science

There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom! There are different forms of supernova explosions, and this event was the result of a supermassive red giant star collapsing in on itself at the end of its life. The best-known red giant…

Experiencing 2020 from the POV of a rational-minded person is exhausting and scary. It sometimes feels as though we’ve ended up in the worst timeline of a badly-scripted parallel universes story. While everyone has their own tried-and-true…

Though asthma affects almost 340 million people worldwide, there is still no cure. The respiratory disease frequently develops in childhood and can cause asthma “attacks” where the lungs become inflamed and the airways constricted, causing…

Many nocturnal animal species use light from the moon and stars to migrate at night in search of food, shelter, or mates. But in our recent study, we uncovered how artificial light is disrupting these nightly migrations. Electric lighting…

By itself, the study revealed what was possible with the material. You could turn the friction (and thus the fluid state) “on and off like a switch” just by varying the pressure. However, Swansea University also suggested this could have a…

It’s well-documented that chemical compounds found in cannabis, especially cannabidiol (CBD), are effective at treating the symptoms of many forms of cancer. But now there’s evidence that it could potentially cure the disease by attacking…

Birdwatchers armed with binoculars and fields books can be great at spotting species, but they struggle to identify individuals in a flock. Luckily for them, a new AI tool can do the tricky task for them — and potentially offer new insights…

At the dawn of the industrial revolution, the Earth’s atmosphere contained 278 parts of CO₂ per million. Today, after more than two and a half centuries of fossil fuel use, that figure is around 414 parts per million (ppm). If the build-up…

A short gamma ray burst known to astronomers as SGRB181123B is the second most-distant well-established SGRB ever seen, and the most distant to ever known to display an optical afterglow. Examination of this object could reveal data about…

Imagine being confined to a metal cell with a couple of other people and few amenities for months or even years. Maybe after that, you’ll be moved to a new compound, but you still have no privacy and extremely limited communication with…