Millions of Palm-Sized, Flying Spiders Could Invade the East Coast

New research, published Feb. 17 in the journal Physiological Entomology, suggests that the palm-sized Joro spider, which swarmed North Georgia by the millions last September, has a special resilience to the cold. This has led scientists to suggest that the 3-inch (7.6 centimeters) bright-yellow-striped spiders — whose hatchlings disperse by fashioning web parachutes to fly … Read more

COVID Still Threatens Millions of Immunocompromised People

Iesha White is so fed up with the U.S. response to covid-19 that she’s seriously considering moving to Europe. “I’m that disgusted. The lack of care for each other, to me, it’s too much,” said White, 30, of Los Angeles. She has multiple sclerosis and takes a medicine that suppresses her immune system. “As a … Read more

Astonishing Image Captures The Epic Collision of Three Galaxies

An object 681 million light-years away might look like one glorious, exquisite mess, but there’s a lot more going on that a first glance indicates. The object showcased in a new Hubble image – called IC 2431 – is not one galaxy, but three, coming together in a massive galactic merger that will one day … Read more

Epic Search of Millions of Stars Finds No Traces of Intelligent Alien Life

Are there civilizations somewhere else in the Universe? Somewhere else in the Milky Way? That’s one of our overarching questions, and an answer in the affirmative would be profound.   Humanity’s pursued the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in one form or another since shortly after the advent of radio waves in the early 20th … Read more

Covid-19 news: NHS backlog could grow by millions over next two years

By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu, Layal Liverpool, Carissa Wong and Alex Wilkins Nurses help a patient help walk again after recovering from covid-19, King’s College Hospital, London KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Latest coronavirus news as of 11am on 9 February … Read more

Mars may have been habitable millions of years later than we thought

Analysis of minerals in a Martian meteorite suggest that the planet may have begun to be hospitable for life 30 million years later than previously thought Space 2 February 2022 By Chen Ly Caption: NWA 7034Copyright: NASA NASA Deformations in a small mineral grain from a Martian meteorite hint that habitable conditions on Mars could … Read more

How ‘Flower Power’ Quite Literally Transformed Earth Millions of Years Ago

Following the time of the dinosaurs, it might well be that the evolution of flowering plants drove the explosion in the diversity of life on Earth, according to a 2021 paper. Most of the plants we now eat, drink, wear, and build with are of the flowering variety. They’re called angiosperms, which roughly translates from … Read more

Air pollution: US wildfires now lead to air pollution events affecting millions

The simultaneous occurence of extreme levels of ozone and particulate matter have increased significantly in the past decade due to wildfires in the western US Environment 5 January 2022 By Adam Vaughan Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles during the wildfire season in September 2020 Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/Shutterstock The area of the western … Read more

We Could Harness White Noise to Save The Lives of Millions of Birds. Here’s How

Billions of birds die each year from collisions with tall glass buildings, communication towers and power lines – a gobsmacking toll that’s expected to increase as cities grow outwards and upwards.   A recent study suggests there could be a way to fix our deadly mistakes – by installing ‘acoustic lighthouses’ that blast white noise … Read more