pc: Study: Fossil leaves of Pandanaceae from India suggest Paleogene persistence of the family in South Asia For most people, Kevda is recognised by its unmistakable fragrance. Its flowers are distilled into the aromatic essence used in sweets, perfumes, religious offerings and traditional remedies across India. Yet the plant has quietly carried a far older…
Life aboard the International Space Station (ISS) depends on making the most of every available resource, especially water. Transporting supplies from Earth is enormously expensive, so astronauts cannot simply rely on regular deliveries for drinking water. Instead, the ISS uses one of the most sophisticated recycling systems ever built. At the heart of that system…
A scientific paper describing a previously unknown group of rove beetles has produced an unusual meeting point between taxonomy and popular culture. Researchers have introduced a new beetle genus named Luffy, borrowing the name of Monkey D. Luffy, the central character from the long-running manga and anime series One Piece. While the choice may appear…
A worker ant of the species Temnothorax nylanderi infected with the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis, recognizable by its yellowish coloration, alongside an uninfected worker (Credit: Susanne Foitzik) Deep inside the damp leaf litter of the Lenneberg Forest near Mainz, Germany, tiny worker ants of the species Temnothorax nylanderi are living surprisingly long lives. While a normal…
On 9 July 1962, during one of the most dangerous periods of the Cold War, the United States carried out one of the most extraordinary military experiments in history.In a test known as Starfish Prime, the US launched a 1.4-megaton thermonuclear bomb aboard a Thor missile and detonated it around 400 kilometres above Earth, roughly…
Two people can start the same ambitious project and expect completely different timelines for it to pay off. One assumes real progress should be visible within weeks, gets discouraged when it isn’t, and quietly abandons the work. The other accepts from the outset that meaningful results might take years, and keeps going long after the…
In a dry, remote stretch of central Queensland, tiny springs bubble up from deep underground to form shallow, ankle-deep pools in the middle of the desert. Living only in these springs is a fish so small it barely reaches the size of a thumbnail, called the red-finned blue-eye. It exists nowhere else on earth. For…
Two new studies published in the journal Science are reshaping what scientists understood about how dogs became so physically varied and how closely their history has tracked our own. Comparing a village dog, a toy poodle, and a mastiff makes clear just how extreme the physical range within a single species can be. Roughly 700…
From a great distance, the planet could easily give the wrong first impression. Seen in visible light, it appears as a rich blue world, bringing to mind the familiar colour of Earth as viewed from orbit. Yet the resemblance ends almost immediately. Instead of oceans reflecting sunlight, this distant planet is wrapped in an atmosphere…
Hand reaching into a mosquito enclosure. Credit: Credit: Edwin Remsberg / University of Maryland Low-income urban neighbourhoods in Baltimore and Washington, DC, have higher mosquito numbers partly because of the types of trees growing on their streets and in empty lots, according to new research published in the Journal of Medical Entomology.The study, co-authored by…