ScIence

Long before there were trees, the Earth was overrun by giant mushrooms. Fungi first showed up over a billion years ago as three-metre-tall fungus fingers that dominated the landscape, while plants have been around for a paltry 700 million years debuting as scruffy shrubs. A billion or so years on, the humble ‘shroom is an unlikely champion in the war against plastic waste thanks to the discovery

Researchers detected mysterious radio waves in Antarctica that seem to defy the rules of particle physics. Now they're searching for a cause. The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna experiment uses 24 antennas attached to a NASA balloon to study neutrinos. (Image credit: Stephanie Wissel / Penn State) Instruments flying more than 18 miles (29 kilometers) above Antarctic

The first-of-its-kind technique could offer a much safer and more effective alternative to current cancer treatments. Image: Rachel Barton/Texas A&M Engineering Just as jackhammers can penetrate concrete, molecular jackhammers (MJH) are nanoscopic machines capable of creating blows so strong that they can crack or rupture the cell membrane, decompensating and killing the

Plant life plays a crucial role in fighting climate change by absorbing and transforming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. For instance, over its lifetime, a tree can absorb more than a ton of carbon from the air and store it in wood and roots. The presence of mosses blanketing the soil is actually a positive indication rather than a negative one. Mosses play a crucial role in establishing

The CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii has passed 430 parts per million Geophysicist Ralph Keeling in his lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California San Diego, where carbon dioxide levels are tested. (Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego) When man first walked on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's

A French grocery store parking lot with solar panels AFP via Getty Images In a surprisingly strong move, the French Senate has voted to require that all parking lots in France above a certain size be covered with solar panels. This is forecast to generate 11 gigawatts, adding to France’s 160 gW capacity and nearly doubling the amount of solar. What’s particularly interesting is the

We have already written about a newly discovered giant sinkhole in China that has a primeval 'lost world' inside, but this one takes it to another dimension. Imagine a sinkhole so deep it takes half a day or more to hike from top to bottom and back. That's the reality of Xiaozhai Tiankeng, also known as the Heavenly Pit, the world's deepest sinkhole. Located in Fengjie County, China, this awe-

Chaitén Volcano in southern Chile erupted on May 2, 2008, for the first time in 9,000 years. NASA satellites that monitor changes in vegetation near volcanoes could aid in earlier eruption warnings. Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Trees near volcanoes might be the early warning signs scientists have been looking for — and now, they can