The prevailing view is that animals mainly have sex to reproduce. Until recently, therefore, scientists assumed that animals were relentlessly heterosexual. This is the message conveyed by countless zoos, wildlife documentaries, ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 5, 2018
1
28
In the northern sky in December is a beautiful cluster of stars known as the Pleiades, or the "seven sisters." Look carefully and you will probably count six stars. So why do we say there are seven of them?
Astronomy
Dec 22, 2020
30
20508
The past 70 years have seen the way we live and work transformed by two tiny inventions. The electronic transistor and the microchip are what make all modern electronics possible, and since their development in the 1940s ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 22, 2016
0
34
Allowing forests to regenerate on their own has been championed as a strategy for reducing planet-heating carbon in the atmosphere while also boosting biodiversity, the benefits ecosystems offer and even the fruitfulness ...
Environment
Aug 13, 2023
0
292
There are many examples of mathematical breakthroughs achieved in prison. Maybe the most famous is from the French mathematician Andre Weil, who came up with his hugely influential conjectures while in a military prison in ...
Mathematics
May 15, 2020
3
3885
The simulated universe theory implies that our universe, with all its galaxies, planets and life forms, is a meticulously programmed computer simulation. In this scenario, the physical laws governing our reality are simply ...
General Physics
Oct 21, 2023
37
638
I've spent an awful lot of time in Roman sewers – enough to earn me the nickname "Queen of Latrines" from my friends. The Etruscans laid the first underground sewers in the city of Rome around 500 BC. These cavernous tunnels ...
Archaeology
Nov 19, 2015
0
2333
The United States National Security Agency—the country's premier signals intelligence organization—recently declassified a Cold War-era document about code-breaking.
Mathematics
May 31, 2021
0
697
Rumour has it that Albert Einstein spent his last few hours on Earth scribbling something on a piece of paper in a last attempt to formulate a theory of everything. Some 60 years later, another legendary figure in theoretical ...
General Physics
Mar 16, 2018
121
2430
The ocean floor is famously less explored than the surface of Mars. And when our team of scientists recently mapped the seabed, and ancient sediments beneath, we discovered what looks like an asteroid impact crater.
Planetary Sciences
Aug 20, 2022
1
754
