World

A project that began as an ecological lesson has transformed the lives of students at an Australian high school. In the country’s capital of Canberra, students at the Richardson Primary School in south Canberra collected more than 2,000 plastic bottles and transformed them into the walls of a greenhouse that has been working efficiently for…

Born in Japan, and raised in Nepal during her early childhood, Aditi Paudel had always shown an affinity towards reading. Her earliest memory of reading is of her grandfather handing her a newspaper filled with intricate Devanagari script when she was still in preschool. But to the surprise of those around her, she was still…

Blair Clark and his wife Leah and details of DNA testing kit from MyHeritage. Blair Clark and his wife Leah have spent more than four years on their YouTube show, The Leah and Blair Slog, helping people reconnect with relatives they’ve never known, or lost touch with. The couple, who live in the Philippines, have…

An ordinary sea creature has stunned scientists with its extraordinary ability to rebuild its body after being cut into pieces. Scientists studying the solitary ascidian Polycarpa mytiligera found that when the animal was cut into separate pieces, each surviving fragment could regenerate into a complete, functional individual. The finding is particularly remarkable because this ascidian…

Melinda French Gates grew up in a household where science, engineering and education were closely woven into family life. Her father, Raymond Joseph French Jr., was an aerospace engineer whose career included work connected to NASA’s Apollo programme, giving his daughter an early glimpse into the world of space exploration and advanced technology. But some…

Long before astronauts ever plant a seed on the Moon or Mars, Nasa has been testing a much simpler question here on Earth’s doorstep: what happens when a corn seed germinates with no gravity to tell it which way to grow? Back in the early 1990s, researchers flew dry corn kernels aboard the space shuttle,…

PC: By Cepaea_nemoralis/Wikipedia Snails may move slowly, but the mucus they produce is far more sophisticated than it looks. It has been revealed how grove snails can fine-tune this sticky substance for different purposes. Researchers identified five distinct mucus-based materials, each with its own mechanical properties and function. One helps the snails move smoothly by…