The Iron of Earth’s Inner Core Could Be in a Strange ‘Superionic’ State, Study Finds

Deep below the crust of Earth, past the thick mantle and liquid outer core, lies a 1,220-kilometer (760 mile) ball of solid inner core. But a new study has suggested that the inner core is not solid at all, instead forming a ‘superionic state’ with hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, making it unlike either a liquid … Read more

Physicists Have Observed a Strange New Kind of Transition in Electronic Crystals

As basic science teaches us, changes in temperature can result in phase transitions in materials – like when water solidifies as ice in the freezing cold. However, in some cases the temperature that triggers the change is different depending on whether the material is cooling down or warming up. This is known as a hysteresis … Read more

Mysterious Syndrome Turning Sea Stars Into Goo Reveals Another Strange Twist

As we battle against our own pandemic, sea stars are being killed in the millions by a horrible condition that melts them into a sickly goo. Sadly, there’s no straightforward way to help these animals, such as protecting them with a vaccine, so conservation biologists have been desperately trying to find another way.   In … Read more

Strange twin asteroids, the youngest ever seen, likely broke apart just 300 years ag

Scientists have spotted two space rocks that may be Earth’s freshest asteroid neighbors. The strange pair of near-Earth asteroids is separated by about 600,000 miles (1 million kilometers), and researchers calculated that they likely broke off the same asteroid just a few centuries ago. “It’s very exciting to find such a young asteroid pair that … Read more

Mind-Bending New Multiverse Scenario Could Explain a Strange Higgs Boson Feature

When researchers at the Large Hadron Collider discovered the elusive Higgs particle in 2012, it was a landmark for particle physics. It solved a very thorny problem, validating and allowing the Standard Model of particle physics to hold.   But, as is often the case with new discoveries, while some questions were neatly answered, others … Read more

Quantum friction explains strange way water flows through nanotubes

Water flows mysteriously well through narrow carbon nanotubes, but now there is an explanation: it may all be due to quantum friction Physics 2 February 2022 By Chen Ly Narrow carbon nanotubes behave in an unusual way Shutterstock / ustas7777777 Water flows more easily through narrower carbon nanotubes than larger ones and we have struggled … Read more

The 1st poster for ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ evokes the (final) frontier for new to Paramount Plus spinoff

Trekkies of all persuasions will rejoice with word of the newly announced premiere date for the new “Star Trek: Discovery” spinoff series “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” coming to the streaming service Paramount Plus. During this week’s TCA Press Tour, the streaming platform presented an atmospheric new key art poster and a May 5 debut … Read more

A Strange Creature Discards Genes to Make a Better Heart

As far as sea squirts and their close relatives go, the genus Oikopleura represents a decidedly strange group of organisms, both from the standpoint of physical attributes and genetics. It belongs to a larger group of invertebrate animals that are closely related to all vertebrates: the tunicates. But unlike most others in that group, it … Read more

New Milky Way mosaic reveals 1,000 strange ‘filaments’ at the heart of our galaxy

An unprecedentedly detailed new telescope image of the complex heart of our galaxy is now giving researchers their best view yet of hundreds of strange magnetic filaments seen nowhere else. To construct the image, astronomers used 200 hours of time on the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (SARAO) MeerKAT telescope. Consisting of 64 antennas spread … Read more

Hundreds of Strange, Tiny Fossils Found Inside Fish Cranium From 9 Million Years Ago

In a first for paleontology, scientists have found hundreds of tiny, fossilized fecal pellets crammed inside a fish braincase dating to about 9 million years ago. The wee fossil poops, also known as coprolites, were deposited by scavengers – probably worms – that devoured the fish’s decaying head, including its brain.   As they munched the flesh … Read more