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Researchers have replicated the pattern of chain mail and created a new polymer which could be used to improve body armour. The material is made of X-shaped monomers which interlock to form a sheet somewhat resembling chainmail. A monomer is a molecule that reacts with other monomer molecules to form a larger polymer chain. This […]

Astronomers have found a trio of exoplanets which contradict our understanding of how these planets form. The planets, which orbit around the star WASP-132, consist of a “hot Jupiter,” an inner “super-Earth,” and a huge planet much further out. Hot Jupiters – gas giants with orbits super-close to their suns – were once thought to […]

Just past 2 a.m. eastern US time on Jan. 16, 2025, a new rocket blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. By reaching orbit, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket launch has marked a milestone for a commercial space company that has big ambitions. As a space policy expert, I see New […]

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are a familiar, squawking, presence across much of Australia and Melanesia. But according to a genetic study, they are actually 2 separate species. And while one of those species is so abundant it’s winning the war against wheelie bins, the other could be in deep danger. The study, published in Molecular Biology and […]

Homo erectus may have been more adaptable and resilient than it’s often given credit for – new research provides evidence it adapted to live in desert-like conditions 1.2 million years ago. Archaeologists have published findings in Nature Communications Earth & Environment based on data about the early human ancestors who lived in Engaji Nanyori in […]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has confirmed a type of planet exists unlike anything in the solar system. They’re dubbed a “Super-Venus” world, and one of these exoplanets – a planet which orbits another star from our Sun – is described in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Many of the more than […]

Stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will be treated to both a comet, and a gathering of almost all the planets, in the night sky over the next week. Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is glowing after its close encounter with the Sun, and will be best spotted at sunset over the next few days. Meanwhile, the […]

Whether it’s the screen on your expensive device shattering from a mere tap, or a rubbish dump rapidly running out of room in your council, it’s clear to most of us that our one-way, waste-generating economy is bad for us as well as the environment. “People are getting sick of products that short have short […]

Not simply Roman propaganda, new research has found that women were at the centre of social networks in Celtic communities and may have been influential in many spheres of Iron Age life. “When the Romans arrived [in Britain], they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power,” says archaeologist Dr Miles Russell. “Two of […]

Ancient artefacts unearthed from a Bronze Age city in modern-day Iraq could help shed light on the history of Mesopotamia. The objects date to about 1800 BCE and include a game board, large structural remains and clay tablets with cuneiform writing unlike anything found in the region. They are described in fieldwork summary published on […]

Before New Zealand’s giant flightless birds, moa, went extinct about 600 years ago, they played a critical role in the archipelago’s ecosystem. Their loss may have flow on effects for other species. The ecological role that moa played is still not fully understood. New research, published in Biology Letters, sheds light on the relationship between […]

A transient object has been detected by Australian radio astronomers which has the longest rotation of any such object yet discovered. It may help astronomers work out what makes these enigmatic long-period radio transient objects. Long-period radio transient objects are relatively new to science, having been first observed in about the past 10 years. They […]

People requesting abortions in England and Wales have been using less reliable contraception methods in the past decade, according to a new study. The report also shows a large increase in those using no contraception. The research, published in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, finds that fewer abortion patients are using reliable hormonal contraceptive methods, […]

The way clinicians diagnose obesity is set to change with new guidelines acknowledging that some obese people are perfectly healthy, while others live with chronic disease. “Obesity is a spectrum,” says Professor Francesco Rubino from the UK, who chaired the Commission that developed the guidelines. “You can have people who have excess body fat but […]

Engineers have come up with a way that the famous thought experiment, “Schrödinger’s cat”, could be used to detect errors in quantum computers. The thought experiment was derived by Austrian-Irish physicist Erwin Schrödinger. In 1925, he came up with the Schrödinger equation which describes how particles behave in quantum mechanics. Just 10 years later, Schrödinger […]

Researchers perusing a Vietnamese seafood market have discovered a new species of crustacean that can weigh more than a kilogram. The discovery of the new supergiant isopod species, which can reach about 30cm, highlights how little is known of the deep-sea ecosystem in Southeast Asia. Supergiant isopods in the genus Bathynomus, also called sea bugs […]

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope to study distant quasars – the brightest objects in the universe – have captured a rare image that raises new questions about how they form. Quasars can reach luminosities thousands of times brighter than the Milky Way. They are caused by supermassive black holes at the cores of distant […]

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin south of the French capital. The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, […]

A new framework using insights from the humanities and the social sciences could help prevent artificial intelligence (AI) tools from spreading misinformation and discriminatory content according to analysis from the UK. To address shortcomings of Large Language Model (LLM) systems, like ChatGPT, researchers targeted the databases on which the AI is trained and integrated principles […]

Dialysis – a method of treating kidney disease – might also be the best method for treating certain types of wastewater, according to a new study. The researchers, who have published a paper in Nature Water, are not suggesting we send expensive medical equipment to sewers. Instead, they’ve developed a method that uses the same […]

Fossils found in China dating to 535 million years ago are some of the oldest examples of a nervous system. They reveal how the first nervous systems evolved in early relatives of worms and insects. The new analysis, published in Science Advances, sheds light on the origins of ventral nerve cords – a major structure […]

A question that has puzzled oncologists for 30 years has been solved by researchers, who say their findings have implications for increasing the efficacy of radiation therapy. Radiation therapy works by damaging the DNA in cancer cells to trigger cell death. But not all cancerous cells inside of a tumour die in the same way […]

International monitoring bodies have confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record, beating 2023 as the previous record-holder. The record was confirmed by 7 organisations: the World Meteorological Organization, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the UK’s Met Office, the USA’s NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]

The first animals with mineral skeletons changed the way sediments develop on Earth forever, according to new research. Sediments are often modified by the mineral-rich skeletons of living organisms. Famously, the White Cliffs of Dover in southern England are made up of chalk created by the skeletons of tiny coccolith algae that sank to the […]