The Moon has absorbed billions of impacts over roughly four billion years, most from meteoroids whose origin, mass and impact velocity remain permanently unknown. The object expected to strike near the Einstein and Bell craters on Wednesday, 5 August, breaks that pattern entirely. According to Nasa, a spent Falcon 9 upper stage from a January…
For ten months, twelve crew members lived and worked at Concordia Station, one of the most remote research outposts on Earth. Cut off from rescue, sunlight and the outside world for much of the year, the team wore sensors that quietly recorded every close encounter between them. Researchers paired this data with regular psychological check-ins…
Representative Image of the Chicxulub asteroid striking Earth amid devastated prehistoric landscapes (AI-generated image) Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid roughly 10 kilometres wide slammed into what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, gouging out the Chicxulub crater and triggering the most devastating mass extinction event in the history of complex life on Earth. Non-avian dinosaurs,…
The Moon does not travel across the sky at a constant pace. Its speed changes throughout each orbit, a detail ancient astronomers noticed long before they had the mathematics to explain it fully. More than two thousand years ago, the makers of the Antikythera Mechanism found a way to reproduce this unevenness using bronze gears…
In a world that often celebrates quick answers, instant success and sudden flashes of brilliance, Isaac Newton’s words offer a very different view of achievement. “If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought,” Newton wrote in a 1692 letter to the English theologian Richard Bentley. The remark reflects…
A giant, tornado-like flame may offer a cleaner and faster way to respond to oil spills at sea. In a large-scale experiment, researchersfrom Texas A&M University and the University of California, Berkeley created a nearly 17-foot-tall fire whirl over crude oil floating on water. The spinning flame burned the oil about 40% faster than a…
Black fire beetle, Melanophila acuminata. Image Credit: Prof. Schmitz/Wikipedia Black pine jewel beetles, scientifically named Melanophila acuminata, belong to a unique group of insects that exhibit pyrophilous behaviour, which means they are naturally attracted to forest fires. These beetles are primarily found across boreal and temperate forests of the north, where they play a vital…
An eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) attached to an upper set of artificial teeth (Source: Smithsonian Institution) In 1898, a dredging boat pulling debris from the floor of the Chesapeake Bay made a discovery that looked like something from a biological nightmare: a set of human dentures with a live oyster firmly attached to them.The unusual…
Lanmaoa asiatica is a popular edible mushroom species sold in Yunnan that induces Lilliputian hallucinations when undercooked. In 1934, Western scientists first heard reports from Papua New Guinea of wild mushrooms causing visions of tiny people, a phenomenon called “mushroom madness.” Nearly a century later, DNA sequencing has confirmed that a single, identical mushroom species…
Galileo Galilei, whose studies of falling bodies and accelerated motion laid the groundwork for the principle later demonstrated by Apollo 15 on the Moon. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons. Two people can be equally skilled at the same subject and end up producing very different amounts of lasting work. One treats the subject as a career,…
Few scientists have reshaped humanity’s understanding of the universe as profoundly as Max Planck. Celebrated as the father of quantum theory, the German physicist not only revolutionised modern physics but also left behind timeless reflections on science, philosophy and the limits of human knowledge. One of his most quoted observations is: “Science cannot solve the…
Milking a snake for the production of antivenom. Image Credit: Barry Rogge/Wikipedia Snakebite envenomation(condition where toxic venom is injected into a body via the bite, sting, or puncture of a venomous animal such as a snake, spider, scorpion, or insect), remains a global health issue, causing up to 100,000 deaths per year and affecting millions…
