A tiny insect became one of the earliest living passengers sent towards space, long before astronauts were routinely orbiting Earth. In 1947, fruit flies were loaded onto a captured German V-2 rocket in New Mexico as scientists began testing what happened to life above the atmosphere. The experiment was primitive by modern standards, but it…
A Scottish restoration project has returned 60,000 native oysters to the Firth of Forth, reviving a species that once formed vast oyster beds across an area roughly comparable to the size of Edinburgh. The Restoration Forth partnership originally aimed to return 30,000 European flat oysters to the estuary, but the target was later doubled after…
Isaac Newton, one of history’s most influential scientists, spent much of his life trying to understand the laws governing the natural world. His work transformed physics, mathematics and astronomy, but his approach to discovery was rooted in careful observation, experimentation and the search for underlying principles. One of his enduring observations was that truth is…
Far below the surface of Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, where sunlight disappears and fishing grounds give way to deep water, three unusual fish specimens had been sitting in scientific collections for years. They would eventually become the basis for describing a species unknown to science. At the centre of that work was Naidely Valeria Vidaurre-Quesada,…
Quote of the day by Alexander Graham Bell (Image: Wikipedia) In an age of constant notifications, endless open tabs and competing priorities, Alexander Graham Bell’s words feel genuinely surprising in how modern they still sound. “Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand,” he said. “The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to…
Representative Image (AI-generated) Microplastics are now found across aquatic environments, creating a difficult challenge for water-treatment systems that must remove tiny plastic particles without generating more waste. A new approach investigated in 2026 takes an unusual route: instead of treating water-treatment waste as something that simply needs to be discarded, researchers turned it into a…
Image Credit: Brad Leue/AWC Australia’s effort to bring digging mammals back to an 8,000-hectare wildlife sanctuary has produced changes below the surface. Researchers studying Scotia Sanctuary in south-eastern Australia found that 8 years after reintroduced mammals were given access to areas, the communities of insects emerging from the soil had changed. The mammals, including greater…
Liquid hydrogen Tank at NASA Kennedy Space Center. Image Credit: US Department of Energy Scientists working on a cleaner way to produce hydrogen have discovered an unexpected second product which is high-quality graphite. The finding emerged from research into methane pyrolysis, a process that splits methane into hydrogen and solid carbon instead of producing CO2…
Four concrete barriers blocked the way for salmon that once swam freely between the Pacific Ocean and the high desert reaches of Oregon and California for more than a hundred years. The dams were removed in 2024 as part of one of the largest dam removal projects in U.S. history, letting the river flow freely…
Chen Yuanhui. Image Credit: South China Morning Post Chen Yuanhui has spent more than four decades studying one of China’s rarest venomous snakes, even though his work has cost him part of a finger and repeatedly put his life in danger. The 77-year-old, widely known as the ‘Snake Doctor,’ discovered the ‘Mangshan pit viper’ and…