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In an event mirroring Hollywood, palaeontologists have uncovered a kind of parasitic wasp preserved in amber which lived almost 100 million years ago. Its unique parasitic behaviour is more similar to a plant than an insect. Viewers of Steven Spielberg’s classic Jurassic Park (1993) may recall the opening scene where miners uncover a mosquito trapped […]

Physicists have produced a superconductor which could help achieve room-temperature operations which would be useful in applications like medicine, transportation and lossless power transmission. The new California Institute of Technology superconductor has stronger superconductivity in some areas and weaker in others. Superconductivity is a quantum state where metals can conduct electricity with no resistance. It […]

Lepidopterist Michael Braby is sitting in his lab, peering at a photo of a butterfly specimen on his computer screen – just as he’s done countless times before. He has no inkling that he’s about to discover Australia’s greatest taxonomic fraud. But he has noticed something odd about this particular butterfly, a Flame Hairstreak (Pseudalmenus […]

Most brain surgery requires doctors to remove part of the skull to access hard-to-reach areas or tumours. It’s invasive, risky, and it takes a long time for the patient to recover. We have developed new, tiny robotic surgical tools that may let surgeons perform “keyhole surgery” on the brain. Despite their small size, our tools […]

A US advocacy group has called into question the ethics of an Australian study which assessed the impact of combined mild traumatic brain injury and non-fatal strangulation in rats, saying there was “no clinical or scientific need” for the experiments.

Archaeologists have used new techniques to study the ancient equivalents of modern kitchen tools used by Native Americans thousands of years ago. Today, we have the mortar, pestle and cutting board. Ancient peoples around the world used to use manos and metates. A metate is a large, flat stone or depression ground into a rocky […]

As the US and other major donors slash HIV funding, experts say decades of progress hang in the balance, and there is risk of a global resurgence of the AIDS crisis. New modelling from the Burnet Institute In Melbourne in Australia predicts international funding cuts for HIV assistance could result in 10.75 million new HIV […]

A breakthrough imaging technique is transforming the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy by enabling doctors to pinpoint elusive brain lesions. At Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in the UK, ultra-powerful MRI scanners are now identifying subtle differences in brain tissue that were previously undetectable, prompting a reassessment of treatment plans for 58% of patients in a recent […]

Australia’s coal industry is again facing questions about methane output, this time after the UN’s environment agency showed emissions at a Queensland mine may be 3 to 8 times higher than reported. The mine under question, Hail Creek in the Bowen Basin in Queensland, is owned by Glencore Mining, which hotly disputes the findings. Fugitive […]

Researchers in China say they performed the first transplant of a genetically modified pig liver into a brain-dead human recipient, publishing their results in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature. A liver transplant is the only cure for end-stage liver disease, which is responsible for an estimated 2 million deaths per year worldwide. But thousands of patients […]

Physicists at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia have found a way to use muonic atoms to better understand the magnetic structure of the nucleus. Science has known about atoms for about 200 years when English chemist John Daltan developed the modern theory of atoms. In fact, the concept of atoms is much older […]

An immersive Antarctic experience with Scenic Eclipse By Ian Connellan There are a few birdlife guarantees in life. Seagulls at Bondi Beach. Pigeons in New York (or London, or Melbourne, or Venice). Blue-footed boobies in the Galápagos Islands. And, should you happen to visit Antarctica, penguins. It’s a little hard to imagine until you experience […]

More than 1,000 species of bony fishes make sounds to communicate with each other, but scientists thought sharks were the strong, silent type. Now, that reputation has been blown straight out of the water, with the first ever documented case of a shark deliberately producing sound. The New Zealand rigs (Mustelus lenticulatus) made clicking sounds […]

Regent honeyeaters, endemic to southeastern Australia, are keeping their genetic diversity despite population collapse over the past century, according to new research. The study is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Regent honeyeaters (Anthochaera Phrygia) are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. “The species […]

People who live in coastal cities all across the world might not always be aware of the extent of scientific research going on around – and under – them, to preserve waterways for humans and animals alike. For example, it’s been a big week for South Australian oceans – from the installation of high-tech buoys, […]

Astronomers have found radio signals from hot gas surrounding a supermassive black hole. The discovery could help reveal hidden black holes across the universe. The black hole in question is 12.9 billion light-years away. Its light has reached Earth from a time when the universe was just 800 million years old. The new research, published […]

As countries around the globe work towards transitioning all facets of their economies to net zero emissions, engineers from the University of Southern California in the US have devised a new method to take carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere and convert it into durable and fire-resistant building materials.  The manufacturing of building materials and […]

A baby hummingbird that looks like a dangerous caterpillar has been found in the rainforests of Panama. The newly hatched bird had long, fluffy feathers all down its back – which had never been seen before on baby hummingbirds. These feathers visually mimic the hairs of some caterpillar species, which can cause painful skin reactions, […]

New research has shown how carbon-neutral aviation fuel can be made more efficiently. The development has been welcomed as attempts are being made to reduce the carbon emissions of the aviation sector. But experts say it could be a while before these “eco-fuels” or “e-fuels” – synthetic aviation fuels produced from fossil-free electricity and recycled […]

The beaches of Aotearoa New Zealand were once jam-packed with southern elephant seals, according to new research that reveals how the species has moved over thousands of years. “At the time of human arrival in New Zealand, you would be hard-pressed to find room on the beaches, with fur seals on the rocky headlands, prehistoric sealions […]

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used because they are efficient and long lasting. But they can be disastrous when something goes wrong, and the battery catches fire or explodes. A new sensor that could solve the problem of overheating lithium-ion batteries is described in a paper published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Damaged […]

The oceans, the nearest things to perpetual motion, are being increasingly explored for energy potential as we shed fossil fuel dependency. Now a team in Florida has released a comprehensive global map of potential ocean energy locations around the world and show how ocean current turbines could tap that power. Out in the Bass Strait […]

Globally, a climate or extreme weather-related disaster has been recorded every day for the past 50 years, resulting in an average of 115 deaths and US$202 million in losses. Aside from increasing concerns about how to pay for recovery, there are also issues about rebuilding to avoid future losses. In advanced economies there is an assumption that insurance […]

JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found. New observations from 2 different teams of astronomers shows that the galaxy has oxygen, making scientists rethink (again!) how galaxies formed in the early universe. The ancient galaxy was first discovered last year by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Its light took more than 13.4 billion […]