Black holes are the notorious loners of the universe since getting close to them usually means catastrophic destruction. The latest victim who attempted friendship with one of these hungry giants ended up causing the most energetic explosion to ever occur in the universe.In a new study, published in Science Advances, a team of astronomers from the University of Hawai’i describes what they are calling “extreme nuclear transients” (ENTs). ENTs occur when stars more than three times the weigh ...read more
Interesting things can hide in preserved dung. Besides offering clues about long-gone vegetation, almost anything that gets trapped in ancient feces and stands the test of time can give us a glimpse into prehistoric life. The latest example? A tiny treasure buried in 236-million-year-old poop.It might not be as glamorous as a bug in amber, but this dung fossil, likely left behind by a hippo-sized herbivore in what is now Argentina, contains the oldest physical evidence of butterflies or moths ev ...read more
Bacteria wouldn’t be so bad if we could tell them what to do. “Stop spreading! Stop sticking together! Stop fending off our antibiotics!” A new method is starting to allow scientists to do just that, letting them use light to control certain functions of bacteria. Introduced in a paper published in The European Physical Journal Plus, the preliminary approach could have several potential applications, including a possible avenue for combating antibiotic resistance.The Problem of Antibacteri ...read more
Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like finding a tick latched onto your skin after a hike. But beyond the nausea-inducing idea of being host to a blood-sucking parasite, the consequences of tick bites can be dire depending on the circumstances. This is because a few tick species carry diseases that can be passed on to humans — the most notable one is Lyme disease.An unlucky encounter with a deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) could leave you with Lyme disease. Fortunately, a study published in P ...read more
Before now, one of the few ways to date the Dead Sea Scrolls was through palaeography (the study of handwriting) and radiocarbon dating. These methods place the age of the scrolls somewhere between the 3rd century B.C.E. and the 2nd century C.E. But a new AI date-prediction model may provide a more accurate date for the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. After using this new model, called Enoch, researchers have determined that the Dead Sea Scrolls may actually be older than previously thought. The find ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine