Life has found a home on Earth for around 4 billion years. That’s a significant fraction of the universe’s 13.77 billion-year history. Presumably, if life arose here, it could have appeared anywhere. And for sufficiently broad definitions of life, it might even be possible for life to have appeared mere seconds after the Big Bang. … Read more
Why do common shrews live for only two years, while bowhead whales survive for two centuries? And could the answer give us hints as to how to extend our own, human life spans? The maximum life span of each species is estimated using the age of its longest-living member, and these vary by orders of … Read more
The strength of solar storms hitting Earth can vary dramatically over short distances, with places just a few dozen miles apart experiencing very different magnetic disruptions, new research finds. This could mean that some areas are more vulnerable to large solar storms than previously appreciated, study co-author Eija Tanskanen, the director of the Sodankylä Geophysical … Read more
When astronauts return from spacewalks, they often describe unexpected scents similar to burnt steak and spent gunpowder. But why does outer space smell like torched things, and where does this odor come from? To be clear, space is a near-perfect vacuum. While in space, astronauts protect themselves in spacecraft, spacesuits and space stations, “since direct … Read more
High-powered infrared laser weapons could be on the horizon after scientists figured out how to make lasers nine times more powerful. Militaries have already deployed laser-powered weapons, as popularized by films like “Star Wars,”, but they’re much weaker than those seen on screen and can only disable small airborne targets. The light In these current … Read more
Nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and early 1960s left the first obvious and indelible marks of “overwhelming” human activity on Earth, and these events may signal the beginning of a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene, geologists say. Fallout from these tests snowed down from the atmosphere and became trapped in the earth … Read more
Astronomers have peered back to the dawn of the cosmos to observe time ticking five times more slowly in the early universe than it does now — finally proving a prediction that Albert Einstein made more than a century ago. Researchers spotted the extreme slow-motion effect in data taken from bright cosmic beacons known as … Read more
Neanderthal genes may be one cause of the disorder nicknamed the “Viking disease,” in which fingers become frozen in a bent position, a new study finds. The study, published June 14 in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, finds gene variants that were inherited from Neanderthals that dramatically increase the odds of developing the condition, … Read more
Since the first direct detection of the space-time ripples known as gravitational waves was announced in 2016, astronomers regularly listen for the ringing of black holes across the universe. Projects like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (better known as LIGO) have detected almost 100 collisions between black holes (and sometimes neutron stars), which shake up … Read more
Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink has been given clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to carry out its first trials in humans, according to news reports. Neuralink aims to use its brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to restore movement in people with quadriplegia, meaning complete or partial paralysis of the arms, legs and … Read more
