The First Known Interstellar Asteroid Looks Incredibly Weird
Scientists know of 750,000 or so asteroids and comets—and all of them are part of this fine solar system. That is, all of them but one. And as new research shows, it’s weird as hell.
Scientists know of 750,000 or so asteroids and comets—and all of them are part of this fine solar system. That is, all of them but one. And as new research shows, it’s weird as hell.
Canada is among the few countries in the world where genetically engineering human embryos isn’t just illegal, doing so could land you behind bars.
A new analysis of ancient rock art demonstrates that humans hunted with dogs on the Arabian Peninsula over 8,000 years ago—and it looks like those dogs wore leashes.
Martha Lillard spends half of every day with her body encapsulated in a half-century old machine that forces her to breathe. Only her head sticks out of the end of the antique iron lung. On the other end, a motorized lever pulls the leather bellows, creating negative pressure that induces her lungs to suck in air.
When you hear something is chock-full of antioxidants, the mental conclusion is often: That’s it—that’s the elixir of life, I have to eat a lot of that. But why do we all assume that loading up on anti-oxidants will somehow be the key to infinite youth?
To be a giraffe among giraffes, or a pigeon among pigeons, is to live at all times in that scene from Being John Malkovich—a world in which everyone you know looks pretty much exactly like you. However wondrously varied the animal kingdom might be, on a species-level its residents tend to look more similar than not—at…
A few months ago, physicists observed a new subatomic particle—essentially an awkwardly-named, crazy cousin of the proton. Its mere existence has energized teams of particle physicists to dream up new ways about how matter forms, arranges itself, and exists.
For the better part of the last three years, the introduction of the most powerful gene editing technology ever invented has been marred by a nasty patent battle. The two groups of scientists involved, each contributing significantly to the future of genetic engineering, are pitted against each other in a bitter…
In the year 2030, a powerful radio transmission originating from Earth will arrive at a potentially habitable exoplanet located approximately 12.4 light years away. Should any alien intelligence be there to receive it, they’re in for quite a treat: This binary stream of data contains short musical clips from some of…
Yesterday, the National Science Foundation announced that they’ll keep the storied Arecibo telescope running in the wake of the Hurricane Maria damage.
One nice thing about teddy bears is that if your dog tears the head off of your child’s favorite one, you can just sew it back on. But you don’t proclaim your achievement a “wild success”—rather, you say, “here, I have fixed your lifeless play-thing.”
Although mirrors have been around for thousands of years, a German chemist named Justus von Liebig made a breakthrough in 1835 that would make the modern manufacture of them possible. Add some sugar to ammoniated silver nitrate, pour it onto glass, and blammo: you’ve got yourself a mirror.
A planet whole solar system is going to destroy the Earth during September October, uh, any time now, if the usual doomsday conspiracy people are to be believed. And if you’re hoping to survive this calamity, you should probably know what’s going on.
New observations of nearby pulsars—lighthouse-like neutron stars beaming energy—seem to have deepened a mystery that’s been bugging scientists for around a decade. The Earth is being hit with too much antimatter from outer space, and no one is sure why.
For the native species of New Zealand, European settlement was particularly cruel. The country has no endemic land predators, so many of its birds evolved without the typical avian aptitude for flight. Then came Western settlers, and along with them rats, mice, opossums, stoats, cats, and the occasional misbehaving dog
Astronomer Abel Méndez from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico has put together a Periodic Table of Exoplanets, where each of the 3,700 confirmed exoplanets is slotted into its own discrete category—including planets that could harbor life.
With the advent of modern technologies, the field of regenerative medicine has truly begun to approach its full potential.
Well, this is it. We’ve finally gotten to the point where observing two black holes slamming together, possibly the most way-out physics-based idea one could wrap their head around, has become “routine.” How did we get here?
President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to reverse a Barack Obama-era ban on the importation of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia to the U.S., ABC News reported on Wednesday, in a remarkably petty attack on rules intended to protect species registered under the Endangered Species Act.
During sex, female praying mantises have a tendency to kill their partners with a decapitating cutting blow that would make a samurai proud. But as this shocking new video shows, just because a male doesn’t have a head doesn’t mean he still can’t get it on.