Europe just unveiled a reusable rocket concept that could challenge SpaceX’s Starship As SpaceX pushes ahead with Starship, researchers in Europe have proposed a different approach to building heavy rockets. A new study by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) presents a concept called RLV C5, a partially reusable launch vehicle that could give Europe its…
Avicenna (Image: Wikipedia) A knife can prepare a meal or cause harm. Fire can warm a house or burn it down. More than a thousand years ago, the Persian physician and philosopher Avicenna made the same point using something far more ordinary. “Is it the fault of wine if a fool drinks it and goes…
Second pregnancy changes the brain in surprising new ways A woman’s brain changes in very different ways during her second pregnancy compared with her first, helping her adjust to the demands of raising a larger family.The discovery comes from a study by researchers at Amsterdam University Medical Center, published in the journal Nature Communications. Scientists…
Two Asian praying mantises are spreading across Europe, and scientists warn they may now threaten native wildlife Two giant Asian praying mantis species are rapidly spreading across Europe, leading scientists to officially classify them as invasive threats to native wildlife.These fast-breeding predators are steadily moving north, helped by rising global temperatures and the warm conditions…
Artistic rendering of Penrose super-radiance: electromagnetic waves with selected rotation patterns are amplified as they interact with a system that appears to rotate at superluminal speeds. (Credit: Dalila Pasotti and Hadiseh Nasari) Physicists have successfully recreated some of the extreme physics of black holes inside a laboratory by building a stationary device that can copy…
Carl Friedrich Gauss (Image: Wikipedia) Most people assume that if an idea sounds complicated, it must also be profound. Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians in history, was not convinced. “When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial,” he observed. “When he says something that is not trivial then…
Imagine placing a flat piece of plastic on a warm surface and watching it fold itself into a fully functional robot without human hands, motors or complex assembly. It may sound like science fiction, but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrated exactly that with a tiny, origami-inspired robot designed to assemble itself…
Brazil is dealing with one of its worst dengue fever outbreaks in years, and scientists are trying something unusual to bring the numbers down. Instead of just relying on vaccines and mosquito spray, health teams are releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into several cities, hoping these lab-bred insects will help shrink the population of disease-spreading mosquitoes…
As ice melts, the liquid water collects in depressions on the surface and deepens them, forming these melt ponds in the Arctic | Wikimedia Commons Climate change is often discussed in terms of global averages, but new research suggests that where warming or cooling occurs may be just as important as how much occurs. Using…
Most new dinosaur species are announced after researchers uncover multiple bones or even an entire skeleton. The discovery of Uragasaurus kalasinensis proves that this is not always necessary. Scientists have identified the giant long-necked dinosaur from a single, exceptionally well-preserved vertebra found in northeastern Thailand. Despite the limited fossil material, the bone preserved a unique…