Oct 4th, 2024 - Scientists found a previously hidden massive asteroid crater in the Atlantic Ocean. Did two asteroids wipe out the dinosaurs? For decades, the story of the dinosaurs' demise has centered on a single event: an asteroid smashing into the Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico. The massive impact unleashed chaos across the planet, sparking wildfires, blocking sunlight, and ultimately wiping out 75% of Earth's species, including nearly all of the dinosaurs. But it turns out, Chicxulub may not have acted alone. The Nadir Crater Buried beneath the Atlantic Ocean, deep off the ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - Over the nearly five years since COVID first emerged, you'd be forgiven if you've lost track of the number of new variants we've seen. Some have had a bigger impact than others, but virologists have documented thousands. The latest variant to make headlines is called XEC . This omicron subvariant has been reported predominantly in the northern hemisphere, but it has now been detected in Australia too. So what do we know about XEC? People are now testing for COVID less and reporting it less. Enthusiasm to track the virus is generally waning. Nonetheless, Australia is still collecting and ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - People from isolated parts of the U.K. could have variations in their genetic code that increase their chance of developing certain diseases, a study suggests. The most genetically distinct populations were found in Shetland and Orkney, where some disease -causing variants—changes in the DNA sequence that make up a gene—were more than 100 times more common than elsewhere in the U.K. Scientists also identified populations in north and south Wales, southeast Scotland, Ireland and parts of England who carry genetic variants that are up to 73 times more common than in the general ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - Only six light-years from the Sun, Barnard b is boiling hot, but the new planet hints are other nearby worlds Barnard b may have an unassuming name, but the not-so-distant exoplanet is attracting excited attention from scientists. Newly discovered by astronomers publishing for the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, Barnard b orbits the closest solo star to our own solar system, known as Barnard's star. In the process, Barnard b raises hopes about the possibility of discovering life beyond Earth . This is not to say that Barnard b itself is a candidate for extraterrestrial life. It is one of ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more . You have probably seen leaf-cutter ants carrying bits of plants, maybe in a nature documentary, at a science museum or in the "Circle of Life" song at the beginning of the 1994 Disney animated film "The Lion King." Those ants don't eat the leaves — instead they bring them back to their nests to feed a garden of fungi, which produce food for the ants. Researchers have now used DNA analysis to uncover just how long ants have been farming fungi, ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - It's been almost 25 years since Bruce Willis, playing the fictional character Harry Stamper in the blockbuster movie, Armageddon, saved Earth from an asteroid careering towards the planet. In true Hollywood fashion, he did this by detonating a nuclear bomb implanted in the asteroid, preventing what scientists call a "mass extinction event". The whole world cheered (at least in the movie). The world might be able to cheer for real now. In a study published in Nature Physics, physicists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, US, say they have simulated a nuclear X-ray pulse directed ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - Asteroid-2018-CB, NASA Europe's Hera probe is tentatively scheduled to launch Monday on a mission to inspect the damage a NASA spacecraft made when it smashed into an asteroid during the first test of Earth's planetary defenses. In a scene that sounds straight out of science fiction, the spacecraft deliberately crashed into the pyramid-sized asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, roughly 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) from Earth. The fridge-sized impactor used in the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully knocked the asteroid well off its course. This demonstrated that the idea ... [Read More]

Oct 4th, 2024 - CERN is about to revoke access to around 500 scientists affiliated with Russian institutions, in a move that will cut Russia's researchers off from its state-of-the-art facilities. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN — home to the world's only Large Hadron Collider — announced the number of affected scientists on Monday, according to Reuters , finalizing a pledge first made after the outbreak of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The move is a major break for the institution in Geneva, Switzerland. Russia is not a CERN member state, but has held observer ... [Read More]