science atlas

Gigantic Universe Simulation Spanning Billions of Light-Years Is The Largest Ever

Today, the greatest mysteries facing astronomers and cosmologists are the roles gravitational attraction and cosmic expansion play in the evolution of the Universe. To resolve these mysteries, astronomers and cosmologists are taking a two-pronged approach. These consist of directly observing the cosmos to observe these forces at work while attempting to find theoretical resolutions for observed…

Gigantic Universe Simulation Spanning Billions of Light-Years Is The Largest Ever

Today, the greatest mysteries facing astronomers and cosmologists are the roles gravitational attraction and cosmic expansion play in the evolution of the Universe. To resolve these mysteries, astronomers and cosmologists are taking a two-pronged approach. These consist of directly observing the cosmos to observe these forces at work while attempting to find theoretical resolutions for observed…

Subatomic Particles Falling From The Sky Are Exposing The Inner Secrets of Volcanoes

Muons are everywhere. Unbeknownst to you, several hundred strike your head every second. These subatomic particles – created when cosmic rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere – are harmless and quickly decay into clusters of lighter particles.   The particles penetrate objects like X-rays do, which make them useful to scientists, who used muons to uncover a hidden chamber in Egypt’s Great…

Subatomic Particles Falling From The Sky Are Exposing The Inner Secrets of Volcanoes

Muons are everywhere. Unbeknownst to you, several hundred strike your head every second. These subatomic particles – created when cosmic rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere – are harmless and quickly decay into clusters of lighter particles.   The particles penetrate objects like X-rays do, which make them useful to scientists, who used muons to uncover a hidden chamber in Egypt’s Great…

Wildfires Are Spurring Wandering Tree Species to Move Faster, Study Finds

Plants and trees choose where to put down their roots based on the surrounding environment, and as the world’s climate shifts, trees and other vegetation are on the move: movements which are accelerated by the spread of wildfires, according to a new study.   Both tree and animal species alike are expected to head towards cooler and wetter locations as the world warms up, in order to find habitats…

Wildfires Are Spurring Wandering Tree Species to Move Faster, Study Finds

Plants and trees choose where to put down their roots based on the surrounding environment, and as the world’s climate shifts, trees and other vegetation are on the move: movements which are accelerated by the spread of wildfires, according to a new study.   Both tree and animal species alike are expected to head towards cooler and wetter locations as the world warms up, in order to find habitats…

Black Holes Could Be Inadvertently Making Gold, Astrophysicists Say

The Universe may have more ways of forging heavy elements than we thought. The creation of metals such as gold, silver, thorium, and uranium require energetic conditions, such as a supernova explosion, or a collision between neutron stars.   However, a new paper shows that these elements could form in the swirling chaos that rings an active newborn black hole as it swallows down dust and gas from…

Wild New Theory Suggests Wormholes Could Be Stable Shortcuts Through Space-Time

Wormholes, or portals between black holes, may be stable after all, a wild new theory suggests. The findings contradict earlier predictions that these hypothetical shortcuts through space-time would instantly collapse.    The sea change comes because tiny differences in the mathematics of relativity, which is used to describe such wormholes, end up dramatically changing our overall picture of how…

Mysterious Object Glimpsed Decades Ago Might Have Actually Been Planet Nine

It’s one of the most intriguing questions about the Solar System from the last five years: Is there a large planet, lurking out in the cold dark reaches, on an orbit so wide it could take 20,000 years to complete?   The answer has proven elusive, but a new study reveals what could be traces of the mysterious hypothetical object’s existence. Astronomer Michael Rowan-Robinson of Imperial College…

Human Faces Reflect a Wider World of Emotion Than We May Realize

Some of us give away more than others in our expressions, but there’s no doubt the human face can convey a wide range of emotions. New research digs into just how flexible and versatile our facial features can be when it comes to expressing how we’re feeling.   Using a sophisticated, bespoke graphics software platform, the researchers showed 100 participants a variety of computer-generated faces,…

Amazing Video Reveals a New Kind of Leidenfrost Effect We’ve Never Seen Before

Above 193 °C (379 °F) something almost magical happens to water in a pan. Called the Leidenfrost effect, when you sprinkle water onto a hot surface, the drops float above the surface on a layer of vapor. They stick around for a moment or two longer than they would at a lower (but still above boiling) temperature, skittering across the pan before evaporating away.   This happens to all different…

Antidepressants Linked With Less Risk of Dying From COVID-19, Study Finds

Use of antidepressants is associated with less risk of mortality in patients with COVID-19 infections, new research shows. The findings, gleaned from a study of the health records of over 80,000 patients who contracted COVID-19 in the US last year, indicate that people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) had a significantly better chance of survival than matched patients not…

In Extremely Rare Case, a Woman With HIV Has ‘Cleared’ The Virus Without Treatment

An anonymous woman from Argentina has become only the second person known to ever show no detectable traces of an HIV infection without receiving a stem cell transplantation treatment to cure it.   The so-called ‘Esperanza patient’, named after her hometown in Argentina, was first diagnosed with HIV-1 in 2013 – but after eight years of follow-up checks and a total of 10 commercial viral load…

Missile Emergency Provokes Fury After ISS Forced to Take Evasive Action

The United States denounced Russia on Monday for conducting a “dangerous and irresponsible” missile strike that blew up one of its own satellites, creating a debris cloud that forced the International Space Station’s crew to take evasive action.   Washington wasn’t informed in advance about the test, only the fourth ever to hit a spacecraft from the ground, and will talk to allies about how to…

Fossil Breakthrough Identifies What Could Be The Longest Dinosaur That Ever Lived

The gold medal for the longest dinosaur in the world might go to the aptly named Supersaurus, now that scientists have fixed a fossil mix-up and analyzed new bones excavated from the long-necked dinosaur’s final resting spot.    Like other exceedingly long dinosaurs, Supersaurus is a diplodocid – a long-necked sauropod whose whip-like tail went on for days.  Supersaurus has always been viewed as…

Scientists Identify a Gene Variant That Doubles The Risk of Dying From COVID-19

Researchers have identified a version of a gene that doubles a person’s risk of severe COVID-19 and doubles the risk of death from the disease for people under 60.  The gene, LZTFL1, is involved in the regulation of lung cells in response to infection. When the risky version of the gene is present, cells lining the lungs seem to do less to protect themselves from infection with…

These Strange, Brittle ‘Eggshell’ Exoplanets Could Be Orbiting Alien Stars

The Universe is a wonderfully weird and varied place. We’ve barely even begun to scratch the surface of what might be possible. It would be foolish, for example, to imagine that our Solar System displays the entire gamut of planetary diversity.   In fact, we know it doesn’t. But our detection technologies are not yet sophisticated enough for us to observe exoplanets (planets outside the Solar…