Science

NASA’s Cassini probe has been studying Saturn and its moons since 2005, and it’s almost time for the spacecraft to call it a day. The probe is running low on fuel, but scientists intend to get the most out of Cassini before it’s no longer capable of doing science. Earlier …

Physicists from the ATLAS experiment, one of the four major experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, have found the first direct evidence of high energy light-by-light scattering, a quantum-mechanical process that is forbidden in the classical theory of electrodynamics. A candidate event of light-by-light scattering, a very …

A team of physicists at the University of Bonn in Germany has developed a technique to create optical ‘wells’ for a photonic Bose-Einstein condensate. The artist’s rendering shows how potential ‘wells’ are created for photons in the microresonator through heating with an external laser beam (green). Image credit: David Dung, …

When SpaceX’s next mission launches on August 14, it won’t just be carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has partnered with HP to perform a long-term experiment on how high-end, modern computers will perform in space compared with on Earth. Space, as you may or may not …

A newly discovered species of fruit bat — previously nicknamed ‘Yoda bat’ — has an official name: the happy tube-nosed fruit bat (Nyctimene wrightae). The happy tube-nosed fruit bat (Nyctimene wrightae): female with young pup attached, showing characteristic long ears with thickened edge and short, brown hair. Image credit: Debra …

New excavations of a cave site in western Sumatra called Lida Ajer indicate modern humans reached Southeast Asia between 73,000 to 63,000 years ago — up to 20,000 years earlier than archaeologists previously thought. The findings, published in the journal Nature, also suggest humans could have potentially made the crossing to …

A beautifully carved head and upper torso of a female figure have been found within a monumental gate complex near the upper citadel of Kunulua, the capital of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina (1000-738 BC). This female statue was uncovered at a citadel gate complex in Turkey by archaeologists from …

An international team of paleontologists has identified a new teleosaur and named it after Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister, frontman of the band Motörhead. A paleoartist’s reconstruction of Lemmysuchus obtusidens. The reconstruction contains details relating to Motörhead, with the pattern on the head based on the band’s Snaggletooth logo. Image credit: Mark …

Engineers have developed some truly impressive rockets over the decades, including the Saturn V that sent men to the moon. However, they’ve all been chemical rockets, which need an enormous amount of fuel just to slip the bonds of gravity and reach orbit. As NASA sets its sights on more …

An international team of planetary researchers from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and Jilin University, China, has used computer simulations to attempt to solve the mystery of what lies beneath the surfaces of Uranus, Neptune, and extrasolar ‘ice giants.’ Artist’s impression of an extrasolar ‘ice giant.’ Inside our Solar System, …