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A newly discovered exoplanet shows us what Earth will be like billions of years after it meets its violent end at the hands of our expanding Sun. Humanity probably won’t be around to see the Earth’s demise – it’s estimated all organic life will be wiped off the planet in a billion years or so […]

An international team of researchers has developed a way to predict risk for people with the heart condition Long QT syndrome. Long QT syndrome is a heart rhythm disorder, usually caused by genetic mutations. It creates electrical fluctuations which stop the heart from beating, leading to fainting, seizures, and in some cases, sudden death. The […]

New research has added to mounting evidence that some coral species have greater capacity to adapt to the changing climate than is often appreciated. But they still wont survive even moderate levels of climate warming. In what researchers are calling a “very surprising result”, a new study has found that 8 species of coral prevalent in […]

This rather unique picture of our Sun won Australian astrophotographer Peter Ward second place in Royal Museums Greenwich’s global 2024 Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards in the category “Our Sun”. The image is not only a picture of our Sun – it’s two pictures of the Sun in one. And there’s a little bit […]

It’s a central feature of chemistry: the covalent bond, one of the most common chemical bonds, happens when 2 atoms share pairs of electrons. Most of the molecules that make us – from proteins, to water, to the air we breathe – are made of atoms in these pair-sharing covalent bonds. Nearly 100 years ago, […]

Ever had an aged cheddar or parmesan that was extra sharp and thought – how old is too old for cheese? Well, the aging just got a whole lot longer. A cheese found in northwestern China is 3,600 years old and is the subject of a paper published today in the journal Cell. If that’s […]

Astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to identify bizarre characteristics of an exoplanet. It is the size of Jupiter, but hot and with 10 times less mass (still 30 times more mass than Earth). It is also the first time a planet has been discovered to have east-west asymmetry in its atmosphere […]

Nanometre-sized crystals more than 5km beneath the sea in the Mariana Trench hold hints about the origins of life, according to a team of Japanese researchers. The self-organised nanostructures, which were found around hydrothermal vents, can act in ways that produce electricity. The team has published its findings in Nature Communications. Hydrothermal vents are jets […]

Up until the middle of the 20th century, the Adriatic Sea had a vibrant and healthy ecosystem before things suddenly crashed, according to new palaeontological research. The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating Italy and the Balkan states like Croatia, Bosnia-and Herzegovina and Albania. It is home to thousands of different marine species […]

Can fasting improve chemotherapy response? The answer is yes – according to new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, Western Australia – which found that the combination of dietary restriction and exercise enhanced the effects of chemotherapy by boosting the immune response, reducing immunosuppressive factors in the tumour microenvironment and improving drug delivery. […]

Chinese scientists have designed a resistive magnet which achieved a steady magnetic field of 42.02 tesla – a new world record for magnets of its kind. Resistive magnets are powered by electricity and can be switched on and off. These are different to the magnets that decorate people’s refrigerators, which are called permanent magnets. The […]

Extinct volcanoes around the globe are likely full of rare earth elements and could help supply the world’s growing demand for these difficult to extract resources. According to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the rare earth elements (REEs) occur in solidified iron-rich magma […]

Scientists have used protein engineering and an AI model to make the bacterial protein TnpB an effective gene editing tool for mammalian cells. TnpB is much smaller than the CRISPR-Cas system and could be more easily delivered to the right cells of the body as a result. “By engineering the small but powerful protein TnpB, […]

Australian scientists studying coral have identified heat-tolerant individuals at sites spanning the entire Great Barrier Reef. This good news suggests that some corals already have naturally occurring variation that could help them adapt to a warming climate. The Great Barrier Reef consists of over 2,500 individual reefs stretching over 340,000 square kilometres off the northeast […]

Music charts, bestseller lists and sport ladders are well-established measures of success. Fans will anxiously watch their favourites climbing the charts, crowing with delight when they make the top of a list. The photovoltaics industry has its own leaderboards, and in the world of solar, they’re just as exciting as a Hottest 100. Every 6 […]

Despite being a solitary creature, the day octopus (Octopus cyanea) has sometimes been spotted hunting with inter-species groups of fish. Scientists assumed that the octopus is in charge of the hunting pack, but a new study finds that influence is actually shared around, depending on the situation. But, say the international team of researchers, an […]

Powerful X-rays could be a viable way to divert asteroids on collision courses for Earth, according to a new study. The study, published in Nature Physics, uses lab-based experiments to suggest that X-rays might be useful for deflecting asteroids up to 4km in diameter. The chances of a large asteroid hitting the Earth are very […]

Physicists rocked the boat in 2022 when they measured the mass of the W boson particle and came up with a result that was “in tension” with Standard Model of particle physics predictions. A new precise measurement of the W boson mass by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) […]

A researcher finding existing drugs to repurpose for treating psychiatric disorders and chronic fatigue syndrome is amongst the winners of the 2024 Australian Mental Health Prize. The awards celebrate individuals who have made significant impacts in mental health through cultural security, lived experience, professional innovation, and community support. Michael Berk, Director of the Institute for […]

Physicists trying to understand a bizarre quantum phenomenon called a “pseudo-gap” believe their research could lead to room-temperature superconductivity – a holy grail for condensed matter physics. Superconductors can be used for lossless power transmission, faster MRI machines and superfast levitating transport. The drawback is that most superconductors require temperatures close to absolute zero (–273°C) […]

Rural ambulance volunteers are worried that they don’t have enough training to deal with birth emergencies: if a baby gets stuck and doesn’t progress, “calling for help is essentially our level of training,” says a rural volunteer ambulance officer who participated in a recent study from Edith Cowen University in Perth, Western Australia. The research, […]

Astronomers have discovered a unique arrangement of distant galaxies which form an exquisitely aligned gravitational lens, magnifying deep space. Called, the “Carousel Lens”, the configuration is detailed in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. It will give astronomers an opportunity to look deep into the universe and could aid in illuminating mysteries such as […]

After a century of presumed extinction, the ground dwelling Australian night parrot was revealed a decade ago to not be gone at all – just vanishingly, hauntingly rare. Researchers and Traditional Owners have caught glimpses of night parrots in Queensland and Western Australia (WA), but their numbers are heavily diminished from their 19th Century peaks. […]

Countries around the world are demanding more solar panels, electric vehicles and other technologies as they make the transition to greener sources of energy — part of the global push to address climate change. But the mining and particularly the processing of the critical minerals required to build these technologies is controlled by only a […]