One of the great scientific projects of our time is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI — the hunt for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy. The current manifestation of this endeavor is the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, which uses radio telescopes to look for signals that cannot have a terrestrial origin. The big challenge in this effort is combing through massive data sets — hundreds of hours of data at multiple frequencies. Research ...read more
What’s the most impressive fossil you ever saw? For most people — those who aren’t paleontologists — the answer would probably veer towards the A-list of ancient creatures: dinosaurs, pterosaurs and other long-extinct megafauna whose size and majesty have made them the showpieces of museums and the inspiration of film franchises for decades. But what if someone told you that you’ve been overlooking the real rock stars of the fossil record for all these years? What if there was a type o ...read more
Midway through the Roman empire, an unnamed court official who answered to Emperor Tiberius stepped on a fish and changed the course of medical history. The electric torpedo fish, common to the Mediterranean, shocked the administrator, who noticed afterward that the gout pain in his leg had greatly subsided. Word reached Roman physician Scribonius Largus, who then famously recommended the shocks, when applied to the head, to treat headaches. A new study explores a modern-day form of the torpedo- ...read more
Whether you're a jet setter or a nervous flier, if you sit and think about it hard enough, the fact that we have built machines that soar into the sky for thousands of miles with hundreds of people aboard is baffling. Even though it's common to have flight jitters — flying is one of the safest modes of transportation. Wrapping our heads around flying can actually be a bit challenging; however, Professor Doug Drury, head of aviation at CQUniversity in Australia, is here to help answer our ques ...read more
Black holes are absolutely silent, as they are creatures of pure gravity. But while black holes produce no sound of their own, they can generate sound waves in their environment. A Simple Black Hole Black holes are surprisingly simple objects. In the general theory of relativity, which is the framework we use to understand all things gravity, you only need three numbers to completely and totally describe a black hole: its mass, its spin and its charge. Seriously, that’s it. If you encounter an ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine