“Mummified remains sold online exhibit signs of biodeterioration, yet sellers provide no safety guidance.” Mummified human and animal remains have long been in demand among collectors, and such items are sufficiently rare that their acquisition may involve unregulated, occasionally clandestine trade practices—if not outright illegal ones. According to the…
Capacity will rise by a record 45GW this year, according to S&P Global Energy. Donald Trump is presiding over an unexpected clean energy boom, as rising electricity demand spurs investment in new capacity despite the US administration’s efforts to thwart a solar and wind rollout. Clean energy additions will…
Enormous eruptions altered Earth’s climate and societies all over the globe. The first telegram arrived in Singapore on a Monday, sent from the city of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). “Terrific detonations from Krakatau (volcanic island),” it reported. Soon afterward: “Stones falling. Village near Anjer…
Hibernation cuts down on synapses, but mice seem to retain memories anyway. Our leading hypothesis for how our memories are stored is that when you learn something, the connections among neurons involved get stronger and physically larger, and that constitutes the memory. The trouble is that these connections significantly…
Lands free of roads are under threat from the Trump administration’s proposed rollback. Pause for a moment and listen. What do you hear? Chances are, somewhere in the background, is the ever-present hum of a road. More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states—enough…
Thunderstorms make seismic waves that can be used to find sub-surface features. Most of what we know about the Earth’s interior comes from observing seismic waves. These travel at somewhat different speeds depending on the details of the rock they’re moving through—whether it’s solid or semi-molten, how much water…
The yeetcycling math resembles asteroid mining in reverse. Elon Musk’s talk about maintaining a million-strong AI data center satellite megaconstellation may not exactly be practical or economical, but it might be unique. It’s about the closest we’ve come to confronting a scheme that would export a considerable amount of…
Star, moving at 8% the speed of light, may let us measure the black hole’s rotation. Sgr A* is the name we’ve given to the supermassive black hole that sits at the center of the Milky Way. We’ve known about its presence since the 1970s but only managed to…
“A team of SpaceX engineers is on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle.” SpaceX’s most recent Starship test flight may have ended July 24, but its mission isn’t over yet. The spacecraft splashed down in the Indian Ocean intact after flying halfway around the world from…
New study finds that the tusks have not one but two spirals, twisting in opposite directions. CT scan of a narwhal tusk. Credit: Adrian Rodriguez Palomo/CC BY-NC CT scan of a narwhal tusk. Credit: Adrian Rodriguez Palomo/CC BY-NC Narwhals are toothed whales, renowned for their distinctive straight, spiraling tusks,…
