Deep beneath the Pilbara region of Western Australia lies some of the oldest and best preserved crust anywhere on the planet, and it has just revealed something unexpected about Earth’s earliest history. Volcanic rocks dating back 3.1 billion years show chemical signs that surface water had already travelled deep into the planet’s interior at that…
Honeybees have long depended entirely on flower pollen for a group of essential fats called sterols, nutrients they cannot produce inside their own bodies and cannot get from any other natural food source. As climate change and modern farming reduce the variety of flowers available to bees, access to these sterols has become increasingly scarce,…
Today, Mars is a cold, dry planet covered in dust, but scientists believe it looked very different billions of years ago, with a much thicker atmosphere, flowing rivers and lakes, and possibly even conditions that could have supported life. Over time, Mars lost most of that protective atmosphere, the planet cooled, and its water either…
Coffee is brewed billions of times every year, leaving behind mountains of damp grounds that are usually treated as little more than rubbish. Some find a second life in compost or gardening, but the overwhelming share is either burned or buried despite still containing a considerable amount of stored energy. The problem has never really…
A vial containing magnetic adsorbent material designed to remove microplastics, nanoplastics, some PFAS and other contaminants from wastewater. Scientists at RMIT University in Australia have built a reusable magnetic material that removed more than 95% of micro- and nanoplastics from water within one hour and showed early promise against some PFAS.The new water treatment technology…
Superworms, the larvae of Zophobas morio, are often used as animal feed Scientists tested pet-store ‘superworms’ on animal specimens and found the beetle larvae can clean skeletons for museums without harsh chemicals or bone damage.A common insect larva found in local pet shops is offering museums a safe, cheap, and gentle way to clean animal…
Empty seashells became new habitats 470 million years ago An international study led by scientists at the University of Tartu shows that about 470 million years ago, a major ecological change took place in the world’s oceans. For the first time, the hollow interiors of empty mollusc shells began serving as homes for small sea…
Nasa’s NISAR satellite has captured an unusual view of Antarctica, revealing a frozen landscape that appears to form the shape of a hummingbird from space. The striking pattern is not a feature simply carved by nature, but the result of a mountain interrupting the slow movement of glacier ice around it. Using advanced radar technology,…
Scientists working on Alpine glacier (AI-generated image) Scientists drilled 33 feet into ice and recovered a 2,000-year climate record, a frozen capsule that can reveal how the atmosphere breathed long before modern measurements.High on the Weißseespitze glacier in the eastern Alps, an international research team extracted an ice core barely 33 feet long that preserves…
The Great Barrier Reef near the Whitsunday, Australia, region is viewed from the air (AP photo) Scientists have completed the first comprehensive survey of the microscopic life living in the open waters of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. They have uncovered hundreds of bacterial species which were not know previously and hundreds of thousands of viruses.The…
