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Australian astronomers have released the chemical fingerprints of almost a million stars, helping piece together the history of the Milky Way galaxy. The data set is the culmination of 10 years of observations at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) near Coonabarabran, about 500km west of Sydney in New South Wales. The release of the data coincides […]

New research has challenged previous findings about the role of dopamine in the placebo effect. Dopamine is involved in the brain’s reward and learning mechanisms and has previously been shown to contribute to the placebo effect – the phenomenon where a person receiving a “non-intervention,” such as a sugar pill, experiences improvement in their condition. […]

Fluoride in drinking water may not have the big impact it used to, according to a Cochrane review. Cochrane reviews, run by the international not-for-profit Cochrane Collaboration, produce some of the most highly trusted reviews in medical science. This review finds that following the widespread use of fluoride toothpaste, communities have enjoyed smaller benefits from […]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a unique supernova which has helped measure the Hubble constant – the rate at which the universe is expanding. Several research papers have been published from the observations of the supernova, dubbed Supernova H0pe. These papers can be accessed from this NASA blog post announcing the discovery. Supernovae […]

An often-overlooked type of star could have planets in the habitable zone and harbour life, according to new research. Stars are categorised by surface temperature as well as other physical factors such as mass, luminosity and radius. Astronomers identify surface temperature variation in stars by dividing them up into 7 groups, identified by different letters. […]

Antarctica, known as the White Continent, is going green. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey analysed satellite data of the Antarctic Peninsula and found that vegetation cover has increased more than 10-fold over the past 40 years. Vegetation took up an area of less than 1km2 in 1986, but this grew to almost 12km2 by […]

Professor Alan Collins, the Douglas Mawson Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Adelaide, is building a dynamic map of the Earth’s plate tectonics spanning nearly a third of our planet’s existence, from 1800 to 500 million years ago. The map might reveal critical mineral locations, but Collins also believes tectonics are part of […]

When an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, it caused a mass extinction. Now researchers have evidence that this catastrophe ushered in the invention of agriculture by ants. “Extinction events can be huge disasters for most organisms, but it can actually be positive for others,” says Ted Schultz, curator of ants at the […]

An exoplanet has been discovered orbiting the nearest single star to Earth (apart from the Sun), only 6 light-years away. The nearest stars to our solar system are in the Alpha Centauri system at just 4.2 light-years away. This triple star system is in the Centaurus constellation. The closest exoplanets to Earth were discovered orbiting […]

Saying “who’s a good boy?” in a singsong voice has been the demand of dog trainers for years – but now scientists have explored why it is so effective. Researchers studying humans and dogs have found that certain patterns of speech does help our canine companions understand our verbal commands. A team of Swiss and […]

Scientists have developed a way to transport a drug to a specific part of the body, then be excreted out. The method, which has been demonstrated in mice, could one day be a safer way to treat cancer and other diseases. The study, done by a team of Japanese researchers, is published in Nature Communications. […]

Small iron-rich nodules decorating the world-famous Pinnacles in Western Australia have finally allowed researchers to date the formation of these striking landforms to about 100,000 years ago. The Pinnacles are made up of thousands of limestone formations up to 5m tall and 2m wide, spaced 1.5 to 5m apart in Nambung National Park on the […]

An international team of scientists and citizen scientists has just completed a herculean task: creating a complete map – called a connectome – of the entire fruit fly brain. It’s not only a scientific breakthrough, but a project – unveiled a few hours ago – that could produce major improvements in understanding how other brains […]

Humans use smiles and laughter to communicate playfulness. Now, the behaviour has been confirmed in a species of dolphin too, Scientists found that bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) also use these friendly gestures, or “open mouth” facial expressions, to communicate during social play. “The relaxed open mouth, seen in social carnivores, monkeys’ play faces, and even […]

Scientists believe they are beginning to understand the conditions which sparked life on Earth by demonstrating in the lab a massive multiplication of DNA in just minutes. More than 4 billion years ago, chemical compounds came together to form life. This event occurred when earth was very young – just a few hundred million years […]

Baby green sea turtles are the latest in a long list of animals given their very own backpacks to help scientists study their behaviour. Hatchlings are tiny and vulnerable and make a mad dash to the sea to avoid predators. But Australian researchers wanted to understand more about how they make their way to the […]

A large-scale study of primate populations around the world has revealed which of our closest cousins are most at risk of extinction. The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It includes data from 22,705 locations across 4 regions: mainland Africa, Madagascar, Asia and the Neotropics – an area including Central […]

Hurricanes John and Helene have made international headlines this week for the destruction wrought on Mexico and the southeastern US. Climate experts and meteorologists warn that such extreme weather events are going to be more frequent due to global climate change. Storms are getting stronger, lasting longer and causing more damage to infrastructure and lives. […]

It’s not the famous Star Trek tricorder but it’s close: researchers have developed a hand-held scanner that can generate highly detailed 3D images of body parts in almost real time. The technology can accurately image blood vessels up to 15mm deep in human tissue, which the researchers say could help to diagnose conditions such as […]

Engineers inspired by marine creatures have made a fabric that adjusts to your body heat and keeps you at a temperature of your choosing. Better yet, it is breathable and washable. The US-based team say their fabric could be used in athletic apparel, food packaging, infrared camouflage, soft robotics and biomedical sensing. Their research is […]

An international collaboration is trying to solve the world’s energy crisis by building a unique kind of fusion reactor. SMART (SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak) is a fusion device being put together at the University of Seville in Spain. Over the past month, the team behind its construction has published several papers outlining the fusion technology […]

The discussion over whether to call the mildest form of prostate cancer “cancer” has returned, with a new paper suggesting that patients may benefit from avoiding the term. Prostate cancer is one of the world’s most common cancers. But it’s also one of the most treatable: caught early, patients’ chance of surviving more than 5 […]

Mount Everest is tall. In other news, the sky is blue. But Everest (also called Chomolungma and Sagarmāthā) is taller than it logically should be – towering 238m above the world’s next highest peak, K2, and more than 250m higher than any of its counterparts in the relatively uniform Himalaya range. Plus, it’s growing at […]

Astronomers have overturned long-held beliefs about the composition of dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered, when in 1801 it was spotted by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. It is the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system and is the largest object in the main asteroid belt between the orbits […]