Science

Scientists have discovered the deepest known animal ecosystem on Earth, thriving almost 10 kilometres beneath the Pacific Ocean where sunlight never reaches. At depths of up to 9,533 metres, researchers found dense colonies of blood-red tubeworms, white clams and other marine animals living around methane-rich cold seeps on the ocean floor. The discovery ‘Flourishing chemosynthetic…

More than 2,200 years before satellites, GPS and space missions revealed the Earth’s true size, an ancient Greek scholar calculated the planet’s circumference using nothing more than a stick, sunlight and basic geometry. Around 240 BCE, Eratosthenes, the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria, carried out one of history’s most brilliant scientific experiments. By…

Forest bathing sounds like an ancient tradition, but it is actually younger than the personal computer. The practice known as shinrin-yoku was coined in Japan in 1982, not passed down through centuries. It began as a public health idea rather than a spiritual one, aimed at a country that was mostly forest but rapidly urbanising,…

Asteroid breakup 800 million years ago may have triggered impacts on Earth, the Moon and Mars (AI photo) A massive asteroid that broke apart around 800 million years ago may have sent a huge number of rocky fragments towards Earth, the Moon and Mars, according to a new study led by researchers at the Southwest…

Thousands of people around the world are watching bald eagles Jackie and Shadow raise their two eaglets. Thousands of people around the world are once again following the lives of bald eagles Jackie and Shadow through a live nest camera in California’s Big Bear Valley. This year, the attention is on the couple’s two young…

Image(s): Guinness World Records For Wally Funk, the dream of becoming an astronaut began long before women were welcomed into America’s space programme. In 1961, the gifted pilot completed the same gruelling medical and psychological tests given to NASA’s first astronauts as part of the pioneering Mercury 13 programme. Despite outperforming many of her male…

For decades, archaeologists believed that while early humans had learned to control naturally occurring fires more than a million years ago, they only mastered the ability to create fire much later. A remarkable discovery in southeast England is now challenging that timeline. Tiny fragments of iron pyrite, found alongside heat-damaged stone tools and ancient hearth…

This might be the closest humans have come to finding another planet that can support life. In a shocking discovery, astronomers have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-like, rocky planet about 48 light-years away.The planet, called LHS 1140 b, is orbiting in the habitable zone around its star meaning that it is at the right…

High above the Amazon rainforest, invisible currents of water vapour move through the sky in narrow, fast-flowing bands, carrying a volume of moisture that dwarfs even the largest rivers on the ground below. Scientists call this phenomenon an atmospheric river, sometimes nicknamed a flying river when it occurs above dense forest, and unlike a conventional…

A person demonstrates Japan’s TRUSCO Do Reimon Box, a walk-in cooling booth. As record-breaking heatwaves become more frequent around the world, keeping outdoor workers safe has become an increasingly urgent challenge. Japan may have come up with an unusual solution. A Japanese company has developed what many are calling a “human refrigerator”, a walk-in cooling…