Science

Two Asian praying mantises are spreading across Europe, and scientists warn they may now threaten native wildlife Two giant Asian praying mantis species are rapidly spreading across Europe, leading scientists to officially classify them as invasive threats to native wildlife.These fast-breeding predators are steadily moving north, helped by rising global temperatures and the warm conditions … Read more

Artistic rendering of Penrose super-radiance: electromagnetic waves with selected rotation patterns are amplified as they interact with a system that appears to rotate at superluminal speeds. (Credit: Dalila Pasotti and Hadiseh Nasari) Physicists have successfully recreated some of the extreme physics of black holes inside a laboratory by building a stationary device that can copy … Read more

Floating solar panels helped cut diesel use and also created a haven for salmon. (Picture source: Mowi.com) A salmon farm off the coast of Chile has found an unexpected benefit after replacing diesel generators with floating solar panels. While the project was launched to cut emissions and reduce fuel use, the new system also created … Read more

Imagine placing a flat piece of plastic on a warm surface and watching it fold itself into a fully functional robot without human hands, motors or complex assembly. It may sound like science fiction, but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrated exactly that with a tiny, origami-inspired robot designed to assemble itself … Read more

Carl Friedrich Gauss (Image: Wikipedia) Most people assume that if an idea sounds complicated, it must also be profound. Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians in history, was not convinced. “When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial,” he observed. “When he says something that is not trivial then … Read more

Brazil is dealing with one of its worst dengue fever outbreaks in years, and scientists are trying something unusual to bring the numbers down. Instead of just relying on vaccines and mosquito spray, health teams are releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into several cities, hoping these lab-bred insects will help shrink the population of disease-spreading mosquitoes … Read more

Seagrass meadows could help nourish millions, new study finds Underwater fields of seagrass could play an important role in fighting malnutrition among vulnerable coastal communities, according to new research published in Cell Reports Sustainability. The study was carried out by scientists from Stockholm University and Project Seagrass. It found that fish caught in seagrass meadows … Read more

Two people can look at the exact same run of bad luck and walk away with completely different conclusions. One decides the world is chaotic and nothing can be predicted. The other starts looking for the pattern hiding underneath the noise. Abraham de Moivre, the French mathematician who spent much of his career pricing gambling … Read more

Mice are some of the most invasive animals on the planet. Quick to enter and escape they have managed to make many a human mind burst with anger and panic. The max that can be done about them is setting up a trap or spreading some poison around. But imagine an island filled with mice … Read more

Sperm whales communicate by making clicks Scientists using artificial intelligence (AI) have uncovered a complex communication system among sperm whales, identifying a kind of phonetic alphabet. The discovery comes as experts also found sperm whales living in the eastern Mediterranean Sea have developed a distinct regional dialect that separates them from populations living in the … Read more