When were boats invented? | Live Science
Around 8000 BC, canoes carved from a single pine log arrived in what is now the Netherlands. The boat, approximately 3 meters long, was not discovered until 1955, when it was excavated from a peat bog near the village of Pesse by road workers. This artifact, now known as the Pesce Canoe, is the world’s […]
Longevity may be 50% heritable, research suggests
About 50% of a person’s lifespan is determined by genetics, a new study suggests, more than doubling previous estimates of the heritability of longevity. The new study, published in the journal Science on January 29, used a carefully designed mathematical model to reach this conclusion. Using this model, the research team was able to account […]
Supernovae whose light ‘reappears’ after 60 years could solve cosmology’s biggest problems
Two incredibly rare supernovae that exploded billions of years ago offer a unique opportunity to explain one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology: how fast the universe is expanding. But there’s a twist. Astronomers have already observed these exploding stars, but we have to wait up to 60 years for their light to reach us […]
Life may have recovered ‘ridiculously quickly’ after the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs
Researchers have found that new species may have evolved surprisingly quickly after the asteroid impact that wiped out the Nonabia dinosaur. New species of plankton may have emerged less than 2,000 years after the Chicxulub impact, which occurred about 66 million years ago, further fueling debate about how quickly new species emerged after the impact. […]
‘The problem isn’t just Siri and Alexa’: AI assistants tend to be feminine, perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes
In 2024, there will be more than 8 billion artificial intelligence (AI) voice assistants worldwide, or more than one per person on the planet. These assistants are kind and courteous, and are almost always women by default. Their names also have gender connotations. For example, Apple’s Siri (a Scandinavian female name) means “a beautiful woman […]
This week’s science news: ‘Cloud People’ grave discovered in Mexico, pancreatic cancer epidemic, AI swarms ready to take over social media
This week’s Science News chronicled the good, the bad, and the ugly of technological advances, with a study warning of the next generation of AI “swarms” that could soon invade social media. The signs of bots on social media are already evident, with more than half of the text written online by 2025 being churned […]
James Webb telescope solves the mystery of ancient ‘forever young’ vampire stars
Astronomers have solved the mystery of how some stars remain young, bright and blue despite being almost as old as the universe itself. In other words, stars cannibalize their sibling stars. These timeless objects, known as blue stragglers, have puzzled astronomers for more than 70 years. “Blue stragglers are hydrogen-burning stars with unusually heavy cores […]
How long does it take for the sun to rotate?
Many objects in space rotate. While Earth completes its rotation in about 24 hours, Venus takes a whopping 243 Earth days. The moon’s rotation period is approximately 27 days. It turns out that the sun also rotates. So, how long does it take for the sun to go around once? The answer depends on your […]
New triple-drug treatment halts pancreatic cancer progression, mouse study reveals
Triple-drug therapy for pancreatic cancer has shown promise in early animal studies, offering a potential new treatment for a disease with notoriously low survival rates. Pancreatic cancer is considered one of the most deadly common cancers, with a 5-year relative survival rate of approximately 13%. This means that approximately 87% of cancer patients are expected […]
Thousands of dams in the United States are aging, damaged, and unable to handle extreme weather events. How bad is it?
Satellite images reveal that dozens of dams across the country, including the largest in Texas, may be at risk of collapse due to shifting ground beneath them. Inspections typically do not take these movements into account, suggesting that many of the country’s dams are in worse shape than previously realized. This new discovery raises the […]