Science

Representative Image (AI-generated) For more than three decades, a collection of animal bones from Ireland’s Ferriter’s Cove was considered some of the earliest evidence that farming had reached the island. But new research has now overturned that interpretation. According to University College Dublin (UCD), bones once identified as cattle have instead been identified as belonging…

Mars may be millions of kilometres from Minnesota, but for Cloquet student Jeremiah Bents, one small part of a future Mars mission could be tested much closer to home. Instead of looking at how to reach the Red Planet, Bents turned his attention to what astronauts might do once they get there, particularly when dealing…

Leon Wang, the 17-year-old Connecticut student (Image Credit: Society For Science) Alzheimer’s disease remains one of the most difficult neurological disorders to treat, partly because the processes behind it can begin damaging brain cells long before symptoms become apparent. Now, a project by 17-year-old Connecticut student Leon Wang has drawn attention for exploring whether medicines…

Ossabaw Island Hogs (Representational Image Generated using AI tool) Centuries ago, Spanish explorers sailing along the coast of what is now the United States brought pigs with them as a practical food supply. Some escaped, while others were deliberately released so future expeditions would find animals waiting when they returned. On Ossabaw Island, a barrier…

Beneath the surface of the Great Barrier Reef, a 165-tonne building is being slowly reshaped by the environment around it. The Coral Greenhouse, an underwater installation at John Brewer Reef, was designed to work with the sea rather than simply sit on the seabed. Coral can grow across its surfaces, fish can move through its…

The Moon’s south pole may contain small pockets where some Earth microbes could remain alive after being carried there by astronauts or spacecraft. A new Nasa study has mapped parts of the region where five types of bacteria and fungi may withstand lunar conditions for at least a day, with the hardiest organism potentially lasting…

August may look like a busy month in a garden, meadow or city park, but for honeybees, late summer can be surprisingly difficult. New research from the University of Sussex has found that honeybees expend more effort and gain less energy while collecting nectar in late July and August than during much of spring. The…

In late 2028, Nasa plans to send something unusual towards Mars, a spacecraft carrying a working nuclear reactor designed to generate electricity for propulsion in deep space. Space Reactor-1 Freedom is intended to test nuclear electric propulsion beyond Earth orbit, where conventional solar power becomes increasingly difficult to use. The spacecraft will not land on…

A pile of discarded cashew shells would normally have little to do with international shipping. In Maharashtra agricultural leftovers are being fed into reactors that can turn them into usable fuel, gases and biochar. The technology comes from an unusual India-Denmark partnership built around the Viking biomass gasifier developed at the Technical University of Denmark….