Exoplanets that get too close to their parent stars experience harsh conditionsNazarii_Neshcherenskyi/Shutterstock A distant Earth-sized planet is orbiting so close to its parent star that gravity is stretching it to an extreme degree, turning it egg-shaped. A handful of known...
August 15, 20242 min readTardigrade Fossils Reveal When ‘Water Bears’ Became Indestructible252 million years ago, tardigrades may have escaped extinction using this one weird trickBy Mindy WeisbergerAn artistic reconstruction of two tardigrade fossil specimens that were preserved in amber and...
AS YOUR eyes scan these words and absorb this sentence, do you feel you are resting? There is good reason to think you might. In 2016, more than 18,000 people responded to a survey called The Rest Test, which asked...
WHEN I was asked to write this article, my heart started beating faster, my hands started shaking and my thoughts went into overdrive coming up with what felt like hundreds of objectively sensible reasons why I couldn’t do it. I...
Eating salmon may help your body build neurotransmitters that ease anxietyShutterstock/Rawpixel.com WHEN anxiety hits, how can you calm your whirring brain? For some people, worrying thoughts interfere with their daily lives, affecting their health and reducing their ability to maintain...
A good neural network architecture is vital when developing artificial intelligenceSHUTTERSTOCK/Qpt When ChatGPT first took the world by storm in 2022, its capabilities were so impressive that people happily looked past its awkward name. Yet hidden within those initials lies...
Transmission electron micrograph of mpox virus particles (green) found within cells (blue)NIAID Just over a year after the last mpox outbreak was deemed to no longer be a global emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has once again sounded its...
Sunflowers may be working togetherShutterstock/Tartezy Sunflowers move in a way that helps their neighbours. The seemingly random motion of the plants’ roots and shoots actually minimises shade cover in crowded environments, ensuring that all of them get enough light to...
August 15, 20245 min readEating Disorders Can Strike AnyoneMisconceptions that eating disorders mostly afflict white, affluent, young females have led to disparities in the treatment of these deadly diseasesBy Ashley Andreou “I still don’t trust my parents’ ability to feed...
A female (top) and male sperm whaleFranco Banfi/BIOSPHOTO/Alamy We have known for decades that sperm whales are highly intelligent and social. They are the largest of the toothed whales, among the deepest divers, have the biggest brains of any organism...
