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Many Australians now sell solar power generated on their rooftops into the grid on sunny days. In a handful of years, it may be possible to do the same thing when it’s dark – with the help of an electric vehicle (EV). Nascent vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology operates around the idea of EVs with bi-directional chargers: […]

Researchers have detailed the 4 common ways cancers can become less susceptible to the drugs used to treat them. They say it could help tackle drug-resistant cancer and identify new targets for drug development. The new research is detailed in a Nature Genetics study.  “Before this  it has been difficult to get a large-scale understanding […]

Putting meat on people’s plates is a significant contributor to global warming. Not only is livestock production highly water and land-intensive, methane emissions from meat production in 2023 accounted for 36 percent of total methane emissions worldwide. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and is 80 percent more potent than carbon dioxide. Livestock farming also drives up antimicrobial resistance and […]

A new study has revealed that some quasars were surprisingly alone in the early universe, confounding astronomers. Quasars are the extremely bright core of a galaxy which hosts an active supermassive black hole. As the black hole draws in surrounding gas and dust, it releases a tremendous amount of energy. That quasars have been found […]

Scientists have fused a diamond to a sapphire. And to silicon, lithium, and a few other materials. This chemically difficult feat isn’t for jewellery – instead, it could be part of next-generation quantum technology. The researchers have published their achievement in Nature Communications. Diamond is made from carbon atoms arranged in a highly regular crystalline […]

As part of the Ultramarine project we are diving into our archives and republishing some paid content for free. This long read was originally published in issue 96 of Cosmos print magazine, in September 2022. You can read more amazing long reads if you subscribe now. You can also listen to this story.  The nautilus’s lineage made […]

As part of the Ultramarine project we are diving into our archives and republishing some paid content for free. In the September 2022 Cosmos print magazine, Kate Evans looked at how the nautilus’s lineage made it through all five of Earth’s previous mass extinctions and asked can it survive the Anthropocene. We recorded an audio version of the […]

Ever found yourself unable to resist checking out a social media notification? Or sending a random picture just to keep a Snapchat “streak” going? Or simply getting stuck staring at YouTube because it auto-played yet another cute cat video? If so, you’re far from alone. And if we adults can’t resist such digital temptations, how […]

The time taken for ecosystems to respond to the effects of climate change can vary, but a new study shows that, for grasslands that biodiversity change can happen in almost real time. “Climate change does have consequences for our ecosystems. It’s going to come sooner or later,” says Yiluan Song, a postdoctoral fellow at the […]

Listening to music might help patients recover from surgery, according to a new meta-analysis. The study, which is being presented at the American College of Surgeons 2024 Clinical Congress this weekend, found listening to music on a speaker or headphones could improve recovery. A team from California Northstate University, USA, analysed 35 previously published studies […]

The late Jack Karlson famously defined democracy – and a few other things – during his arrest in 1991. But how does everyone else define it? In fact, citizens of very politically and culturally divergent countries still have a similar belief in the meaning of democracy, according to a new study. The study, published in […]

Work is progressing on the Giant Magellan Telescope, which, when built, will be the largest on Earth. The latest progress report on the consortium’s website says the team has successfully installed the primary mirror into a support system prototype. Barbara Fischer, the primary mirror subsystem manager for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) says the primary […]

Athletics records are generally a matter of incremental improvement. It took 18 years, for example, for a succession of six Swedish, British, Australian, and New Zealand runners to whittle the world record for the mile down from 4:01.6 to 3:54.4—a process in which the biggest single gain, 2 seconds, was achieved by Roger Bannister when […]

People with nut allergies might breathe a little easier on tightly-ventilated airplanes, with new research finding they don’t pose a risk through the vents. A study published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, finds no evidence that nut allergens can spread through the air on planes. This means, according to the researchers, that banning nuts […]

Last week in Sydney, Australia hosted the inaugural Global Nature Positive Summit. It brought together government, corporate sectors, research and environmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples to “accelerate collective action to drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment”. But what does Nature Positive mean and did the summit actually do […]

Hands capable of using tools might have evolved much earlier than previously thought according to a new study of Australopithecus finger bones. The researchers analysed muscle attachment sites on the fossilised hands of 3 species of Australopithecus: A. afarensis (lived 3.9–2.9 million years ago), A. africanus (3.3–2.1 million years ago) and A. sediba (about 1.98 […]

Representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the international Solar Cycle Prediction panel met on Tuesday and announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum. The solar cycle is 11 years. At the height of the cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip and its activity intensifies. “During solar maximum, the number […]

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas) will be visible over Australian skies in the coming days. The comet has already made international headlines for the incredible views it has produced over the northern hemisphere. It became visible to the naked eye soon after it passed its perihelion (the point at which its orbit is closest to the […]

About 700 light-years away is a pair of stars which have put on quite a show. Dramatic and colourful close-ups from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show a binary system of rambunctious stars. See the high-resolution image here. The system is called R Aquarii. The primary star is an aging red giant more than 400 times […]

What sound does a frog make? If you said “croak” or “ribbit” or even “bonk” like the  Australian pobblebonk frog, you’d be right. And now, thanks to new research, “Star Trek whistle” is also a correct answer! Seven newly discovered species of frogs in Madagascar have been named for their unique calls, some of which […]

A new fossil found in South Australia’s Nilpena Ediacara National Park represents the earliest evidence of an animal with left-right asymmetry. It is also one of the first animals which could move on its own. The animal, Quaestio simpsonorum, is described in a paper published in Evolution & Development. It lived 555 million years ago […]

Astronomers have solved a nearly 30-year-old mystery about a brown dwarf. It is, in fact, brown dwarfs: there are 2 of them. Brown dwarfs are astronomical objects that are bigger than planets, but smaller than stars – they’re massive enough to emit faint light. The brown dwarf Gliese 229B was discovered in 1995, and has […]

The Earth has been constantly hit by meteorites in its long life time, but scientists only now working out where they came from have found surprising results. Previously, the origin of only 6% of meteorites was known. Scientists determined that this small fraction of meteorites came from the Moon, Mars and Vesta – one of […]

A secret tomb has been discovered underneath Al-Khazneh – the Treasury building at the World Heritage Site of the ancient city Petra in Jordan. The unexpected find includes the remains of 12 skeletons. Petra (originally known to inhabitants as Raqēmō) is an entire city carved by hand into the walls of a desert canyon. It […]