It’s one of the most enduring mysteries of the Sun: why the superheated surface of this great ball of glowing plasma is actually cooler than its outer atmosphere, called the corona. Scientists now have a new explanation for this hotly debated topic, and the answer was hidden in a strange solar phenomenon that’s never
Weird
Researchers have discovered that sun bears can precisely copy each other’s facial expressions in social situations. It’s a bigger deal than you might think, especially for scientists. When humans are in social situations, we often adjust our facial expressions in response to someone else. It’s called facial mimicry, and past a point of sufficient
Spring officially begins in the Northern Hemisphere early Wednesday evening at 5:58 pm Eastern (9:58 pm UTC). Less than four hours after the onset of the new season, a stunning spring supermoon will be full in the night sky. The third and final supermoon of 2019, it reaches 100 percent fullness at 9:43 pm
The recent discovery of a comb jellyfish with a disappearing butt had us wondering: what other types of weird animal behinds are producing floaters (or sinkers) out in the world? From wriggling deep sea worms that poop from their mouths, to flatworms that have myriad butt holes on their backs, evolution has concocted a bizarre
Once again, scientists have scrutinised one of the strangest stars in the sky to understand its wild light fluctuations. The latest observations of KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s star or Boyajian’s star, have scanned for the kind of laser emission that could be produced by a civilisation. Well, guess what. It’s been three-and-a-half
The newly launched Nokia 9 PureView has something no other smartphone has: a five-camera array on the back. But before the handset has even got into people’s hands, there are claims that it’s triggering trypophobia – a fear of clusters of small holes. While those with trypophobia will no doubt try their best to
Behind this sentence lies a solid bedrock of mathematics, one that has been shown to govern all human languages. Linguists have found the hoots and hollers, gestures and expressions used by chimpanzees obey some of the same basic principles, demonstrating the foundations of language have deep evolutionary roots. A study led by the University
Universities in the US have long wrangled over who owns the world’s largest drum. Unsubstantiated claims to the title have included the “Purdue Big Bass Drum” and “Big Bertha“, which interestingly was named after the German World War I cannon and ended up becoming radioactive during the Manhattan Project. Unfortunately for the Americans, however,
The most distant object our species has ever visited, a space rock called 2014 MU69, is less snowman-shaped than scientists previously thought. NASA flew its New Horizons probe by the rock, which is nicknamed Ultima Thule and located 4 billion miles from Earth, on New Year’s Day. New Horizons flew within 2,200 miles of