Science

Electra takes a different approach to hybrid aviation. Instead of a traditional engine operating the propellers, the aircraft has a gas-powered generator in the nose. (Image: MIT News) A class project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2017 studied a new type of aircraft; now, it has ballooned into a $850 million Ohio…

In Houston, the heat is part of the setting. During the FIFA Fan Festival, though, some of the infrastructure around the event had a rather different experience of the Texas summer. Roofs treated with a thin cooling film stayed dramatically cooler than nearby untreated metal surfaces, even while sitting beneath direct sunlight.The material was not…

Image(s): Left/ Princeton University/Right/Wikipedia While a desk covered in books, papers and unfinished notes may be seen as a sign of an untidy mind, the great scientist Albert Einstein had a different view of this assumption. In particular, he asked, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is…

When archeologists found the tooth it was already damaged, measuring only 23 millimeters. Its crown had been split by agricultural activity into two parts. (Image Courtesy: N. Marković) It sat on a museum shelf for nearly twenty years, unseen, mistaken for something far more common. But now a closer look at a tiny, worn tooth…

Huacas de Moche (Image Credit: Canva) Archaeologists working at the Huacas de Moche Archaeological Complex in northern Peru have uncovered the burial of an infant estimated to be about 1,500 years old. The child, approximately 1.5 years old, was buried with a funerary assemblage that included two whistles, a rattle and a sculptural vessel. Researchers…

Mountain yellow-legged frog. Image Credit: US Fish & Wildlife Service More than 3,000 endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs and tadpoles have been released into California’s mountain ranges in 2026, giving a once widespread amphibian another chance to survive in the wild. The reintroduction, carried out by the ‘San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’ and its partners, is…

When humans leave Earth, even something as basic as knowing which way is up can become confusing. That made fish surprisingly useful subjects for space research. In 1973, Nasa sent two mummichogs and 50 eggs aboard Skylab 3, giving scientists a chance to watch both adult fish and young that developed entirely in orbit. Soon…

A replica of the world’s first liquid propellant rocket, PC: Wikimedia Commons On March 16, 1926, on a snowy farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, physicist Robert H. Goddard set up a slim, 10-foot rocket he had nicknamed Nell on a launch frame in an open field. Fueled by gasoline and liquid oxygen, the rocket climbed just…

Mars may be millions of kilometres from Minnesota, but for Cloquet student Jeremiah Bents, one small part of a future Mars mission could be tested much closer to home. Instead of looking at how to reach the Red Planet, Bents turned his attention to what astronauts might do once they get there, particularly when dealing…

Representative Image (AI-generated) For more than three decades, a collection of animal bones from Ireland’s Ferriter’s Cove was considered some of the earliest evidence that farming had reached the island. But new research has now overturned that interpretation. According to University College Dublin (UCD), bones once identified as cattle have instead been identified as belonging…