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Two New Studies Just Outlined The Basics of Building an Interstellar Light Sail

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For centuries, people have dreamed of being driven at speed across the vast oceans of space by winds of light. As whimsical as the idea sounds, nudging reflective sails slowly towards the speed of light using nothing more than the punch of photons might be our only plausible shot at reaching another star inside of … Read more

Strange Quantum Object Successfully Created in The Lab For The First Time

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Quantum mechanics – the behavior of the Universe at the smallest of scales – continues to surprise us, with scientists now having been able to successfully create a quantum object called a domain wall in laboratory settings.   For the first time, these walls can now be generated in the lab on demand, occurring when … Read more

Archaeologists Figured Out How to Tell if One of These Roman Pots Was Used For Poop

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Earthenware vessels can often be windows to the activities of long lost cultures. Traces of their contents can be clues to what we once snacked on, how we fed our children, and even how we cursed our enemies.   For decades, a number of conical vessels unearthed near Roman latrines were presumed to be recently … Read more

Behold, The Most Accurate Virtual Simulation of Our Universe to Date

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In the Cosmic Calendar, which maps the chronology of the Universe across a single Earth year, modern humans don’t appear until the very last minute of December 31. Everything we understand about the evolution of the Universe, we’ve had to piece together. We simply haven’t been around for pretty much any of the 13.7 billion-year … Read more

Gut Microbes Can Cause Obesity, And We’re Getting Closer to Understanding How

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Medical researchers have discovered a molecule linking the tiny creatures that call our guts home to levels of fat in our bodies. “We now have a molecular mechanism that provides a starting point to understand our microbiome as a link between our diet and our body composition,” explained Emory University biochemist Dean Jones.   Hints … Read more

A Love For Nature May Come From an Unexpected Place, Finds Large Twin Study

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Do you love spending time in nature? Or are you a city slicker, happier in the concrete jungle than the great outdoors? Back in 1986, the US biologist EO Wilson proposed that humans have an innate connection with the natural world, an idea known as biophilia.   Almost every aspect of our lives depends on … 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

Planet Earth Contains Over 9,000 Tree Species Yet to Be Discovered, Scientists Say

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An ambitious, first-of-its-kind effort to estimate how many different kinds of trees exist on Earth suggests our planet is teeming with thousands of tree species that still haven’t been discovered.   The huge international research effort – involving the work of over 100 scientists – estimates that there are approximately 73,000 tree species in total … Read more

Scientists Spent 4 Years Identifying a New Wasp That Only Leaves Its Home For 2 Days

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Parasitic gall wasps don’t get out much. For the vast majority of their year-long lives, from eggs to larvae, pupae to adults, these tiny insects are entombed in cocoon-like crypts on the leaves, flowers, and stems of oak trees.   When spring rolls around, there’s no time to waste, not even for food. The wasps … Read more

A Hidden Pattern in Your Retina May Reveal if You’re at Risk of a Future Heart Attack

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Early, accurate, and simple diagnosis is important in just about every health condition you could name, and that includes heart disease. New research now suggests straightforward eye scans could identify patients with an increased risk of cardiovascular problems later on in life.   If this method of diagnosis can be developed, it would be a … Read more