ScIence

It Just Rained on Greenland’s Summit For The First Time in Recorded History

It has just rained at the summit of Greenland's ice sheet for the first time in recorded history, in yet another worrying milestone in our ecological unravelling. Like much of the Northern Hemisphere, Greenland's been experiencing a massive heatwave with temperatures at the glacier's summit rising above freezing for the third time in less than a decade. On 14 August 2021, at a place normally fa

The Speed of Ocean Currents Is Changing in a Major Way, Scientists Warn

Scientists already know the oceans are rapidly warming and sea levels are rising. But that's not all. Now, thanks to satellite observations, we have three decades' worth of data on how the speeds of ocean surface currents are also changing over time. In research published on 23 April in the journal Nature Climate Change we detail our findings on how ocean currents have become more energeti

Coca-Cola and Carlsberg Will Switch to Plant-Based Bottles That Break Down Within a Year

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists estimate that eight million metric tons of plastic—approximately the weight of 90 aircraft carriers—finds its way into the oceans every year. The Paper Bottle Company (Paboco) wants to help manufacturers and distributors reduce their single-use plastic waste by creating bottles made from degradable plant sugars rather

20 Images From NASA That Show How Real Climate Change Really Is

The planet is undergoing drastic change with regards to the climate. The ice caps are melting, hurricanes and storms are becoming more intense, various locations are experiencing greater flooding, wildfires are a more frequent occurrence, extreme droughts are eliminating whole water sources—the list goes on and on. Now, many organizations and institutions are keeping an eye on what’s going

Physicists Just Reached a New Speed Limit For Moving Quantum Information

Scientific progress towards a quantum computing future has so far involved lots of different breakthroughs in lots of different (but related) fields, and there's now a new one to report: the discovery of a crucial quantum speed limit. This latest research answers a fundamental question – how fast can a quantum process be? It's a useful piece of information to know if you want to build a quant

Stonehenge Likely Built With Stones And a Design Taken From an Ancient Welsh Monument

Remains of an ancient monument in west Wales indicate stones that stood at the site may have been dismantled and used to build the Neolithic standing circle Stonehenge, a new study suggested Friday. Researchers believe some stones used at Stonehenge, near Salisbury in southwest England, were used in an earlier monument 175 miles (280 kilometres) away in southwest Wales. The team behind the d

A Physicist Has Worked Out The Math That Makes ‘Paradox-Free’ Time Travel Plausible

No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists. As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time

Birds Use an Invisible ‘Map’ to Find Their Way in Faraway Places They’ve Never Seen

Every year, billions of songbirds migrate thousands of miles between Europe and Africa – and then repeat that same journey again, year after year, to nest in exactly the same place that they chose on their first great journey. The remarkable navigational precision displayed by these tiny birds – as they travel alone over stormy seas, across vast deserts, and through extremes in weather and

A Distant Galaxy Is Flaring With Strange Regularity, And Scientists Have Figured Out Why

Roughly every 114 days, almost like clockwork, a galaxy 570 million light-years away lights up like a firework. Since at least 2014, our observatories have recorded this strange behaviour; now, astronomers have put the pieces together to figure out why. In the centre of the spiral galaxy, named ESO 253-G003, a supermassive black hole is being orbited by a star that, every 114 days, swings close

Earliest Animal Cave Art on Record Has Been Found in Indonesia, And It’s Adorable

The oldest-known animal drawing in the world is a 45,500-year-old depiction of a hairy, warty pig on a cave wall in Indonesia, a new study finds. The mulberry colored painting, drawn with the red mineral ochre, shows the profile of what is likely a Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis), a wild stubby-legged beast with facial warts that can weigh up to nearly 190 pounds (85 kilograms). These pi