Technology

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid collision with Earth initiated a catastrophic chain of events that led to the extinction of approximately 75% of the planet’s species, including the dinosaurs. This mass extinction is widely credited with creating ecological niches that allowed mammals and other life forms to flourish, eventually paving the way for human evolution. Among the survivors of …

Scientists are on the brink of a breakthrough that could allow early detection of dementia through a blood test, potentially more than ten years before symptoms are clinically diagnosed. This advancement comes after researchers found biological indicators related to dementia in blood samples from 50,000 participants in the UK, identifying a specific pattern of four proteins in older individuals that …

During an archaeological dig in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, from 2007 to 2016, researchers stumbled upon an extraordinary find: the world’s oldest intact chicken egg, dating back approximately 1,700 years, which remarkably still contained its original liquid contents. This discovery, hailed as truly unprecedented, occurred when, out of four unearthed eggs, three were accidentally broken by archaeologists, releasing an overpowering smell, but …

A recent United Nations report has highlighted a critical situation: over 20% of the Earth’s migratory species are on the brink of extinction due to human actions. This report, marking the first State of the World’s Migratory Species assessment by the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), revealed that one out of every five …

NASA has embarked on an ambitious journey with its massive airborne laboratory, the DC-8, conducting extensive flights across Asia to improve air pollution forecasting and management models. This endeavor aims to pinpoint the sources and patterns of air pollution, a critical step towards developing more accurate systems for public alerts. Given that air pollution contributes to millions of fatalities each …

Researchers have discovered that under certain exotic conditions, heat can mimic the properties of sound, echoing back and forth in a manner referred to as “second sound.” This intriguing behavior has been captured in images for the first time by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), showcasing how heat propagates like sound waves within a superfluid—a unique state …

A recent scientific investigation has revealed that the tectonic plates beneath the Pacific Ocean are experiencing separation. These plates, part of Earth’s lithosphere, essentially float on the asthenosphere, a semi-fluid layer, and their movement is a fundamental aspect of plate tectonics. Researchers from the University of Toronto have identified significant undersea faults that stretch for hundreds of kilometers and reach …

In discussing the phenomenon known as “Snowball Earth,” Dr. Adriana Dutkiewicz, an ARC Future Fellow, paints a picture of a time when our planet was almost entirely encased in ice, with ice sheets stretching from the poles to the equator around 700 million years ago. This period, characterized by a dramatic drop in global temperatures, has long puzzled scientists regarding …