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We are diving into our archives and republishing some paid content for free. This long read was originally published in the September 2024 Cosmos print magazine. You can read more amazing long reads if you subscribe now. Walking or driving Australia’s Red Centre is a great way to learn about geology. But even geologists agree the […]

Dinosaurs were the dominant creatures on land for more than 150 million years. The Mesozoic era (252–66 million years ago) is sometimes called the “Age of Dinosaurs” or “Age of Reptiles”. During this time, dinosaurs grew to be the largest land animals and biggest predators of all time. We are endlessly amazed by these magnificent […]

Humans can’t go long without water before feeling thirsty enough to rustle up a refreshing beverage. So how do hibernating animals suppress the need to seek out water for months at a time? New research shows that for one animal, it’s all in the mind. A species of squirrel, the thirteen-lined ground squirrel (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus), […]

Batteries are surging ahead in storage, speed, and efficiency. Here are 5 of our favourite battery science stories of the year. Can a thumb-sized nuclear battery last 50 years? The race to build a nuclear battery is heating up, with a Chinese startup pitching a coin-sized device it says can keep producing a charge for […]

Expanding the kitchen gadgetry with an air fryer? Want to see what all of the hype is about? While they certainly have their uses – particularly in speed – you may want to re-read the instructions before cooking your first schnitty. Like all new cooking methods, they can carry some risks. Lydia Buchtmann, CEO of […]

Warm weather pairs perfectly with a cool meal, and we have just the recipe. Ceviche (suh-VEE-chay) is a popular dish from Latin America that relies on lime juice to “cook” seafood without any heat. Just the idea for kids in the kitchen on or before Christmas and new year’s feasts. The team at Double Helix […]

This week marks the beginning of summer holidays for Australian school kids so why not enjoy science time with your kids, cooking, making rockets, creating bubbles or building an automatic flying fishing machine? To celebrate summer, we’ve hand-picked 20 hands-on STEM activities for kids from the Australian children’s science newsletter, Double Helix Extra (DHE). DHE […]

Biologists from the University of Hawai’i have used drones to track lactating mother whales and their calves in the Pacific Ocean over 6 months and watched as the calves grew massively and mums lost weight. The research shows calves increased body volume by almost 395%, and lactating females decreased their body volume by approximately 17%. […]

As part of the Ultramarine project we are diving into our archives and republishing some paid content for free. In the December 2023 Cosmos print magazine, Keely Jobe considered how the community and scientists are both vital to saving at-risk species. Jobe lives in a small Tasmanian town shares its shores with the endangered red handfish. […]

Stem cell researchers have discovered a potential new lifeline for the tiniest and most vulnerable babies. Scientists at Monash Children’s Hospital have successfully collected and reinfused umbilical cord blood cells in extremely premature babies, offering a glimmer of hope for preventing brain injuries. This pioneering research, undertaken by a collaboration of Monash Health’s Monash Children’s […]

In an age where misinformation and deepfakes blur the lines between fact and fiction, identifying scams has never been more challenging. Falling for a scam can have devastating social, financial, and personal consequences. Over the past year, victims of cybercrime reported losing an average of $30,700 per incident. As Christmas and Boxing Day approach, shoppers face heightened risks, […]

Fine-tuning their programming could help panels on solar farms perform better while resisting damage, according to a new study. The study, published in Physics of Fluids, outlines a way for panels to optimise their angles to get the best out of windy conditions. While wind can make solar panels more efficient by cooling them, it […]

A complete model of Thylacoleo, Australia’s once-fearsome carnivorous marsupial lion, including its missing tail bone and other anatomical features of the backbone has been created by Flinders University Palaeontology researchers. Flinders University Emeritus Professor Rod Wells, was one of the first explorers to discover the scientifically important fossil more than 50 years ago. A partial reconstruction has […]

In a perhaps unsurprising turn of events new research has found that giraffes, which aren’t known for their grace, prefer to remain on flatter ground. In fact it revealed they flat-out refuse to climb slopes of more than 20°! The research, which was presented at the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting in Liverpool last week […]

Medicine is famous for its jargon, and adults regularly have trouble interpreting it. That goes double for kids, according to a study in Pediatrics. The researchers found that children frequently misunderstand medical and hospital terms, with misconceptions ranging from cute to concerning. The researchers ran a study on children aged 4-12 at a state fair […]

Human-made materials – the “technosphere” – are a deep store of fossil carbon – and possibly a ticking time bomb. That’s according to a fascinating new study published in Cell Reports Sustainability. “We have no idea of how much carbon has been accumulated in the technosphere, how long it stays and what might happen to […]

Researchers have used a fibre-optic internet cable to perform quantum teleportation – while it simultaneously sent internet traffic. The feat, say the team, means that existing internet infrastructure could be used for quantum communication. They’ve published their findings in Optica. “This is incredibly exciting because nobody thought it was possible,” says lead researcher Professor Prem […]

Joint research involving satellites from the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have uncovered extreme thinning occurring across the Greenland Ice Sheet. Using the CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 satellites, scientists have provided the first measurements of how the thickness of the Greenland Ice Sheet has changed over 13 years from 2010 to 2023. Published in Geophysical […]

A new sunblock which protects the skin from UV rays also reduces heat from the sun, so you might feel like you’re enjoying a spring day – in summer. The sunscreen uses a process called radiative cooling to lower the surface temperature of bare skin. When tested in humid, hot outdoor conditions across two cities […]

Rocks from Mount Ashibetsu in Japan have revealed important information about an ancient global environmental crisis, which choked the oxygen from Earth’s oceans. The Ocean Anoxic Event 1a (OAE 1a) was one of the largest disruptions of the global carbon cycle and climate system in the past 200 million years. New research published in Science […]

Robots traversing lifting and guiding objects. Credit: Device, Yang and Won Nanoengineers have designed tiny magnetic robots that swarm together like ants to pick up objects many times their size or even form rafts to float on water. The researchers think they could be used to tackle difficult tasks in challenging environments, such as offering […]

A team of international astronomers has detected a massive black hole in the early universe that appears to be ‘napping’ or dormant, challenging the existing models of how black holes develop. The James Webb Space Telescope detected a black hole 400 million times the mass of our sun, making it one of the universe’s most […]

Scientists have figured out how to coax human stem cells to develop into the “notochord”, which plays a critical role in organising tissue in developing human embryos and later becomes the intervertebral discs of the spinal column. The UK team made pluripotent stem cells – which can turn into any cell of the body –  […]

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Muslims undertake the Hajj – the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. In 2024, the pilgrimage took place in mid-June, the start of the Saudi summer. But this year, more than 1,300 pilgrims never made it home. Lethal heat combined with humidity proved deadly. Our new research shows the upper limits […]