Tag: Science

If you’ve ever been frustrated by erratic memories, spare a thought for the mice involved in a study published in the journal >Science . Researchers have been able to consistently create a “false memory”, making a mouse fearful of a place it has no reason to fear. The memory was implanted by shining blue light...

By >Daniel Zadik , Leicester University  The DNA of Albert Perry may change the story of human origins. Perry, an African-American, approached a DNA testing company to find out more about his ancestry. >The results would have come as quite a surprise (had he lived to see them), and have raised questions >for geneticists around...

Astronomers have been searching for a mysterious substance called “dark matter” since the 1930s. Most scientists still believe it exists, despite many fruitless decades. Now we propose a new theory of general relativity that may ultimately get rid of the need for dark matter, and perhaps get physicists to think in terms of things we...

A previously unknown canyon has been discovered in Greenland, hidden beneath the ice. It is at least 750 kilometres long. To put that in perspective, imagine a ten kilometre wide gorge, up to 800 metres deep, running from the Southern coast of England and into Scotland. This is on the same scale as parts of...

By >Simon Redfern , University of Cambridge  On the morning of June 30 in 1908, a gigantic fireball devastated hundreds of square kilometres of uninhabited Siberian forest around the Tunguska river. The first scientists to investigate the impact site expected to find a meteorite, but they found nothing. Because no traces of a meteorite were...

Did you have breakfast today? It’s one thing when you are enjoying your summer holidays, when you can have delayed breakfasts, but it is quite another for most school goers on working days. The start time of the school and the hurried nature in which you get ready and get started means that breakfasts could...

SpaceX on Thursday (May 21, 2026) scrubbed the launch of ​its 12th Starship rocket from Texas and said it ‌will attempt it again on Friday (May 22, 2026). Starship V3, uncrewed and ​featuring dozens of upgrades tailored for rapid ⁠Starlink satellite launches and NASA moon missions, was to be a key test for the vehicle...

The Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) replicates the earth’s atmosphere in earth orbit by managing air, water, temperature, and waste. In short-term space missions, all supplies are carried from the earth and waste is stored for disposal later. Long-duration missions recycle the waste back into useful resources like breathable air and clean water....

A: A heatwave is not like a wave or pulse of heat travelling through the air. The name probably comes from the way a heatwave feels, as something that spreads, surges, and overwhelms before subsiding. Some meteorologists prefer the team “heat event” instead. For example, in April and May, the sun is almost directly overhead...

GUWAHATI The jungles of Mizoram and neighbouring Myanmar have yielded a new-to-science snake that relishes worms and prefers to stay underground. The snake, Trachischium lalremsangai, has been described in the international Herpetozoa journal of the Austrian Herpetological Society by a team of four scientists from two continents. They are Virender K. Bhardwaj, Amit K. Bal, and Chhangte L....