September 12, 20244 min readScientists Will Engineer the Ocean to Absorb More Carbon DioxideA research consortium plans to revive geoengineering trials of the controversial iron fertilization technique to pull carbon dioxide from the air, despite public backlashBy Alec LuhnThis February...
As frightening as monsters are, they have always captivated us. From chimeras and hydras to bunyips and golems, creatures have emerged from our imaginations throughout history and across cultures. Today, they explode onto our cinema screens with incredible regularity. Given...
Tel Aviv University before a talk from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in June 2023REUTERS/Amir Cohen SupremacyParmy Olson (Macmillan Business (UK); St Martin’s Press (US)) For most people, ChatGPT appeared to materalise out of thin air. Within weeks of OpenAI’s quiet...
The Perseverance rover is exploring MarsNASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA’s Perseverance rover has spotted an aurora on Mars that would have been visible to humans. This first sighting of its kind suggests that future astronauts visiting the Red Planet could be in for...
Jared Isaacman looks out of the Dragon capsule’s hatchSpaceX SpaceX made history today as its private astronauts conducted the first ever civilian spacewalk as part of its Polaris Dawn mission. Two astronauts partially exited a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft, one...
There is little good-quality research into smallpox vaccines’ effectiveness against mpoxEmmanuele Contini/NurPhoto via Getty Images Receiving a single dose of one type of smallpox vaccine seems to lower the risk of catching mpox by around 60 per cent, although this...
When my daughter was young, she washed her hands a lot. We might have poked what we thought was gentle fun at her, saying she was “a little bit OCD”. Later, she began to disclose “bad thoughts”, which I assumed...
The motion of bubbling gas on the surface of the star R DoradusALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Vlemming Giant bubbles of hot gas more than 75 times the size of our sun have been observed on the surface of a nearby star, which...
Easter Island’s famous moai statuesTero Hakala/Shutterstock DNA analysis of ancient remains from Easter Island shows that the population was in fact increasing when Europeans arrived, rather than collapsing as reported by some historical accounts. The results also show that there...
The jawbone of a Neanderthal known as Thorin, who is thought to have been part of an isolated populationXavier Muth Genetic analysis of a Neanderthal fossil found in France reveals that it was from a previously unknown lineage, a remnant...
