Science

Watch live as SpaceX launches more than four dozen Starlink satellites on Thursday

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SpaceX is ready to send another batch of its Starlink internet satellites into orbit, and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket is poised to launch 49 Starlink spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 1:13 p.m. EST (1813 GMT). You can watch it here at Space.com, courtesy of … Read more

North America Could Expect Over 1 Million More Opioid Deaths by 2029

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A new analysis from researchers at Stanford University and the scientific journal, The Lancet, has revealed a large number of Americans and Canadians are still becoming addicted to prescription opioids each year.   Without “urgent interventions“, the members of the Stanford-Lancet Commission estimate this deepening disaster could claim the lives of up to 1.2 million people … Read more

There’s a Bunch of Bacteria Having ‘Sex’ in Your Gut, And It’s Wilder Than We Thought

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The human gut is the host of a rampant microscopic orgy. To survive, the microbes in our digestive tract are having ‘sex’ with each other on a regular basis, all in the name of swapping secrets on how to survive deadly doses of antibiotics.   A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign … Read more

Rare Breed of Ancient Trees With Incredible Lifespans Help Keep Their Forests Alive

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The venerable elders of a forest are hugely important to the diversity, fitness, and survival of the woodland as a whole, new research shows – and they bring with them a hardiness and experience in dealing with change, as well as a lifetime of ecological interactions preserved in their immediate surrounds..   Scientists used models … Read more

World-First Experiment That Infected People With Coronavirus Shares Early Results

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Scientists deliberately infected young, healthy volunteers with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – and now, they’ve shared their first results from that experiment.      The new study, published Tuesday (Feb. 1) in Springer Nature’s preprint database, In Review, has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it could provide insight into how mild COVID-19 unfolds, from the moment … Read more

Lung cancer: Cheap blood test detects tumours at an early and treatable stage

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Lung cancer screening has always been expensive, but a simple blood test that detects lipids associated with tumours may offer a cheaper alternative Health 2 February 2022 By Alice Klein Blood samples can now be used to search for early signs of lung cancer Medicimage/Alamy A blood test that can detect lung cancer before people … Read more

Wound healing: Dressing works like duct tape to seal internal wounds

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Wounds in the gut can cause dangerous infections, but a sticky medical dressing can patch them up and allow them to heal Technology 2 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins A duct tape-inspired bandage bioadhesive patch Xuanhe Zhao et al. A transparent dressing inspired by duct tape has been shown to quickly heal internal injuries in … Read more

Flying robot generates as much power as a flapping insect

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A flying robot with wings controlled by a magnetic field instead of heavy motors and gears slightly outperforms insect muscles Technology 2 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins A small robot with wings like an insect can fly and generate more power than a similarly-sized animal in nature. Most flying robots, whether they use wings or … Read more

A Cosmic Airburst May Have Devastated a Vast Native American Culture 1,500 Years Ago

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More than 1500 years ago, a vast culture known as the Hopewell tradition (or Hopewell culture) stretched across what is today the eastern United States.  The cause of the culture’s decline has long been debated, with war and climate change two of the possibilities, but now a new avenue of inquiry has opened up: debris from a … Read more