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Anyone who has used voice-transcription audio software knows it can be glitchy. In my interview notes for a recent article for Cosmos, for example, otter.ai repeatedly rendered the term “hearables” as “hair balls.” Often this is simply humorous. We know what it meant; no harm done.Not so with medical transcription technology, which allows doctors to […]

Dr Yassie Samie remembers the first time she stepped into a warehouse packed with donated, used clothes. “Very cliche, but I lost faith in humanity in that point,” says Samie, a postdoctoral researcher at RMIT University. “It was just so overwhelming, incredibly sad.” Wealthy countries use – and donate – far more clothes, and often […]

Descendants of Vikings from Iceland and the Faroe Islands have genetic signatures that hint at their forebears, according to a new analysis. The study, published in Frontiers in Genetics, found that different groups of Vikings had colonised the two places, which are about 300km apart. “Scientists have long assumed that the Faroe Islands and Iceland […]

A decade on from the first live birth from a transplanted uterus, the procedures remain complex and difficult with the potential for significant complications for both the recipient and live donor. So far there have been only 100 successful transplants resulting in 40 live births, including 2 in Australia. Associate Professor Rebecca Deans, a fertility […]

Camera traps, drones, and audio recorders have exploded in use for conservation over the last decade. But it’s been discovered these surveillance tools have darker uses. In a forest in northern India, they’re being used to spy on and control local women – sometimes with deadly consequences. “Nobody could have realised that camera traps put […]

Fossils found in a cave in northern Spain might be an example of humans – in this case Neanderthals – collecting things for fun. Collecting things for aesthetic purposes is considered a very human thing to do. Modern people collect all sorts of things from stamps, comic books and cards to coins, art and models. […]

Scientists have made the world’s thinnest spaghetti, spinning white flour into fibres less than a thousandth of a millimetre thick. While delicate, the spaghetti is probably not good eating. “I don’t think it’s useful as pasta, sadly, as it would overcook in less than a second, before you could take it out of the pan,” […]

Professor Michael Ward is Chair of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety at the University of Sydney aims to generate a new understanding of the interface between wild and domestic animals to allow advanced assessment of the risk of microbial spillover. During a five-year veterinary science degree, you do placements. When I was a student, […]

There are an estimated 37.2 trillion cells in the human body and scientists are another step closer to mapping all of them with the publication of more than 40 papers across Nature Portfolio journals. The studies from the Human Cell Atlas initiative reveal new insights into how the placenta and skeleton form, changes that occur […]

This video shows how the feathers on the wings and the tail respond reflexively to movement of the robotic bird (which mimics flight). Credit: Eric Chang, Lentink Lab Researchers in biomimetics have created a robotic bird model with real pigeon feathers to understand how birds manage to fly without a vertical tailfin. A plane without a […]

You know that feeling you get when you take a breath of fresh air in nature? There may be more to it than a simple lack of pollution. When we think of nutrients, we think of things we obtain from our diet. But a careful look at the scientific literature shows there is strong evidence […]

Archaeologists have found the world’s oldest evidence of alphabetic writing in an ancient Syrian tomb, challenging previous conceptions about the origin of alphabets. The findings, presented at the American Society of Overseas Research’s Annual Meeting this week, show the writing, etched into finger-length clay cylinders, dates to about 2400 BCE. This precedes any other known […]

Astronomers have taken stargazing to all new extremes by taking the first close up image of a star in another galaxy and it might be on the verge of going supernova. “For the first time, we have succeeded in taking a zoomed-in image of a dying star in a galaxy outside our own Milky Way,” […]

By Patila AmosaNational University of Samoa Until late last month, the Pacific has stood as the only region globally without an academy of science, a gap that has left it vulnerable to external activities impacting its vast oceans. Due to its size, isolation and unique geographical, economic and cultural characteristics, the Pacific is particularly susceptible to these challenges. […]

Everything is made of molecules. But who makes the molecules? For most of the things around you, the answer can probably be traced back to “chemists”. “When we look at everything around us in our world – the food, the medicines, the plastics and polymers, our computers, our vehicles … some sort of chemical manufacturing […]

A new white-flesh fish variety called Pompano could add more than $1 billion to the economy, following successful aquaculture trials and promising initial market testing with chefs and consumers. The Pompano (Trachinotus anak), mostly known as a prized sports fish, has been identified as the ideal white-flesh fish for developing in northern Australia’s tropical climate. […]

A 4.45-billion-year-old grain from a famous Martian meteorite shows that there was hot water on ancient Mars which had the potential to be habitable. It is the oldest direct evidence of hot water on Mars as scientists continue to look for signs that the Red Planet once hosted (or could host) life. The study, led […]

DNA from samples spanning 8,500–1,300 years ago shows how ancient Europeans adapted to the development of early agriculture. Genes underwent significant changes in 14 regions of the genome. For example, those associated with traits that help in the production vitamin D and digest milk into adulthood showed strong signs of selection, but only in the […]

A global survey has found that shipping traffic overlaps with almost the entire range of all whale species but only 7% of the areas with the highest risk of whale-ship collisions have protection measures in place for the whales. “Whale-ship collisions have typically only been studied at a local or regional level … and patterns […]

Earbud-like microphones might be usable for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other ailments, medical researchers say. Rather than transmitting sound into the ear like conventional earbuds, these devices, which Miriam Boutros of École de Technologie Supérieure, in Montreal, calls “hearables,” transmit sounds out of the ear, after first blocking external sounds from coming in. […]

After eluding chemists for 40 years, a mystery compound found in drinking water has finally been identified. The compound – called chloronitramide anion – is previously unknown to science. While it’s important to research the toxicity of the compound, independent experts say it’s no reason to avoid your tap water. The compound forms, according to […]

Mysterious repeating sounds emanating from the depths of the Southern Ocean continue to baffle marine scientists since they were first heard by submariners in the 1960s, when they were dubbed “bio-duck” noises. The ubiquitous sound has been recorded in Antarctic waters and off the Australian west coast. The 4 short bursts of quack-like sounds were also […]

A giant planet orbiting a very young star could be the youngest transiting exoplanet found. Its discovery could shed light on how planets form. More than a dozen exoplanets have been found transiting stars that are 10–40 million years old. For comparison, our Sun is about 4.6 billion years old. Until now no planets have […]

A new quantum theory explaining how light and matter interact has also provided the first ever depiction of the shape of a single light particle, a photon. Understanding these fundamental aspects of photon-matter interactions could open up new possibilities in quantum physics and material science. It could pave the way for new and improved nanophotonic […]