Deep in the rainforests of far north Queensland, Australia, scientists have discovered a tiny spider with an extraordinary hunting strategy. Nicknamed the “ballista spider”, the newly described species uses a silk-powered trap that launches prey into its web with accelerations reaching up to 140 times the force of gravity. Researchers say the spider specifically targets…
People, pets and livestock have long been protected through vaccines, but scientists are now extending that approach to creatures once thought impossible to immunise. Researchers have already developed the world’s first vaccine for honeybees and are testing similar technology in shrimp, despite the fact that these animals lack the antibody-based immune systems that conventional vaccines…
The Sun would rise in the west on Venus, but that is only the beginning of how strange a day there would feel. A day is usually one of the simplest measurements we have. The Sun comes up, crosses the sky and disappears below the horizon. We mark the passing hours almost without thinking about…
A vast stretch of the Pacific Ocean has begun showing signs of a powerful shift beneath its surface, with satellite observations revealing a growing bulge of unusually warm water spreading across the equatorial region. From space, the change appears as an enormous band of elevated sea levels extending from the central Pacific towards the coast…
Moss is usually thought of as one of nature’s simplest plants. It carpets rocks, clings to tree trunks and quietly survives in places where many other forms of life struggle. In deserts, some mosses can dry out almost completely, remaining dormant until a brief spell of rain brings them back to life. That ability has…
Marie Curie (Image: Wikipedia) Marie Curie spent her life chasing answers, not applause. She discovered new elements, won two Nobel Prizes, and changed science forever, and yet she had little time for fame or personal glory. This short line was something close to a motto for her. It says that in science, our attention belongs…
In a quiet stretch of Tasmania’s west coast, where the weather shifts without much warning and the land feels older than anything built on it, a large steel structure has been slowly entering the conversation around climate records. The project, known as Earth’s Black Box, has been described in plain terms by its creators, though…
Robert A. Heinlein (Image: Wikipedia) History is full of confident predictions that turned out to be spectacularly wrong. Flight was impossible, right up until two bicycle makers got a machine off the ground. Reaching the moon was a fantasy, right up until a man stepped onto it. The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein captured…
A few years ago, the idea of reviving extinct animals sat closer to speculative science fiction than anything investors would normally put money behind. Yet it has steadily been pulled into boardrooms, laboratories, and funding rounds at a scale that now feels difficult to ignore. At the centre of it is Colossal Biosciences, a company…
The Arctic is warming far faster than the rest of the planet, and a new study published in Science Advances suggests that this warming could transform one of Earth’s biggest natural carbon stores sooner than scientists once thought. Researchers say northern soils above 30°N, including vast areas of permafrost, may switch from absorbing carbon to…