An illustration of NASA’s Relay 1 satellite, the precursor to Relay 2 NASA A satellite that had been dead for decades suddenly blasted out a powerful radio pulse that briefly outshone every other object in the sky. Astronomers think the flash may have been caused by a freak micrometeorite impact or a random spark. NASA’s…
Yurok Tribal members and biologists set up fish traps with technicians on a tributary of the Klamath River in California Vivian Wan Restoring a way of life is at the heart of this photograph by Vivian Wan, part of a series that won the New Scientist Editors Award in the Earth Photo 2025 competition. It…
A giant, strong-jawed salamander once tunneled through ancient Tennessee soil. And thanks to a fossil unearthed near East Tennessee State University, scientists now better understand how it helped shape Appalachian amphibian diversity. The giant plethodontid salamander now joins the remarkable roster of fossils from the Gray Fossil Site & Museum. The findings appeared in the…
Astronomers from the University of Hawaiʻi’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have discovered the most energetic cosmic explosions yet discovered, naming the new class of events “extreme nuclear transients” (ENTs). These extraordinary phenomena occur when massive stars—at least three times heavier than our Sun—are torn apart after wandering too close to a supermassive black hole. Their…
Tim Dodd Climate and science reporter EPA Banning or charging for plastic bags is helping stop them ending up on US shorelines, a study of the country’s litter suggests. Data from thousands of cleanups showed that areas which tried to reduce bag use saw them fall by at least 25% as a percentage of total…
A Mexican redknee tarantula (Brachypelma smithi) Shutterstock/Milan Zygmunt When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my biology-professor dad brought me a present home from work: a jar of sticks. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. When some of them started moving he explained that they were stick insects. I kept…
Insect eyes are generally sensitive to ultraviolet, blue and green light. With the exception of some butterflies, they cannot see the color red. Nevertheless, bees and other insects are also attracted to red flowers such as poppies. In this case, however, they are not attracted by the red color, but because they recognize the UV…
The human brain is very good at solving complicated problems. One reason for that is that humans can break problems apart into manageable subtasks that are easy to solve one at a time. This allows us to complete a daily task like going out for coffee by breaking it into steps: getting out of our…
Once in a while, scientific research resembles detective work. Researchers head into the field with a hypothesis and high hopes of finding specific results, but sometimes, there’s a twist in the story that requires a deeper dive into the data. That was the case for the University of Colorado Boulder researchers who led a field…
We investigate the role our forests are playing in offsetting carbon emissions. Source link
