Science

Are Milky Way’s coldest stars actually alien megastructures? New study explores Some of the coldest objects currently listed as stars in the Milky Way may not be stars at all. A new study by astrophysicist Amirnezam Amiri from the University of Arkansas suggests that these extremely cold objects could instead be giant energy-harvesting structures built…

Two people can look at the exact same run of bad luck and walk away with completely different conclusions. One decides the world is chaotic and nothing can be predicted. The other starts looking for the pattern hiding underneath the noise. Abraham de Moivre, the French mathematician who spent much of his career pricing gambling…

Elon Musk has laid out another far-reaching vision for SpaceX, saying the company could return humans to the Moon within the next few years and eventually move thousands of people beyond Earth. Speaking during an interview with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Musk described plans that would go far beyond short astronaut missions, including permanent settlements…

An aerial view of the San Andreas Fault crossing the Carrizo Plain in California (Getty images) Scientists have discovered hidden movements beneath California’s San Andreas Fault with the help of artificial intelligence, revealing a type of slow fault slip that had largely gone unnoticed till now. The researchers say these silent movements may play a…

The pink light visible in recent timelapse footage from the International Space Station is not a camera effect or a reflection from Earth. Instead, it comes from a small plant-growing facility tucked inside the station’s Columbus laboratory, where astronauts have been tending crops as part of an ongoing experiment into how plants behave beyond our…

Forecasts for the tropical Pacific have shifted noticeably over the past month, with climate scientists now placing greater confidence in the arrival of a particularly powerful El Niño later this year. While these events are part of a natural climate cycle, their effects rarely stay confined to the Pacific Ocean. Changes in ocean temperatures can…

As ice melts, the liquid water collects in depressions on the surface and deepens them, forming these melt ponds in the Arctic | Wikimedia Commons Climate change is often discussed in terms of global averages, but new research suggests that where warming or cooling occurs may be just as important as how much occurs. Using…

Mice are some of the most invasive animals on the planet. Quick to enter and escape they have managed to make many a human mind burst with anger and panic. The max that can be done about them is setting up a trap or spreading some poison around. But imagine an island filled with mice…

Every day, countless substances cling to surfaces around us without becoming part of the material itself. This fascinating process is known as adsorption, and the verb that describes it is adsorb. Although it is often confused with absorption, the two processes are fundamentally different. While absorption involves a substance being taken into the interior of…

Nikola Tesla (Image: Wikipedia) Anger has a strange way of taking up more room in your head than almost anything else. It can replay the same old argument for days, sometimes years, long after everyone else involved has moved on and forgotten about it. Nikola Tesla, the man whose work helped bring electricity into homes…

Sperm whales communicate by making clicks Scientists using artificial intelligence (AI) have uncovered a complex communication system among sperm whales, identifying a kind of phonetic alphabet. The discovery comes as experts also found sperm whales living in the eastern Mediterranean Sea have developed a distinct regional dialect that separates them from populations living in the…

The leaf sensor is more of an early warning system showing how the plant is responding in the moment, before visible signs appear,” said Nafize Hossain. (Credit: Nafize Hossain) British farmers may soon manage crop conditions using real-time data from advanced plant wearables, similar to how people use smartwatches to monitor sleep, blood oxygen and…