John Mingione stood in his living room, put on his Oculus headset and started playing a Star Wars game. Mingione, 54, had given the virtual reality device to his son as a gift and he was trying out a new game. Soon he was in a battle with a stormtrooper, getting closer and closer to … Read more
Breeding seasons can be dangerous for males frogs that attempt to impress a potential mate: They can quickly find themselves being dragged and eaten by an unimpressed female, researchers have discovered. For the first time, researchers on Kooragang Island in New South Wales, Australia have observed adult female green and golden bell frogs (Litoria aurea) … Read more
For decades, astronomers have searched without much joy for signs of “missing link” black holes, aka black holes with masses between those of “stellar-mass black holes” and “supermassive black holes.” The former have been seen scattered across the universe, and the latter are cosmic titans that dominate the hearts of galaxies — but when it … Read more
A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California announced today that they created livermorium, or element 116, using a titanium particle beam for the first time. The achievement puts scientists close to the island of stability, a theorized point where superheavy elements can be long-lived, making them easier to study. “We needed … Read more
Magnify / With Dragon and Falcon, SpaceX has become an important contractor for NASA. SpaceX There’s an emerging truth about NASA’s push toward commercial contracts that’s increasingly hard to escape: Companies not named SpaceX are struggling with NASA’s approach to awarding fixed-price contracts for space services. This belief is underlined by the latest award of … Read more
The secret behind life on Earth may be deeper than we thought. Scientists have discovered that metal nodules on the ocean floor produce oxygen in total darkness without the help of living organisms, which could further our understanding of the origins of life. This eye-opening revelation was revealed in a groundbreaking study in the journal … Read more
