Science

Photo credit: The British Museum A drinking cup made around 1,600 years ago has a remarkable property: it can appear green when light falls on it and ruby red when light shines through it. Now, researchers at the University of Sheffield have recreated the unusual glass effect, offering a new understanding of the technique used…

The waters surrounding Japan have been changing in ways that may not be immediately visible to the people who depend on them. But one day the oceans may not look like before and may not inhabit the same species we are familiar with. According to Phys.org, a nationwide study of marine environmental DNA (eDNA) in…

Kayley Xu, a Year 12 student from San Diego, won the $25,000 grand prize in the Mott Million Dollar Challenge for developing Aucura, a wearable stethoscope designed to improve respiratory diagnostics. The device aims to capture and analyse sounds from the body to help identify breathing-related problems. Xu hopes to make the technology affordable enough…

A fossil jaw discovered on Lavernock Beach in Wales has helped scientists solve a mystery that confused researchers for nearly 200 years. Welsh fossil hunter Jonathan Bow, co-author of the paper, discovered the rare jaw on Lavernock Beach. The specimen contains developing teeth and provides new evidence about fish that lived in the seas around…

California restoration crews rebuilt a damaged stretch of the Lower Tuolumne River with more than 24,000 cubic yards of gravel, 49 trees, and 80 large boulders, creating 4.78 acres of new habitat for salmon and other native species. The results arrived remarkably quickly: FISHBIO reported that scientists documented Chinook salmon spawning on the newly built…

The Moon has a few things in common with Earth. No, we’re not talking about craters or imperfections, but trash. Building a home for humans on the Moon is a dream that many scientists are working to make a reality. But as supplies arrive from Earth, so will packaging and other waste. With astronauts also…

Representative Image of Burmese pythons hunting marsh rabbits in the Everglades, illustrating predator-prey dynamics and ecological impacts (AI-generated image) For years, scientists suspected that invasive Burmese pythons were contributing to the disappearance of mammals from Everglades National Park in Florida. Earlier surveys documented sharp declines as the snakes spread, but they could not establish cause…

Black mamba scales can reveal heavy metal pollution in urban South Africa, according to new research from Durban. Scientists found that lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury accumulate in the scales of Dendroaspis polylepis, Africa’s most feared snake. Mambas living in industrial and commercial districts carried significantly higher heavy metal loads than those in green spaces,…

Artistic illustration of Invictibellatrix amberina, which lived on the Isle of Wight, UK, in the Early Cretaceous around 120 million years ago. Image Credit: Natural History Museum A fossil discovered on England’s Isle of Wight more than a century ago has revealed a previously unknown species of meat-eating dinosaur. The specimen, which entered the Natural…

Cigarette butts are often overlooked when people think about pollution, particularly because of their small size. However, their environmental impact can extend far beyond the places where they are discarded. They contain cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that does not readily biodegrade, and can retain toxic substances, including nicotine and other heavy metals. As…