Well here’s something you don’t see everyday—wild rabbits riding on the backs of sheep to flee rising floodwaters. The remarkable scene was captured by a New Zealand farmer who said he’s never witnessed anything quite like it.
The Royal Observatory Greenwich in the UK has shortlisted its nominees for its annual Insight Astronomer of the Year competition. From stunning aurora and shooting stars through to solar flares and distant nebulae, these images are guaranteed to astound.
Something weird is going on with human sperm production. For decades, scientists have warned that sperm counts are dropping among Western men, but no one has really been able to prove it. In what is now the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have presented compelling evidence in support of…
Like a baseball player running to make a catch, dragonflies are also capable of predicting the trajectory of a moving object, typically its next meal. New research is revealing the mechanisms behind this complex cognitive task, which was once thought to be exclusive to mammals. It’s hoped that these insights will lead…
Modest reductions in measles vaccination rates among US children are poised to produce an inordinate number of new cases of the disease, while increasing annual public health expenditures by at least $2.1 million, according to new research.
A lone brown bear is being blamed for a horrifying incident in which 209 panicked sheep plunged off a cliff in the Pyrenees near the border between France and Spain. It’s not the first time this has happened, and local farmers are pissed that brown bears are being reintroduced to the pastoral, mountain region.
Last week, the Larsen C Ice Shelf gave birth to a trillion pound baby, an iceberg now dubbed A68. The latest observations suggest this big berg has moved 1.5 miles from its starting point, and that it’s already starting to crack up.
Inspired by the traditional Japanese art of origami, self-folding robots can go places and do things traditional robots cannot. A major drawback to these devices, however, has been the need to equip them with batteries or wires. Researchers from Harvard have found a new way to overcome this problem, by designing…
In about a year and a half from now, the New Horizons Spacecraft will whiz past a distant Kuiper Belt object named 2014 MU69. This rocky relic of the ancient Solar System—which is located about four billion miles away—just passed in front of a distant star, resulting in one of the more extraordinary eclipses ever…
We typically only get to see rocket launches from ground level, where the space-bound craft drifts further and further away from sight. But in this dramatic new video, we finally get to see what a rocket launch looks like from the perspective of space itself.
Researchers at MIT have developed deep-learning algorithm that can compile a list of ingredients and even recommend recipes after looking at photos of food. The artificially intelligent system still needs some fine tuning, but this tool could eventually help us learn to cook, count calories, and track our eating…
Scientists have calculated the total amount of plastic ever made. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. But what’s even more disturbing is where all this plastic is ending up.
Meteorologists are currently tracking a pair of weather systems, a tropical storm named Don that appears to be on its way out, and an emerging system that will be dubbed Hilary should it continue to gain strength. While the names given to these storms might seem deliberate, they’re actually the product of a naming…
Astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory have picked up some strange signals coming from Ross 128, a red dwarf star located 11 light-years from Earth. Naturally, the inability of scientists to immediately explain the anomalous signals has led to rampant speculation that aliens must somehow be involved.
Late last week, strange sponge-like clumps began washing ashore in northern France. By the weekend, thousands of the foamy yellow balls were seen along nearly 20 miles of the coastline. Local authorities aren’t sure where the unsightly stuff is coming from, and an investigation is currently underway.
Films like Jurassic Park have led us to believe that Tyrannosaurus rex was capable of chasing down its prey at full tilt. New research done with simulations suggest this dino was no sprinter, and that it couldn’t move any faster than a brisk walk. Well, a brisk walk for a nine ton carnivore. At a top speed of 12 miles…
Around 50,000 residents of Zambia’s Western province were without electricity on Sunday, after a baboon wandered into a power station and fiddled with the equipment. Incredibly, the baboon managed to survive the incident.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have a new crew member—an adorable robotic ball capable of recording video while moving in zero gravity. Dubbed “Int-Ball,” the device will free astronauts to do more important work, while providing ground controllers with their own set of eyes.
While prepping a 67-year-old female patient for routine cataract surgery at England’s Solihull Hospital, physicians noticed a strange bluish blob in one of her eyes. On closer look, the blob turned out to be 17 contact lenses stuck together. Another 10 lenses were subsequently discovered in the same eye. The surgeons…
With the Cold War a fading memory, some nuclear powers have adopted strategies allowing for limited nuclear strikes. But a disturbing new study shows that even small batches of nukes can have disastrous environmental consequences on a global scale.
