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Finds from a cave dating to the Middle Palaeolithic have reshaped archaeologists’ understanding of how early modern humans and Neanderthals interacted. Several human burials have been discovered at Tinshemet Cave in central Israel. The ancient burials, belonging to both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, date to between 130,000 and 80,000 years ago. Analysis of remains from […]

Modelling of changes in vegetation during Earth’s most severe mass extinction event at the end of the Permian period could help explain how our planet’s biomes will change under conditions of another mass extinction amid current global warming. Known as the “Great Dying”, the end-Permian mass extinction saw the disappearance of about 90% of marine […]

New research throws doubt on claims that meteorite material recovered from the Pacific Ocean in 2023 is of interstellar origin. At the time, seismic signals linked to the meteor helped Harvard scientists to locate its fragments on the sea floor. However, these new findings suggest the signals were actually just from a passing truck rumbling […]

Thousands of residents are mopping up in the wake of ex-Cyclone Alfred, which has damaged homes and cars, flooded roads and gouged out beaches. I write from Brisbane, where rain has fallen for several days. Most of it is draining to a coastline already swollen and eroded by Alfred’s swell. Flood warnings are current in […]

A few months ago, scientists determined that the Sun’s current sunspot/solar storm cycle had hit its peak and was likely to remain that way for up to a year. At the same time, NASA’s Sun-studying heliophysics program was ramping up to its own maximum, with its Parker Solar Probe making the closest approach ever to […]

Biomedical scientists are urgently developing new vaccines to prevent tuberculosis (TB), the deadliest infectious disease in the world which kills about 1.5 million people each year, mostly in East Asia, Africa, and the Western Pacific. While the disease is uncommon in Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Northern Territory and Far North […]

Radio astronomers see what the naked eye can’t. As we study the sky with telescopes that record radio signals rather than light, we end up seeing a lot of circles. The newest generation of radio telescopes – including the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT, a telescope in South Africa – is revealing […]

The Australian Government has added 21 new species of fauna and flora to the threatened species list, with six more being uplisted to higher threat categories. This decision underscores Australia’s worsening extinction crisis as the nation continues to grapple with one of the worst extinction rates in the world. The newly added species include the […]

A new artificial intelligence system could help detect wildfires more effectively, offering a powerful tool for early warning and environmental monitoring. The system was developed by researchers at the Universidade Federal do Amazonas, in Brazil, and uses a convolutional neural network (CNN) – a type of AI model designed to process visual data in a […]

Medical researchers are calling for changes in the treatment of chronic pain, with more routine screening for depression and anxiety among patients. It comes after a systematic review of the literature found that about 40% of adults living with chronic pain also have clinical depression or anxiety. They say their findings underscore the need for […]

As robots are built ever smaller, the obstacles in their environments become more and more difficult to traverse. Harvard University engineers have taken inspiration from nature to tackle the problem, creating a palm-sized robot that can walk, climb, strike, scoop up objects, and even jump like a bug. “Walking provides a precise and efficient locomotion […]

Pharmacologists have used artificial intelligence to discover a naturally occurring molecule in humans, which like the popular drug Ozempic, suppresses appetite and reduces body weight. Tests to date have only been on animals but Katrin Svensson, assistant professor of pathology at Stanford University in the US, says nothing tested before has semaglutide’s ability to decrease appetite […]

Ancient DNA has unlocked the secrets of modern humans and their ancestors and is now helping focus research on Antarctica’s Adélie penguins. An international team has extracted ancient DNA, known as sedaDNA, from Antarctic sediments, uncovering a 6,000-year history of Adélie penguin colonies along the Ross Sea coast. The groundbreaking findings, published in Nature Communications, offer […]

There’s more to sex than reproduction — new research lead by the UK’s Durham University suggests that using sex to manage social tension is a trait our distant ancestors shared with all their hominoid descendants — humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas. The study, one of the first direct comparisons of sexual behaviour amongst bonobos and […]

As Australians along the east coast deal with Tropical Cyclone Alfred cutting a swathe through regions which rarely get these weather events, new research shows that hurricanes in the northern hemisphere are also appearing in odd places. Cyclones are carried along in massive rivers of air — 10km high ‘steering flows’ – Cyclone Alfred is […]

Despite being the largest land carnivore and a top Arctic predator that can weigh over 600 kg, polar bears start off surprisingly small. Blind, almost hairless, and weighing just 600g at birth, cubs are born in maternity dens under the snow. These snow caves keep newborns warm and safe for the first few months of […]

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 International Space Station mission—which, among other things, will return stranded astronauts Butch Williams and Sunita (Suni) Williams, is ready for launch on 12 March, pending weather and a few technical issues, NASA announced today in a late-afternoon press conference. “The whole team polled ‘go to proceed,’ pending closure of some open work,” […]

EV batteries are not all the same. Researchers took apart batteries from two leading electric vehicle brands — BYD and Tesla — to try to work out which one had the best battery. Electric vehicles (EVs) are on a roll in Australia, finally. These silent sleek and silent, shiny cars are becoming more prevalent in daily […]

A new study has begun to fill the black hole of knowledge on the impacts of gun violence in the US, finding that 7% of adults in a nationally representative survey have been physically present at a public mass shooting, and 2% have been injured. Young, Black, and male respondents of the 10,000-person survey were […]

A big study from Curtin University in Western Australia has raised urgent questions about the hidden risks of maternal cannabis use. The study, published in Psychiatry Research, analysed data from more than 222,600 Australian mothers and children. The research related to women affected by Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) — a condition marked by compulsive cannabis […]

Direct measurements taken by India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander may have confirmed that ice exists just a few centimetres beneath the Moon’s surface. The results of an experiment, published in Communications Earth & Environment, could aid in future crewed long-term missions or habitation of the Moon which will likely rely on local sources of water. In […]

The search for water on other planets often starts when images reveal channels and canyons, or perhaps what look like seabeds on Earth. But several different processes can lead to meandering channels appearing on the surface of Earth. They could be made by the bending of a river, lava melting through rock, or water cleaving […]

The superb lyrebird is arguably Australia’s most iconic native songbird, known for its ornate tail and incredible mimicry. The species can imitate natural and mechanical sounds, resulting in a vocal repertoire that spans the calls of other birds to the cries of human babies, or the sound of a chainsaw. But new research has found […]

Quantum computers that can do things that classical computers can’t are still a few years away. But experts are warning that if encryption technology doesn’t adapt now to the quantum future, there could be serious security concerns for governments, businesses and ordinary people. Quantum concerns The words “quantum” and “encryption” normally appear in the same […]