Magnetic signatures hidden inside rocks tell us a lot about Earth’s magnetic field and the way continents and tectonic plates have shifted across millennia – but for some periods, the geological record doesn’t make much sense. A fresh analysis of rocks from one of these periods, the Ediacaran (about 630-540 million years ago), aims to…
Charred coffee grounds could make concrete up to 30 percent stronger, scientists in Australia found. Their clever recipe could solve multiple problems at once. Each year, the world produces about 10 billion kilograms (22 billion pounds) of coffee waste, most of which ends up in landfills. Related: Coffee Could Be The Secret to Healthy Aging…
A team of scientists has identified five different sleep profiles that link the quality of a person’s shut-eye with a variety of health, psychological, and lifestyle outcomes. Although it’s something we all do frequently, the science of sleep is still pretty murky. For the new study, the scientists examined multiple aspects of sleep quality and…
A tiny particle that smashed into Earth with a record-shattering energy of 220 petaelectronvolts could be the last scream of an evaporating black hole. According to a new theoretical paper, the 2023 neutrino event named KM3-230213A can be explained by a burst of Hawking radiation emitted as a primordial black hole puffed into nothing. Moreover,…
In 2019, LIGO and Virgo recorded something truly bizarre – a gravitational wave event less than a tenth of a second in duration. Compared to the drawn-out chirps of black hole binaries on decaying orbital spirals, it was a sharp crack. The best explanation of the event, named GW190521, was a chance encounter of two…
A tiny, reptilian fossil has been excavated from layers of ancient sandstone, where it was preserved for over 240 million years – predating the dinosaurs. The little lizard-like creature pinches the record for the oldest known lepidosaur. Until now, this title was held by Wirtembergia, which lived 3-7 million years later. Lepidosaurs are a group…
Dinosaur life wasn’t all peaches and cream before the Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth. Some were plagued by much smaller dangers long before. A new study has found evidence that a potentially deadly bone disease endangered the lives of numerous long-necked dinosaurs in what is now Brazil, roughly 80 million years ago. These are some of…
The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals…
Humans living on the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic period may have eaten their neighbors in one grim and grisly act of social violence, new evidence reveals. At least 11 individuals – including children and adolescents – appear to have been skinned, defleshed, disarticulated, fractured, cooked, and eaten by other people, according to the…
For years, NASA has monitored a strange anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa. This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years, and perhaps none more so than…