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We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. This article appeared in June 2020. I live in Balmain, about two kilometres from the centre of Sydney. I have an optical telescope on the roof, but the lights from the metropolis create a fog that covers the night sky, stealing a […]

At least ten people died in fatal crashes earlier this month in a single 48-hour period on Victorian roads. It was the latest tragic demonstration of the mounting road toll trauma in Australia. In the decade up to 2020, the national road toll was gradually declining, albeit with some fluctuations. But the trend has since […]

Conservationists and farmers want “substantial investment” to reverse environmental damage which has put more than 220 critically endangered species “on the edge.” Partly or completely reliant on unprotected land, such endangered species remain vulnerable to agricultural and industrial development. Around half of the 85,000 sq km of habitat on which these species rely is outside […]

Fossils of a marine reptile that lived 85 million years ago have been formally identified as a new species, nearly 40 years after they were first discovered. Marine reptiles ruled the seas during the “Age of Dinosaurs” and died out 66 million years ago along with all the non-avian dinosaurs. The newly described species belong […]

We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. This article appeared in December 2019. Astrobiologist Martin Van Kranendonk took NASA Mars 2020 Program Scientist Mitch Schulte and rover instrument scientists to the vast and precious Pilbara, in WA, to show them how to travel through geological time to spot biology […]

Welcome news for the nature conservationists – 2 native Australian animals are thriving in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park in South Australia – more than a decade after they were first reintroduced and despite enduring one of the harshest and driest summers in recent years, According to recent trapping efforts by National Parks and Wildlife […]

One archaeologist has gone to extra lengths to show that Vikings were capable of sailing further than previously thought possible. Greer Jarrett is a doctoral student at Sweden’s Lund University. He and his team have authored a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory which details evidence of a network of Viking-era […]

We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. This article appeared in December 2019. Two overarching questions confront would-be human spacefarers: where to go and how to get there. Much attention has been given to the latter question. For interstellar travel to become a reality, major engineering advances are required, […]

A new study has shown that community trust in Australian and New Zealand scientists is the highest in the developed world, and the authors say – surprisingly – it might be because local politics doesn’t get in the way. Not everyone agrees. The survey results were posted yesterday. The study of 70,000 respondents compares public […]

You couldn’t get much more different than the dry, warm subtropical climate of Eswatini than the cold, wet southern island of New Zealand. But that didn’t bother Sebenele (Sebe) Thwala who left her home continent for New Zealand to peer into the farthest reaches of the cosmos. And her work as a second-year PhD scholarship student […]

The international collaboration known as the Leonardo DNA Project has published a new book which they say reveals more than ever before about the family tree of Leonardo da Vinci. The book, titled Genìa da Vinci. Genealogy and Genetics for Leonardo’s DNA, presents evidence from 30 years of DNA research which traces da Vinci’s family […]

We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. This article appeared in March 2020. In south-western India, inside 600-year-old Gaden monastery, visiting academics Ilya Mandel and Leslie Atkins Elliott sought to enlighten a group of young monks. The transfer of knowledge wasn’t all one way. Leslie Atkins Elliott: My plan […]

From the moment someone at a social gathering turns their back on us, alarm bells go off in the brain: we’ve become an outsider. It takes surprisingly little to trigger feelings of worthlessness and isolation. That’s the starting point for a collaboration between psychologists in the United States and Germany, who set out to untangle […]

Feral European honeybees are outcompeting Australian native bees, reducing their fitness and number of offspring, forcing native bees into decline. “We need to manage honeybee densities carefully, especially in areas of high conservation value or where native pollinators are already under pressure from factors such as growing urbanisation,” says native bee entomologist, Dr Kit Prendergast, […]

Physicists have run their first experiment with ZEUS, the highest peak power laser in the USA, and among the most powerful in the world.  Potential breakthroughs in physics, medicine, and materials science beckon. The Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System, (ZEUS) delivered 2 petawatts (2 quadrillion watts) of power, more than 100 times the global electricity […]

A new species of flapjack octopus, with massive eyes and blood-red tentacles, has been discovered from a deep-sea canyon off the coast of Australia. The new species has been named Opisthoteuthis carnarvonensis, or the Carnarvon Flapjack Octopus, for the location in which it was found at a depth of 1044 to 1510m. Dr Tristan Verhoeff, volunteer […]

We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. This article appeared in March 2020. To an untrained eye, the glass plate resembles a dirty tile covered with tiny black spots – as if an ink-filled paintbrush had been gently flicked across its surface. But in fact the plate is a […]

An Australian study has discovered humpback whale calves are being born much further south than previously thought, before they migrate northwards alongside their mothers and sometimes on their backs. Their post-birth route takes them through busy shipping zones. Newborn humpbacks were seen as far south as Tasmania, about 1,500km outside of the existing calving zone, […]

A growing number of patients in the United States are requesting blood from personally selected donors – often for reasons grounded in misinformation rather than medical need. Between 2019 and 2021, transfusions from “directed donors” — those handpicked by the recipient — increased by 11.1%, according to recent data from the U.S. National Blood Collection […]

Many children across Australia have begun to play their favourite contact sports like rugby league, rugby union and Australian rules football. Many will be just starting out during their early years of primary school. Yet there are growing concerns these young athletes may be at heightened risk of sports-related concussions due to their more vulnerable […]

Artificial insemination may allow conservation scientists to get kakapo booming through New Zealand’s forests again.    “Two of the main challenges facing the critically endangered kākāpō are low productivity (only about 40% of eggs hatch) and high levels of genetic inbreeding,” says Dr Andrew Digby, Science Advisor, Kākāpō/Takahē, New Zealand Department of Conservation. That’s were […]

On an idyllic, predator-free island off the coast of Panama, bored monkeys have turned to kidnapping babies to fill their free time. Behavioural ecologists have monitored white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator) on Jicarón Island in Coiba National Park since 2017. It is these highly intelligent monkeys which have previously attracted attention for their ability to use […]

Dark streaks of unknown origin which appear spontaneously on Martian slopes before fading slowly over years to decades have puzzled planetary scientists since they were first observed in the late 1970s. These odd features, known as slope streaks, are generally darker than their surroundings and extend for hundreds of meters down steep terrain. In 2011 […]

Climate change is lengthening fire seasons across much of the world. This means the potential for wildfires at any time of the year, in both hemispheres, is increasing. That poses a problem. Australia regularly shares firefighting resources with the United States and Canada. But these agreements rest on the principle that when North America needs […]