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A sea sponge skeleton made of glass has engineers wondering how it might improve building materials. The sponge in question lives at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and is known as Venus’ flower basket (Euplectella aspergillum). It builds its intricate basket-like skeleton out of silica – the main material in sand and glass. The […]

Quantum technology is no longer confined to the lab – it’s making its way into our everyday lives. Now, it’s about to transform something even more fundamental: how we navigate the world. Imagine submarines travelling beneath the ocean, never needing to surface for location updates. Planes flying across continents with unshakeable precision, unaffected by signal […]

Whale songs which are rhythmic, structured, haunting, and which echo through vast oceanic distances are the province of these mature mammals, but what do they really mean? Well, some like the North Pacific baleen whale sing more when food is abundant. It’s been believed they are tied to foraging and reproductive behaviour, migration timing, cultural […]

Pandas have long confounded biologists because they have a digestive system which resembles that of carnivores, yet the bear species relies mostly on bamboo – a grass – for food. Bucking evolutionary trends, giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are one of just a few examples of a species which turned away from its carnivorous ancestry to […]

Climatologists have matched small changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun over millions of years with ice age cycles. They have used this to predict when the next ice age is meant to take hold but say that anthropogenic climate change might have disrupted the cycle. Earth has followed a pattern of alternating ice […]

PsiQuantum, the company which was awarded a billion-dollar contract by the Australian and Queensland governments to build what might be one of the world’s first quantum computers, has published detailed content about the science behind its proposal. The US-based company released results which it says show that it is ready to begin construction of the […]

Cuttlefish are known for their extraordinary cognitive abilities and their intricate and unique camouflage techniques. The sheltered waters of South Australia’s Upper Spencer Gulf Marine Park are home to the Giant Australian Cuttlefish (Sepia apama) and the Cuttlefish Coast Sanctuary Zone. These are the largest cuttlefish in the world, which can grow to 50cm long […]

Archaeologists have determined that an individual’s skull was turned to glass during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE which led to the destruction of ancient Roman town Pompeii. The individual lived in Herculaneum – a town on the Italian west coast near Naples, even closer to the eruption than Pompei. Analysis published in […]

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) face a multitude of health risks which arise from space travel, from decreased muscle mass and bone density to damaged eyesight. They also commonly experience persistent skin rashes, allergies, and immune dysfunction. A new study suggests that these issues could be caused by the excessively sterile environment of […]

In December 2024, the former RiAus editor-in-chief Ian Connellan and former Cosmos Editor Gail MacCallum embarked on his first visit to Antarctica. The well-travelled Connellan discovered a new world as a guest of Scenic, this is his account of the trip. Wednesday 18th Check-in is easy and after a few hours’ wait we’re on our […]

Drones are everywhere — from pizza delivery to terrorism, civilian medicine to warfare — particularly over the last three years with the Ukraine conflict. Now project funding is enabling the development of heavy-fuel cargo drones for deployment to potential Northern Australian battlefields to carry medical supplies which its designers say will: “…revolutionise healthcare in modern […]

Dolphins, playful, elegant and approachable, are loved worldwide but despite these interactions with humans – as attractive as it is – it puts them at risk. The South Australian government declared an area of a busy port and waterway a dolphin sanctuary in 2005. Researcher Mike Bossley says dolphin numbers declined a decade ago but […]

Australian marine scientists are using an ingenious, if peculiar method to extract semen from wild male leopard sharks. It isn’t an experiment. It’s a bid to boost the species’ numbers and genetic diversity through artificial insemination. The technique relies on “tonic immobility”, also known as animal hypnosis, a reflex seen in a wide variety of […]

The earliest evidence that humans inhabited rainforests has been found in Africa, a surprising find which pushes human settlement in these habitats much further back than previously thought. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved about 300,000 years ago in Africa. The ecological and environmental circumstances in which our species evolved are still not well understood. It […]

Fish cognitive abilities have been underrated for years, even the butt of jokes. But slowly researchers are coming to understand how they think and feel. A new observational study has revealed that Siamese fighting fish are often kept in containers which are a quarter the size they need to thrive. Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) […]

A new data tool is expected to allow the residents of one Australian city to work out how much heat their neighbourhood receives, and find ways of lowering heat stress. The Darwin Living Lab Portal designed to help make Australia’s tropical capital, in the Northern Territory (NT), a more liveable, sustainable and resilient city. “The […]

Asteroid 2024 YR4 has made international headlines since its discovery in December last year because of its (very low) chance of hitting Earth sometime in the next decade. Initially, NASA scientists predicted that the 40–90m asteroid had a 1.3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032. That probability increased to about 3% earlier this month thanks […]

NASA’s latest space telescope, SPHEREx, scheduled for launch on 28 February in tandem with another mission called PUNCH, has been hailed for both the colour range of the images it will produce and its ability to “peer back” to the first second after the Big Bang. What the telescope will actually do, however, is somewhat […]

The movement of massive glaciers during global ice ages contributed to the rise of complex life, new research reveals. By analysing zircon crystals in ancient rocks, geologists found that as glaciers flowed across the Earth’s surface, they carved deep into the crust and released key minerals from below. These minerals were later flushed out to […]

Australian scientists have identified 2 new species of whirring tree frogs in northern Queensland, which are already being pushed to the limits of their habitable ranges by the impacts of climate change. According to Michael Mahony, emeritus professor at the University of Newcastle and co-author of a study describing the new species, “the frogs are […]

As global immunologists race to get ahead of bird flu there’s some good news from Australia where scientists have found that molecules on the inside of highly pathogenic influenza A H5N1 virus could be promising targets for human vaccines. A new study found these proteins remain largely unchanged among different viruses, which suggests that vaccines […]

There’s more evidence, if it was required, that Mars once hosted cool water in large volumes, which would have been an environment well-suited for microbial life to evolve on the Red Planet. Two new pieces of research released this week dovetail nicely with a third which describes a new method to detect fossils of microbial […]

Is the evolution of intelligence partly driven by love? A new study involving tiny fish swimming in mazes suggests that smarter fish have a better chance of mating and reproducing. “Evolution of animal intelligence has long been thought to have been driven by natural selection,” says lead author Ivan Vinogradov, a biologist at the Australian […]

Analysis of ancient DNA has shed light on the origins and diversity of the Hun empire, revealing far-reaching genetic ties. The Huns suddenly appeared in Europe in the 370s CE. The influential but short-lived empire extended from Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia until the 6th century. As world-leading historian of Central Asia Denis […]