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Astronomers have spotted massive red galaxies dating back to the first billion years of the universe’s life. Some are almost as large as the Milky Way. This suggests stars and galaxies grew more quickly in the early universe than previously thought. The discovery was made using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and […]

There’s new hope for the survival of frogs facing the threat of a fungal disease ravaging their populations. After nearly being wiped out by the disease chytridiomycosis, populations of yellow-legged frogs are again thriving across Yosemite National Park in the US. The frogs have developed some resistance to infection by the fungus that causes chytrid, […]

Researchers have grown a genetically modified tomato with 30% more sugar – without sacrificing size. Over centuries of domestication, tomatoes have become 10 to 100 times larger than their wild counterparts. But these big tomatoes have lost their sweetness on the way. The first commercially available genetically modified crop was a tomato, released in the […]

On 14 November 1949, Australia’s first computer was switched on. CSIR Mk1 (later renamed CSIRAC) was designed and built by Trevor Pearcey with help from Maston Beard and Geoff Hill. Pearcey, a radar scientist, began working on the machine in 1947 after emigrating to Australia from the UK. He joined the Council for Scientific and […]

A tooth from a 1.77-million-year-old fossil child has given new insights into the process of how a unique aging process evolved in humans. Analysis of the teeth from Georgia in Eastern Europe shows that ancient human ancestors aged in a combination of ape-like early maturity, and human-like delayed development. The research, published in Nature, looked […]

An extreme rise in sea levels driven by the Indian Ocean Dipole have caused some Maldivian islands to lose more than half of their mangrove cover since 2020, a new Scientific Reports study has found. Lead author Lucy Carruthers of East Carolina University in the US says the findings are a warning for coastal areas […]

In 1961, US radio astronomer Frank Drake came up with an equation for estimating the number of intelligent civilisations in the galaxy. Called the Drake Equation, the formula combines a variety of different numbers – such as the fraction of stars with planets, and the time a civilisation would need to develop space-signalling technology – […]

Global fossil fuel emissions are projected to reach a new record of 37.4 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide this year – a growth of 0.8% relative to 2023 – according to the latest report by the Global Carbon Project. “It is a smaller growth than we had seen [in the] previous year of 1.4% […]

A New Zealand company has become the first in the nation’s history to turn on a fusion machine. OpenStar technologies reached a crucial milestone in the development of nuclear fusion-first plasma. This is the moment a fusion device creates and confines a super-hot cloud of ionised gas. Nuclear fusion is the process by which stars […]

More than 700 million years ago, the entire globe was covered in ice in a period called “Snowball Earth”. At least, that’s what scientists think. Now geologists believe they’ve found the best evidence that the “Snowball Earth” was really a global event. For reasons which remain unclear, a runaway chain of events caused a massive […]

Researchers have developed a new microscopic technique that allows them to image biological processes as they occur, with enough detail to see protein complexes move. They have demonstrated the method by showing for the first time how calcium deposits into a form that may lead to calcification of the arteries and aortic valve. “If you […]

A huge, stinking corpse flower is blooming in Geelong – an event that only lasts for a few days, roughly every 5 years. The corpse flower, also called the titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum, has become a public spectacle for botanic gardens over the last decade. The rare bloom is accompanied by rare “thermogenesis” – […]

A long-running Pacific culture education initiative that has given hundreds of Kiwi teachers the chance to experience life in a Samoan village is now the subject of new research.  In 2003, Leali’ie’e Dr Tufulasi Taleni, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Teacher Education at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC), […]

Across the world, there are thousands of public universities that are open for members of the public to explore, to just walk in and experience firsthand the breathtaking scientific developments that are happening in their city.  But how often do we take up this opportunity, to just simply walk into a building that we know […]

A week after former president Donald Trump again won office in the USA, the world’s countries are gathering to talk climate change. The 2024 UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) began in Baku, Azerbaijan, yesterday, and will run until 22 November. It’s the 29th annual meeting of the 198 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention […]

Scientists have gone back over data to see that NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft’s flyby of Uranus occurred under rare planetary conditions which made it hard to probe. The flyby occurred in 1986 and still provides much of the scientific understanding of the gas planet. The new paper published in Nature Astronomy suggests that Voyager 2 […]

As the world struggles with climate change and the need for sustainable energy, the push for renewable energy and storage has become urgent. Solar energy, though abundant, faces the challenge of intermittent supply. Innovative energy storage systems are essential to address this challenge. While battery energy storage is widely used, a promising alternative — Gravity […]

A bond between a carbon atom and a hydrogen atom is a special thing. Very strong, and therefore highly inert, it’s very difficult to interfere with. The carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bond features in almost all biological molecules, padding them from unwanted reactions. But breaking the C-H bond can open up many new avenues in synthetic chemistry.. […]

Many animals today use bright colour displays as a means of attracting potential mates or to warn off would-be predators. The classic case of sexual selection using colour signalling is found in peacocks which proudly show off their vibrant tails to attract peahens for courtship. Bright colours are also displayed by toxic species including venomous […]

We have long known why plants grow flowers – to encourage pollination. But what prompts a flower to shrivel up, once it’s done its job? While there have been plenty of theories, the reason has not – until now – ever been directly tested. But some experiments on colourful Christmas bells (Blandfordia grandiflora) have finally […]

Private jets are emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide each year – and the number is growing dramatically, according to a new study. The study, published in Communications Earth and Environment, finds a 46% increase in emissions from the private jet industry between 2019 and 2023. In 2023, the industry emitted at least 15.6 […]

Astronomers believe they have narrowed down the search for the origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs) to massive star-forming galaxies. Since the first FRB was detected in 2007, hundreds have been spotted. The observations all involve extremely energetic pulses of radio-frequency light which can travel across the universe. Evidence is mounting that the source of […]

In 1980, Mount St Helens erupted in the western USA, killing 57 people and destroying 350km2 of forest. In 1983, scientists captured 2 wild gophers, and put each of them on a small, fenced enclosure on the ruined volcanic plain. They let the gophers dig for 24 hours, then removed them. According to a new […]

Scientists have examined how honeybees build symmetrical nests, relating the process to how mirrored patterns emerge in biology such as human faces and bodies. Many multicellular organisms possess an outward appearance which is symmetrical. Some are very obviously asymmetrical. Of course, this symmetry is not perfect – in fact if you look at a perfectly […]