Tag Archives: ScienceAlert

Artificial sweeteners were introduced to offer a healthier alternative to sugar – but as a new study highlights, these substitutes bring their own health risks with them. And it doesn’t take much of the stuff to make a difference: the researchers behind the study, from several institutions in Australia and the Netherlands, found that drinking just a single can of …

You say potato, I say tomato? Turns out one helped create the other: Natural interbreeding between wild tomatoes and potato-like plants in South America gave rise to the modern day spud around nine million years ago, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Cell. Co-author Loren Rieseberg, a professor at the University of British Columbia, told AFP …

Noticing somebody fidgeting can be distracting. Vexing. Even excruciating. But why? According to a study published in 2021, the stressful sensations caused by seeing others fidget are an incredibly common psychological phenomenon, affecting as many as one in three people. Called misokinesia – meaning ‘hatred of movements’ – this strange phenomenon had been little studied by scientists until recent years, …

The earthquake near the east coast of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia on 30 July 2025 generated tsunami waves that have reached Hawaii and coastal areas of the US mainland. The earthquake’s magnitude of 8.8 is significant, potentially making it one of the largest quakes ever recorded. Countries around much of the Pacific, including in east Asia, North and South …

In a galaxy some 450 million light-years away, a brilliant flare of light revealed a probable black hole that suddenly woke from its slumber to snack on a passing star. This is not, in itself, a hugely unusual occurrence. The sting in this particular tail is the identity of the black hole in question: an elusive middleweight, or intermediate-mass black …

The Tintina fault stretches 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across northern Canada, crossing the Yukon and ending in Alaska. The fault is thought to have been dormant for 40 million years, but that thinking is challenged by a new study that suggests a major earthquake may be imminent. Researchers from the University of Victoria and the University of Alberta in Canada …

A bolt of lightning that arced across the sky from Texas to Kansas in the fall of 2017 has officially smashed the record for the world’s longest. During a major thunderstorm in October 2017, the colossal crack of jagged electricity streaked across the Great Plains of North America for 829 kilometers (515 miles) – a distance that surpassed the previous …

Sharks with frickin’ lasers are tired news. Peacocks, apparently, are where it’s truly at. Famous for their dazzling iridescence, peacock feathers are known to contain nanostructures that scatter light in ways that make their plumage shimmer in hues of blue and green. Applying a special dye to multiple areas on a peacock’s tail, researchers from Florida Polytechnic University and Youngstown …

A potential new male contraceptive drug has just undergone its first tests in human volunteers. The results give the first indication that the drug, which does not use artificial hormones or affect testosterone production by the testes, may be safe in humans. While previous attempts have been made to develop a male contraceptive in the past, these largely failed to …

Breast cancer patients who have been in remission for years or even decades may still need to be cautious about respiratory infections. Some common viruses may re-awaken a very small number of dormant breast cancer cells within our lungs, according to emerging research. “Dormant cancer cells are like the embers left in an abandoned campfire, and respiratory viruses are like …