NASA’s newest astronauts are a little unusual. It’s not every day that a colony of bacteria get the chance to orbit the Earth. In order to fully prepare for the disastrous event of an astronaut accidentally bringing E. coli onto the International Space Station, NASA is launching a new experiment – which just so happens to involve deliberately bringing E. ... Read More »
Long before humans had pets or roommates or any other beasts of questionable hygiene sharing their homes, we lived with bugs. The average household has around 100 species of arthropod, happily passing their days: centipedes in your storage area, booklice in your books, cockroaches literally … wherever. But it’s only recently that scientists have begun to understand how the physical ... Read More »
Only a fraction of the Earth’s surface contained the right amount of hydrocarbons to trigger the mass extinction, a new study says. Sixty-six million years ago, an enormous asteroid hurtled into Earth, creating an explosion with the force of about 100 trillion tons of TNT. Soot from the ensuing fires, dust and greenhouse gasses spewed into the atmosphere, blocking out ... Read More »
A frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus), a species that is often termed a ‘living fossil’ because of several ‘primitive’ features that have survived for millions of years, has been captured off the coast of Portugal’s Algarve region, the country’s meteorological and sea institute has announced. Chlamydoselachus anguineus, is found on continental shelves and the nearshore areas of large islands, although they ... Read More »
HI-SEAS members closed the door to their faux Mars habitat and shut out the rest of life on Earth. The study will assess the psychological difficulties associated with living in isolated and confined conditions for an extended time. The project is designed to help the U.S. space agency send humans on long space voyages including to Mars by the 2030s. ... Read More »
Seabirds apparently have a surprising new predator to worry about. A researcher who worked on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean in 2016 says he witnessed a large coconut crab attack a sleeping seabird, which then became dinner. Last week, National Geographic unearthed the rare and gruesome sight of a coconut crab—which typically lives on land and eats coconuts—stalking, ... Read More »
Scientists at EPFL’s Robotic Systems Laboratory (LSRO), which is headed by Professor Francesco Mondada, have developed a miniature robot that can integrate perfectly into schools of zebrafish. Their work was carried out as part of an EU research program among six partner institutions,* and the findings were recently published in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. “We created a kind of ‘secret agent’ that ... Read More »
A parasitic ‘zombie’ fungus controls its ant hosts to die outside their nest so it can find fresh prey easily, Penn State researchers have found. Instead, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato — a complex of species sometimes called “zombie ant fungus” — surrounds and invades muscle fibers throughout the ant’s body, and fungal cells form a 3-D network that may enable ... Read More »
Unusual footage has emerged from China of an UFO-shaped cloud appearing in the sky. In video captured in Shangrao City in Jiangxi Province, southeastern China on November 2 by onlookers, a cloud with the appearance of smoking ring can be seen. According to local reports the cloud appeared for more than 10 minutes before disappearing. No further information was available ... Read More »
A Russian who has baffled scientists since birth claims he lived on Mars before he was reborn on Earth. Boriska Kipriyanovich has confounded experts with his knowledge of outer space for nearly 20 years. He claims to have flown to ancient Egypt as a pilot. When he was a schoolboy, he said the Martians have a strong connection to the ... Read More »
A star that appeared to die in a supernova explosion a long time ago came back from the dead and blew up again, according to the scientists who observed that second fiery death. Supernovae, the explosions of stars, have been observed in the thousands and in all cases they marked the death of a star. Astronomers at Las Cumbres Observatory ... Read More »
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