Jane Goodall, a British primatologist known for her work with chimpanzees, died on Wednesday 1 October, aged 91. She was in California on a speaking tour and died of natural causes, according to the Jane Goodall Institute. Goodall is best known for her work with chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. She was the…
Artist’s impression of Cha 1107-7626, a rogue planet about 620 light years away ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser A ravenous rogue planet has been caught eating 6 billion tonnes of gas and dust per second. This behaviour blurs the line between planets and stars, suggesting both can form in similar ways. Rogue planets, free-floating balls of gas…
New patches to biosecurity screening software can make it harder to produce potentially harmful proteins using artificial intelligence. Around the world, this software monitors processes to artificially make proteins, ensuring that people with bad intentions aren’t producing dangerous proteins, such as toxins. Making slight tweaks with AI to known toxins or viral proteins can bypass…
Melting ice sheets in Antarctica will raise sea levels DurkTalsma/Getty Images Antarctica may have passed a climate tipping point of no return, scientists are warning, with mounting evidence that a sudden slump in sea ice formation since 2016 is linked to human-induced ocean warming. For decades, Antarctic sea ice levels remained relatively stable despite rising…
It’s surprisingly difficult — by puffing from any one direction — to send all of a dandelion’s delicate white seed tufts wafting away from their stem. A clump almost always clings on the opposite side of the stem no matter which direction the wind blows. Understanding a plant’s selective seed release has been tricky too….
How would you go about answering the question “How many people have ever lived on this planet?” If you type that into Google or an artificial intelligence chatbot, you’ll get an answer pretty quickly—usually 117 billion. That number, at least in my opinion, seems far too small. After all, the world’s population is currently estimated…
Learning to play an instrument is a cognitive pursuit, as well as a creative one Andrew Fox/Alamy Music training seems to boost reading skills in young children by enhancing their ability to recognise and manipulate the sounds that make up words. Learning to play an instrument has long been linked to improved early reading abilities,…
Jane Goodall transformed our understanding of chimps Europa Press Reportajes/Europa Press/Avalon Jane Goodall, who has died aged 91, changed the world through the way she saw animals, particularly chimps. In 1960, when she was 26, she observed a chimp she had named David Greybeard fishing for termites with a twig he had stripped of leaves….
For nearly two decades Enceladus, a 500-kilometer-wide moon of Saturn, has been a top target in the hunt for extraterrestrial life. In 2005, shortly after arriving in orbit around the ringed planet, the joint NASA–European Space Agency (ESA) Cassini mission found clinching evidence that Enceladus harbored a liquid-water ocean beneath its bright-white icy crust—plumes of…
Highly reactive oxygen can form in mitochondria within our cells KATERYNA KON/SPL/Alamy After several decades, researchers are finally getting a grasp on when an odd and destructive type of oxygen arises in chemical reactions in living cells and certain batteries. Not all oxygen molecules are created equal. In some, their two most energetic electrons have…
