Planets & Transits
New Moon in Leo August 12, 2026
The New Moon arrives in Leo August 12 at 8:36 PM UTC, and with it comes a singular...
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- Written by: Juliette McGregor, University of Leicester
Ever fancied having a superpower? Something you can call upon when you need it, to hand you extra information about the world? OK, it’s not X-ray vision, but your eyes do have abilities that you might not be aware of.
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- Written by: Sarah Yang-Berkeley
Fans of homebrewed beer and backyard distilleries already know how to employ yeast to convert sugar into alcohol. Now, bioengineers have gone much further by completing key steps needed to turn sugar-fed yeast into a microbial factory for producing morphine and potentially other drugs, including antibiotics and anti-cancer therapeutics.
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- Written by: Rodney Sinclair, University of Melbourne
Genetic factors appear to be important in determining when we turn grey. Identical twins seem to go grey at a similar age, rate and pattern, however we’re yet to identify the controlling genes.
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- Written by: Admin
The underwater icicles, or brinicles, are known as the "finger of death". That is a good name for them as you will see as you watch this awesome video footage. Not only does it look like a finger pointing down to the sea bed, but...
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- Written by: Damian Murphy, University of York
We live in an increasingly noisy world. Since even low-level noise can affect quality of life, new tools to deal with noise are welcome. “Auralisation”, the audio equivalent of visualisation, is now helping to model and improve the sound of our living and working spaces, as well as recovering the acoustics of past environments.
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- Written by: Maurizio Collu, Cranfield University and Michael Borg, Technical University of Denmark
As wind power companies venture into ever-deeper waters, the traditional windmill-style turbine may not be the most suitable solution. It’s time to look at alternatives.
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- Written by: Nick Inman
What will you and I—and our descendants—become over the next decades or centuries? Is the answer to this question self-evident? Or will we be radically different from how we are now? All that follows from this thought is conjecture, but it is more than a venture into fantasy or science fiction.
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- Written by: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Duke University
Brian is correct that his brain made him do it. It was not his legs or eyes that made him watch the movie. It also wasn’t the movie or another person that made him do it. It was his desires, which are in his brain...
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- Written by: Jim Dryden, WUSTL
Science textbooks say humans can’t see infrared light. New research, however, finds that our retinas can sense it under certain conditions. Scientists on the research team "were able to see the laser light, which was outside of the normal visible range..."
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- Written by: Kayla Schultz
Using plants to generate electricity brings a new clean energy option to the table, but even more exciting, the company plans to expand the technology to existing wetlands and rice paddies where electricity can be generated on a larger scale. This could give power to some of the world’s poorest places.
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- Written by: Joan Cerio
Fast-forward about 150 years from Alice in Wonderland’s time and we all find ourselves down a version of her rabbit hole. The Maya call this the lifetime of change. I like to refer to it as the lifetime full of lifetimes of change. How many “lifetimes” have you lived within this lifetime?
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- Written by: Amy Westervelt, Ensia
A woman peers through goggles embedded in a large black helmet. Forest sounds emanate from various corners of the room: a bird chirping here, a breeze whispering there. She moves slowly around the room. On the wall, a flat digital forest is projected so observers can get a rough idea of her surroundings, but in her mind’s eye...
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- Written by: Mark Lorch, University of Hull
There are many more than the five “facts” that need to be fixed in school textbooks. I am not suggesting that we should start teaching 6-year-olds about matter that only appears in Nobel Prize-winning physics labs or filling the curriculum with detail on dozens of senses. But maybe we should stop telling kids fibs.
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- Written by: Ervin Laszlo
There is a major revolution under way in science today, a transformation that is both profound and fascinating. It changes our view of the world, and our concept of life and consciousness in the world. It comes at a propitious time. We know that the world we have created is unsustainable...
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- Written by: Andrew Smith, The Open University
Police play a proverbial cat-and-mouse game with those they pursue, but also with the technology of the day they use. This game of one-upmanship, of measure and countermeasure, sees one or the other side temporarily with the upper hand.
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- Written by: Emily Conover-UChicago
Solar cells made from polymers have the potential to be cheap and lightweight, but scientists are struggling to make them generate electricity efficiently.
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- Written by: Thomas Andrillon and Sid Kouider
The idea that during sleep our minds shut down from the outside world is ancient and one that is still deeply anchored in our view of sleep today, despite some everyday life experiences and recent scientific discoveries that would tend to prove our brains don’t completely switch off from our environment.
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- Written by: Bryan Roche, National University of Ireland Maynooth
We’re getting more stupid. That’s one point made in a recent article in the New Scientist, reporting on a gradual decline in IQs in developed countries... Such research feeds into a long-held fascination with testing human intelligence. Yet such debates are too focused on IQ as a life-long trait that can’t be changed. Other research is beginning to show the opposite.
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- Written by: Susan Freinke, OnEarth
Every age has its wonder materials. For the Victorians, it was rubber. In the 20th century, it was plastic. And for the digitized 21st century, it may well turn out to be graphene. It’s one of the newest nano-scaled materials to have emerged from our laboratories...
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- Written by: R Jennings
Make no mistake you are under siege on the Internet, be it big government, big data, or your favorite smartphone application. Your government on the other hand stands idly by ready to turn you over for roasting on the other side by ISPs standing between you and your website of choice.
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- Written by: Andrew Smith
As each new computer virus attack or vulnerability comes to light, millions instinctively check their computer to see if their anti-malware application is up to date. This is a good idea and they are wise to do it but a large number of us still forget about their smartphone.
