-
ScienceHuman HistoryTwo Teens Discovered a 6,000-Year-Old Stone Ax at Mount Vernon
A group of students last month was involved with the discovery of a stone artifact nearly 6,000 years old while on a school trip to Mount Vernon, and officials are characterizing the find as particularly noteworthy. The item, a stone ax head approximately seven inches long and three inches wide, is believed to be work … Continued
By Catie Keck -
EartherRobots Are Now Livestreaming Underwater Volcanoes for Science
The West Mata volcanic complex, located near the small island nation of Tonga in the western Pacific, is one of the most unique places on Earth. It’s literally where fire and water meet. Scientists aboard the R/V Falkor are poking around it and exploring a series of 12 underwater volcanoes for the next two weeks … Continued
By Brian Kahn -
EartherThe Deepest Fish Ever Captured Is So Ugly I Want to Throw It Back in the Sea
The deep sea is a dark place both literally and figuratively, home to the stuff of nightmares. Now, scientists have named a new unholy terror deep beneath the ocean’s surface. The Mariana snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei for the nerds out there) is the deepest fish ever captured. The fish, which looks like a tumorous chicken filet, … Continued
By Brian Kahn -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Remarkable New Supernova Discovery Is Unlike Anything Seen Before
Astronomers have spotted something truly baffling: a new light 500 million light years away that looked exactly like a supernova…but acted like no supernova observed before. The new discovery and its spectral lines (the colors of light it sent our way) allowed scientists to classify it as a typical Type IIa supernova, the kind from … Continued
-
Tech News
Overhyped ‘Miracle’ Metal Hydrogen Miraculously ‘Disappears’
Lots of people went wild last month at the news that scientists had suddenly discovered some sort of physics holy grail: metallic hydrogen, hydrogen that turned into a metal. Gizmodo didn’t buy the hype. Well, according to ScienceAlert, that metal hydrogen sample has now disappeared. Many scientists don’t believe metallic hydrogen was created to begin … Continued
-
SciencePhysics & Chemistry
A Wild New Helium Compound Could Rewrite Chemistry Textbooks
Here’s a popular high school chemistry fact: Helium atoms don’t interact with other atoms to create compounds. Well, that fact might need some reevaluating. An international team of scientists think they’ve created a stable helium compound, meaning one composed of both helium and sodium atoms together. The discovery would be wild not only because of … Continued
-
SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Did Scientists Actually Turn Hydrogen Into a Metal?
The more scientists achieve the same result, the more robust that result is. On the flip side, there’s reason to be skeptical when a single group claims to make a discovery based on a single observation. One of yesterday’s biggest headlines was the announcement that scientists had achieved a feat they’d been attempting for over … Continued
-
Tech NewsShipwreck Hunters Bag an Amazing Discovery at the Bottom of Lake Ontario
A group of retirees-turned-shipwreck hunters have discovered the remains of the Washington, an 18th century trading vessel that sank to the bottom of Lake Ontario in 1803. The 53-foot sloop is the second oldest shipwreck to ever be found in the Great Lakes. The Washington was a commercial trading vessel that transported furs and household … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
SciencePhysics & ChemistryHoly Shit! Scientists Have Confirmed the Existence of Gravitational Waves
Since Albert Einstein first predicted their existence a century ago, physicists have been on the hunt for gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime. That hunt is now over. Gravitational waves exist, and we’ve found them. That’s according to researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), who have been holed up for … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
SciencePhysics & ChemistryWatch Live as Physicists Make a Big Announcement About Gravitational Waves
Could the rumors be true? After a month of rampant speculation that physicists have finally discovered gravitational waves, today we learn the truth. Lead scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) have assembled at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and they’re about to make a big announcement. It’s hard to overstate … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Scientists Confirm the Existence of Cosmic Neutrinos
A team of Antarctic scientists has just verified the existence of cosmic neutrinos — tiny, energetic particles that might hail from far reaches of the Milky Way and beyond. And these ghostly little flecks of matter could hold the key to some of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. High-energy cosmic neutrinos are thought to … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Archaeologists Baffled By 2,000 Tiny Gold Spirals Discovered In Denmark
Finding gold in Boeslunde, Denmark, is no huge surprise—it’s known as an area where Bronze Age gold offering are often uncovered, as curators there are explaining this month. But a recent discovery has surprised and baffled archaeologists: 2,000 tiny gold spirals. It’s a “golden enigma.” Boeslunde is in Zealand, the large island that sits between … Continued
-
Tech News
Researchers Devise a Simple Method For Recycling Rare Earth Magnets
You’ve probably heard a bit about rare Earth elements. They’ve got unpronounceable names like ytterbium and praseodymium, and they’re found in nearly ever piece of tech you own. Despite their value, we’re do a piss poor job recycling them. But chemists are now hoping to change that. Clockwise from top center: Rare Earth metals praseodymium, … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
There’s Growing Evidence of Volcanic Activity on Venus
Standing on the surface of Venus, your body would be crushed by the immense pressure, fried by the lead-melting heat, and dissolved by sulfuric acid thunderstorms. Too bad, because if you could survive on Venus, you might witness some epic volcanic eruptions. A high resolution topo map of Venus’s surface produced by the Magellan spacecraft. … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
The 10 Percent of the Brain Myth is Still Bullshit, Neuroscientists Say
There’s this persistent notion that we use a mere 10 percent of our brains at any given moment. If only we could tap into more of the magnificent, squishy machine in our heads, we’d become quicker, cleverer versions of ourselves. It’d be a lovely idea if it wasn’t a crock of crap. Although the ten … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Saturn’s Ghostly Outer Ring is Mind Blowingly Massive
Almost every time we have a look, Saturn seems to become even more incredible. Space rain falls from icy rings into the gas giant’s atmosphere. Two of its moons, Titan and Enceladus, are among the best candidates in our solar system for finding alien life. The latest revelation? Saturn’s faint, outermost ring is an absolute … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightBlazing Hot Exoplanet is Smothered in Sunscreen
Life on WASP-33b would basically be hell—the titanic exoplanet’s atmosphere ranges in temperature from a searing 6,000 to a comparatively balmy 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But hey, at least you wouldn’t have to bring sunblock. That’s because WASP-33b contains a familiar atmospheric layer called a stratosphere. And just as Earth’s stratosphere includes a thin sheet of … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Three Stars Were Exiled From their Galaxies to Explode in a Cosmic Void
It’s easy to imagine the universe as an endless sea of stars, but that’s a biased, Earthly perspective. If we could zoom very far out, we’d see bright cosmic clusters like our Milky Way, and between them, unimaginably vast stretches of empty intergalactic space. Artist’s concept of a Type Ia supernova exploding in the region … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Scientists are Growing Tiny Cerebral Cortexes in Petri Dishes
Yep, you heard that one correctly. In what could be a major step forward for personalized medicine, researchers have perfected a technique for growing miniature balls of cortical tissue—the key working tissue in the human brain—in a dish. Top Image: Human cortical spheroids, growing in a dish via Sergiu Pasca / Stanford University And much, … Continued
By Maddie Stone
