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The rainforests are really important for biodiversity as they are home to many unique species at risk of extinction, including lemurs such as the indri and black and white ruffed lemur. | Photo Credit: Shutterstock If tens of thousands of miners turned up in the middle of a protected rainforest to mine for sapphires, you might…
Read More “Madagascar mining rush caused no more deforestation than farming: study” »
New technology is making it possible to keep learning more from previously discovered archaeological material. Oakhurst offered an opportunity to reconstruct the genomes of the site’s inhabitants through time, and to assess their genetic relationships to people living in the region today. | Photo Credit: Shutterstock Oakhurst rock shelter is an archaeological site near the town…
An artist’s impression shows the sub-Earth-mass planet that was discovered orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to our solar system, in this undated handout. | Photo Credit: Reuters Barnard’s star is a red dwarf, the smallest type of regular star and much smaller and less luminous than our sun. At about 6 light years…
Read More “Small rocky planet detected in orbit about nearby Barnard’s star” »
This undated handout image released on October 2, 2024 by FlyWire – Princeton University shows the largest neurons of the fruit fly brain connectome. An international team has managed to map all the neurons and connections in the brain of the fruit fly, a major advance for neuroscience, the results of which were published on…
Read More “Scientists map fruit fly brain in neurobiological milestone” »
Cape Canaveral, Florida: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk today shared a stunning high-definition video of the Polaris space mission around Earth. Sharing the video highlights, Mr Musk said, “Looks like CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery), but it is real”. According to the mission’s official website, the Polaris space programme is a “first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight…
Read More “Elon Musk Shares Stunning Polaris Mission Video” »
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of our Milky Way black hole released in 2022, has captured a new view of the massive object at the centre of our Galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a…
Read More “Could rotating black holes be the wind turbines powering the distant future?” »
Many large mammals have lost genetic diversity, often thanks to the actions of people shrinking their populations. The implications can be severe because without genetic diversity, a population does not have a “genetic database” to fall back on to adapt to environmental change. The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is no stranger to this reduction in diversity. Human…
A new study lifts the veil on what happens when octopuses and fish hunt together. As it turns out, this cross-species relationship is more complex than anyone expected. | Photo Credit: The Hindu A new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution lifts the veil on what happens when octopuses and fish hunt together. As it turns out, this…
Read More “Octopuses, fish hunt together using surprisingly complex decision-making” »
Scientists found that some rare magma types are surprisingly efficient at concentrating rare earth elements. | Photo Credit: Shutterstock Extinct volcanoes are hard to study – we never see them erupt. Using a unique experimental technique, we were able to recreate a certain type of extinct volcano in a lab, learning more about the magma…
Read More “Extinct volcanoes could help sate humanity’s hunger for rare earth elements” »
Dying coral reefs, rainforests transforming into savannas, grasslands turning into deserts – these are ecosystem “tipping points”, boundary lines we’re desperate not to cross. In dynamic systems filled with life, these critical thresholds aren’t set in stone. Since organisms can evolve, the tipping points within these ecosystems might evolve too. Most of us think of…
Read More “Evolution can change how an ecosystem collapses, study finds” »