Observations made with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed for the first time that a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way moves just as predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Its orbit is shaped like a rosette and not like an ellipse as predicted by Newton’s Read more about ESO Telescope Sees Star Dance Around Supermassive Black Hole, Proves Einstein’s Theory of Relativity[…]

For most of her life, Joy Milne had a superpower that she was totally oblivious to. She simply had no idea she possessed an utterly amazing, slightly terrifying biological gift that scientists would itch to study. In fact, Joy probably would have stayed oblivious if it hadn’t been for her husband, Les Milne. […] But Read more about A Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson’s, Alzheimers, Cancer, TBC, Is Inspiring New Research Into Diagnosis[…]

A team led by UC Riverside geologists has discovered the first ancestor on the family tree that contains most familiar animals today, including humans. The tiny, wormlike creature, named Ikaria wariootia, is the earliest bilaterian, or organism with a front and back, two symmetrical sides, and openings at either end connected by a gut. The Read more about Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils[…]

A happy accident in the laboratory has led to a breakthrough discovery that not only solved a problem that stood for more than half a century, but has major implications for the development of quantum computers and sensors.In a study published today in Nature, a team of engineers at UNSW Sydney has done what a Read more about Engineers rediscover electric control of atomic nuclius, get it working. Means easy quantum computer control among other things.[…]

Bioplastics date back more than 160 years, but they’ve seen a surge in interest and production in the past few decades. In 2018, the world produced 2.6 million tons of bioplastic, according to data from the Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (IFBB). That’s a fraction of the 300 million tons of plastic produced, but IFBB Read more about The Truth About Bioplastic[…]

Scientists have just discovered that a jellyfish-like parasite doesn’t have a mitochondrial genome – the first multicellular organism known to have this absence. That means it doesn’t breathe; in fact, it lives its life completely free of oxygen dependency. This discovery isn’t just changing our understanding of how life can work here on Earth – Read more about Scientists Find The First-Ever Animal That Doesn’t Need Oxygen to Survive[…]

Some of Earth’s plants have fallen in love with metal. With roots that act practically like magnets, these organisms — about 700 are known — flourish in metal-rich soils that make hundreds of thousands of other plant species flee or die…. The plants not only collect the soil’s minerals into their bodies but seem to Read more about Some Farmers are Harvesting Metals From Plants[…]

A powerful antibiotic that kills some of the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria in the world has been discovered using artificial intelligence. The drug works in a different way to existing antibacterials and is the first of its kind to be found by setting AI loose on vast digital libraries of pharmaceutical compounds. […] “I think Read more about Powerful antibiotic discovered using machine learning for first time[…]

This is a hugely holier than thou article written by a strident anti-abortionist, but it’s quite interesting in that a) you can clone your puppy commercially and b) it’s absolutely not a perfected science. You have five days after your pet dies to extract its genetic material for cloning, according to the Seoul-based Sooam Biotech Read more about People Are Killing Puppy Clones That Don’t Come Out ‘Perfect’ – wait you can clone your puppy?![…]

Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades. The research adds to growing evidence of what some scientists have called an “insect apocalypse”, which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Read more about Car ‘splatometer’ tests reveal 80% decline in number of insects in last decade[…]

It’s positively balmy in Antarctica. The National Meteorological Service of Argentina announced on Twitter that its Esperanza weather station recorded a new high for the continent: 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit). The previous temperature record for Antarctica was set on March 24, 2015, when this same weather station recorded 17.5 degrees Celsius (63.5 degrees Read more about Antarctica Just Set a New Temperature Record[…]

On Monday, researchers from Japan’s Osaka University announced the successful completion of a first-of-its-kind heart transplant. Rather than replacing their patient’s entire heart with a new organ, these researchers placed degradable sheets containing heart muscle cells onto the heart’s damaged areas – and if the procedure has the desired effect, it could eventually eliminate the Read more about Lab-Grown Heart Muscles Have Been Transplanted Into a Human For The First Time[…]

Body movement, from the muscles in your arms to the neurons transporting those signals to your brain, relies on a massive collection of proteins called molecular motors. Fundamentally, molecular motors are proteins that convert chemical energy into mechanical movement, and have different functions depending on their task. However, because they are so small, the exact Read more about Body movement is achieved by molecular motors. A new ‘molecular nano-patterning’ technique allows us to study these motors, reveals that some motors coordinate differently[…]

Rather than directions going one-way from DNA to RNA to proteins, the latest study shows that RNA itself modulates how DNA is transcribed—using a chemical process that is increasingly apparent to be vital to biology. The discovery has significant implications for our understanding of human disease and drug design. […] The picture many of us Read more about Turns out that RNA affects DNA in multiple ways. Genes don’t just send messages to RNA which then direct proteins to do stuff.[…]

A new type of immune cell which kills most cancers has been discovered by accident by British scientists, in a finding which could herald a major breakthrough in treatment. Researchers at Cardiff University were analysing blood from a bank in Wales, looking for immune cells that could fight bacteria, when they found an entirely new Read more about Immune cell which kills most cancers discovered by accident by Welsh scientists in major breakthrough […]

River flow is reduced in areas where forests have been planted and does not recover over time, a new study has shown. Rivers in some regions can completely disappear within a decade. This highlights the need to consider the impact on regional water availability, as well as the wider climate benefit, of tree-planting plans. “Reforestation Read more about Local water availability is permanently reduced after planting forests[…]

A little over a year ago, Caltech’s Lihong Wang developed the world’s fastest camera, a device capable of taking 10 trillion pictures per second. It is so fast that it can even capture light traveling in slow motion. But sometimes just being quick is not enough. Indeed, not even the fastest camera can take pictures Read more about Ultrafast camera takes 1 trillion frames per second of transparent objects and phenomena, can photograph light pulses[…]

A huge trash-collecting system designed to clean up plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean is finally picking up plastic, its inventor announced Wednesday. The Netherlands-based nonprofit the Ocean Cleanup says its latest prototype was able to capture and hold debris ranging in size from huge, abandoned fishing gear, known as “ghost nets,” to tiny microplastics Read more about A floating device created to clean up plastic from the ocean is finally doing its job, organizers say[…]

Expert human pathologists typically require around 30 minutes to diagnose brain tumors from tissue samples extracted during surgery. A new artificially intelligent system can do it in less than 150 seconds—and it does so more accurately than its human counterparts. New research published today in Nature Medicine describes a novel diagnostic technique that leverages the Read more about During Brain Surgery, This AI Can Diagnose a Tumor in 2 Minutes[…]

The most direct and strongest evidence for the accelerating universe with dark energy is provided by the distance measurements using type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) for the galaxies at high redshift. This result is based on the assumption that the corrected luminosity of SN Ia through the empirical standardization would not evolve with redshift. New Read more about New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error[…]

If you know nothing else about particle accelerators, you probably know that they’re big — sometimes miles long. But a new approach from Stanford researchers has led to an accelerator shorter from end to end than a human hair is wide. The general idea behind particle accelerators is that they’re a long line of radiation Read more about This particle accelerator fits on the head of a pin[…]

n the 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of weather observations were carefully made in the logbooks of ships sailing through largely uncharted waters. Written in pen and ink, the logs recorded barometric pressure, air temperature, ice conditions and other variables. Today, volunteers from a project called Old Weather are transcribing these observations, which are Read more about How old ship logs are giving new insights into climate change[…]

The fossil fuels driving climate change make people sick, and so do impacts like extreme heat, wildfires, and more extreme storms, according to research published on Wednesday. In short, the climate crisis is a public health crisis. A new report from premiere medical journal the Lancet tallies the medical toll of climate change and finds Read more about Climate Change Is Already Making Us Sick[…]

Right now, in the Netherlands there is talk about reducing the speed limit from 130kph to 100kph in order to comply to emissions goals set by the EU (and supported by NL) years ago. Because NL didn’t put into effect any necessary legislation years ago, this is now coming to bite NL in the arse Read more about The effects of speed on traffic flow – also with a quick look at emissions and fuel consumption[…]