences and … Read more
New research shows that large dinosaur predators evolved different shapes of eye sockets to better deal with high bite forces. According to new research, large dinosaur predators, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, evolved different shapes of eye sockets to better deal with high bite forces. While in many animals, including most dinosaurs, the eye socket is … Read more
Sign up to our daily newsletter The last supermoon of the year will be rising in our skies tonight. Stargazers up and down the UK will be treated to a larger than life sight of our natural satellite as it orbits closer to the Earth. Sign up to our daily newsletter Supermoons appear bigger and … Read more
11 August 2022, 13:36 | Updated: 11 August 2022, 15:02 A cinematic burst of colour and sound from the depths of outer space… Space is a largely silent place. Once you leave the Earth’s atmosphere, you’re plunged into a vacuum of immeasurable vastness, where a complete lack of molecules mean that the minute reverberations that … Read more
Scientists have identified evolutionary modifications in the voice box distinguishing people from other primates that may underpin a capability indispensable to humankind: speaking. Researchers said on Thursday that an examination of the voice box, or larynx, in 43 species of primates showed that humans differ from apes and monkeys in lacking an anatomical structure called … Read more