Science

Metallic beads suggest a comet slammed into Earth not long ago

Metallic beads suggest a comet slammed into Earth not long ago

Tiny metallic beads hiding in deep Arctic mud have reignited a long-running argument about why Earth shivered 12,800 years ago. The new evidence comes from four sediment cores lifted out of Baffin Bay, between Greenland and Canada, that capture a razor-thin layer rich in comet-like debris. The abrupt climate lurch, known as the Younger Dryas, drove Northern Hemisphere temperatures down …

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Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get : ScienceAlert

Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get : ScienceAlert

A black hole deep in the cosmos, some 5 billion light-years away, could be the most massive ever found. The galaxy SDSS J1148+1930 harbors a behemoth, around 36.3 billion times the mass of our Sun, according to new measurements. That places the black hole’s mass very close to the practical upper limit. For context, the Milky Way’s central black hole …

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Chinese scientists develop machine to turn lunar dust into bricks

Chinese scientists develop machine to turn lunar dust into bricks

The device operates like a 3D printer but replaces conventional heat sources with concentrated solar energy. A parabolic reflector gathers sunlight and channels it through fibre optic bundles, intensifying the light to more than 3,000 times the strength of sunlight at Earth’s surface. At the focal point, temperatures exceed 1,300°C, hot enough to melt regolith into solid, dense shapes. Tests …

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New species of vegetarian piranha found has human-like teeth

New species of vegetarian piranha found has human-like teeth

Myloplus sauron, a newly described Amazonian fish, looks like trouble at first glance. Its round silver body wears a stark black stripe that tapers toward the belly, a pattern that recalls the fiery “Eye of Sauron” from The Lord of the Rings. Yet appearances mislead. The fish is a peace loving herbivore equipped with human style molars instead of razor …

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Giant planet found orbiting tiny star ‘should not exist’, astronomers say |

Giant planet found orbiting tiny star ‘should not exist’, astronomers say |

Astronomers have discovered a giant planet named TOI-6894b orbiting a very small red dwarf star that has only one-fifth the mass of the Sun. Despite the star’s small size and low brightness, TOI-6894b is larger than Saturn but has only half its mass. This surprising discovery challenges previous ideas that such tiny stars cannot form or hold large gas planets. …

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When, where and how to catch a glimpse

When, where and how to catch a glimpse

Maddie Molloy Climate and science reporter Getty Images Stargazers will soon be treated to what could be one of the year’s most dazzling displays, with the Perseid meteor shower reaching its peak on Tuesday night. The shower lights up the skies each summer, and is known for its bright, fast-moving meteors – often dubbed “shooting stars”. However, visibility could be …

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James Webb Finds Evidence of Free-Floating Planets So Large They Can Gather Their Own Planetary Systems

James Webb Finds Evidence of Free-Floating Planets So Large They Can Gather Their Own Planetary Systems

So much for heliocentrism. An international team of astronomers using observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope have found evidence of massive planets out there that’re capable of forming their own planetary systems — without a star.  These planets would be the center of something like a mini version of our solar system where other, smaller planets revolve around …

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Will China’s new chromosome editing tool unlock new wave of genetic advances?

Will China’s new chromosome editing tool unlock new wave of genetic advances?

A group of Chinese scientists has overcome a challenge that stumped biologists for decades by developing a new gene-editing tool that can precisely manipulate millions of base pairs – the building blocks of DNA. The innovation has been hailed as “very significant progress” by Professor Yin Hao, a gene editing specialist at Wuhan University’s medical research institute, who was not …

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