Scientists have proposed another use for the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory: scanning for the ripples in space-time left in the wake of gargantuan alien spaceships. Gravitational waves ripple out when objects with mass move through space. Bigger objects — such as planets, neutron stars or black holes — produce more prominent gravitational waves. These … Read more
Many people listen to music while working, exercising at the gym, or simply relaxing. But how does music affect your brain? Along with triggering a release of the feel-good hormone dopamine, science has shown that listening to music may boost our cognitive function, potentially relieve symptoms of anxiety and stress, and help us to stay … Read more
In Boston labs, old, blind mice have regained their eyesight, developed smarter, younger brains and built healthier muscle and kidney tissue. On the flip side, young mice have prematurely aged, with devastating results to nearly every tissue in their bodies. The experiments show aging is a reversible process, capable of being driven “forwards and backwards … Read more
When you’re flying in an airplane above a blanket of clouds, the pillars of white and gray look soft, fluffy and lighter than air. But don’t be fooled — those bouncy-looking clouds are much, much heavier than they appear. So just how much does a cloud weigh? And how do you weigh a cloud? We … Read more
A newly discovered impact crater on Mars was likely left by an enormous asteroid that slammed into the Red Planet around 3.4 billion years ago and may have triggered an 800-foot-tall “mega-tsunami.” The colossal explosion was similar to the asteroid impact on Earth that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs, a new study shows. From about … Read more
Octopuses may have gained some of their exceptional intelligence from the same evolutionary process that humans went through, a new study suggests. The process involved a sudden explosion of microRNAs (miRNAs) — small, noncoding molecules that control how genes are expressed. This increase may have helped the brains of octopuses and humans to develop new … Read more
Sea levels are likely rising faster than previously thought, meaning low-lying coastal cities in the U.S. could flood far more regularly in the coming decades, a NASA study has revealed. According to the study, which analyzed three decades of satellite observations, by 2050, sea levels along the coastlines of the contiguous U.S. could rise as … Read more
Astronomers estimate that roughly 85% of all the matter in the universe is dark matter, meaning only 15% of all matter is normal matter. Accounting for dark energy, the name astronomers give to the accelerated expansion of the universe, dark matter makes up roughly 27% of all the mass energy in the cosmos, according to … Read more
Twilight is closing in on NASA’s Mars InSight lander — a robotic seismology lab that has been studying the interior workings of the Red Planet since November 2018. On Tuesday (Dec. 20), NASA announced in a statement (opens in new tab) that InSight failed to respond to routine communications from Earth. This is an alarming, … Read more
The winter solstice heralds the astronomical start of winter and marks the day with the fewest hours of daylight for the year. But what’s the science behind the shortest day and longest night? The winter solstice — and for that matter, the four seasons — occur because Earth is tilted at an angle of about … Read more
