List of All Articles with Tag 'science'

Greece is fighting almost 200 wildfires as strengthening winds present an additional challenge, even as the heat wave

Greek authorities are evacuating part of the central city of Lamia as high winds and heat increased the

Is there life on Mars? Well, according to new research, an alien crash landing there could explain puzzling new findings on the surface of the Red Planet. It comes after Nasa’s Curiosity Rover captured images of spiked protrusions on the surface back in April. The strange formations captured in the pictures seem to show a row of spikes and sharp angles emerging from rocks at the base of the Gale Crater, which is 154km long. The odd discovery has put scientists on high alert and it marks one of the most peculiar things ever recorded on the surface of Mars. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Astrobiologist Dr Nathalie Cabrol, who is from the NASA Ames Research Centre and Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, even said that it’s the “most bizarre” rock she’s seen in 20 years of studying the planet. The findings are so irregular, in fact, that experts cannot rule out the idea that they’re extraterrestrial in origin. “A fragment from an extraterrestrial or terrestrial spacecraft cannot be discounted with absolute certainty” the authors of new research published in the Journal of Astrobiology stated. The odd protrusions could be “sand spikes”, which form in certain sands as a result of strong earthquakes. Another theory posits that the formation could be debris from crashed spacecraft, and authors of the study have not ruled out that it could be the result of crafts launched by humans landing on the surface. "Given that possibly 10 or more craft have crashed upon the surface, coupled with the jettison of equipment associated with landing the rovers, it is possible the spikes and its substrate are human-made and consist of debris that fell onto the surface of Gale Crater," the paper reads. “Nevertheless, no debris field is evident and no evidence of any additional debris that may have originated on Earth. “Given its small size and that there are no known human-made analogs and no logical explanation as to what purpose these spikes may serve, it does not seem likely these specimens are the remnants of craft or equipment that fell into Gale Crater. One can only speculate about extraterrestrial origin." However, speaking to The Telegraph, Prof Richard Armstrong, of Aston University, Birmingham said: “There is no way of proving for certain what the spikes are but the balance of the evidence would suggest ‘sand spikes’ resulting from seismic activity on Mars.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

An NHS doctor and TikTok star has revealed the most dangerous sex position – which he says is the cause of 50% of penis fractures. Dr Karan Rajan, a surgical doctor, shares his experience and knowledge with his 5.1 million followers on TikTok. In a video which has recently gone viral, Dr Karan told his followers about the sex position he thinks is most likely to lead to a hospital visit. He gives the title to the reverse cowgirl, as if there is any erratic thrusting during intercourse or if the two parties are not in sync, the penis can slip out and be crushed by their partner's pubic bone, causing a fracture. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Although the penis is boneless, the word 'fracture' is used to describe a tear in the tunica albuginea - a piece of fibrous tissue that connects the framework of the testis and allows the penis to enlarge during an erection. Patients who suffer from a ‘penile fracture’ and don’t have treatment, are usually left with erectile dysfunction, scarring and a permanent curvature of the penis for the rest of their lives. Dr Karan finished his educational video with a warning that over-enthusiastic sex, can lead to your penis really looking like an aubergine. @dr.karanr Reply to @budsfn the one with the broken 🍆 #schoolwithdrkaran #learnontiktok #doctor #storytime The popular clip was posted back in 2021 but has recently gone viral, garnering millions of views and racking up 411,000 likes. Many of Dr Karan’s followers were saddened by the educational video, with one saying: “This is my favourite position,” followed by a sad face emoji. Someone else commented: “They can just break, did I hear...well now I can finally take revenge." Another viewer said: “My husband is now scared to come near me because of that.” A fourth added: “But that’s the best position." Dr Karan answered people who wanted evidence for these claims and said: “Men coming to the emergency room with this issue.” Some people were rather concerned, and one asked: “Just to clarify, by breaking it, will it look swollen and bigger? How long will this swelling last? Asking for a friend.” Another person wrote: “I heard mine crack from this position once." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Elon Musk’s decision to change the Twitter logo to an X has been mocked for looking like a porn site, with pictures to prove it. Since his takeover of the social media platform Twitter, Musk has made multiple significant changes that have left users baffled. Some changes affect the way users are able to interact with others, based on their verified (i.e. paid for) status, while other changes are more superficial. The latest idea has seen Musk change the iconic blue bird logo of 15 years, replacing it with a white X on a black background that many have compared with porn sites. Porn sites such as XVideos and XNXX feature logos that are variations of the letter X and comedian Jesse McLaren pointed out how true the comparisons are after sharing a screenshot of a Google Chrome page with six tabs all bearing logos that are very similar. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter McLaren wrote: “These are all porn except one. That one's Twitter.” The tweet has been viewed over 4 million times and sparked a conversation about the design of the logo. Someone commented: “It’s the fact that if I had to guess which one out of these was a porn site, my immediate first guess would be the Twitter one.” Another said: “I have a feeling that this will become an interesting case study in marketing and branding classes.” “Unethical, degrading, and perverted. Also there are some porn sites there I guess,” one Twitter user joked. Someone else argued: “Twitter is a porn site too.” Industry experts have cast doubt over Musk’s rebrand decision, particularly at a time when other competitors such as Meta’s Threads have entered the market. Mike Proulx, research director at the analysis firm Forrester, told the Guardian: “By changing Twitter’s app name, Elon Musk will have singlehandedly wiped out over 15 years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon.” He continued: “This is an extremely risky move, because with ‘X’, Musk is essentially starting over while its competition is afoot.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Elon Musk's time at Twitter is going from bad to worse. The tech mogul has introduced a number of changes that have annoyed people since he bought the website last year, from making users pay for their blue ticks to letting controversial figures rejoin the platform. His latest crime is changing the iconic bird logo to an 'X' and people are fuming about it. So much so that it is driving people away from the platform into the arms of other social media apps. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter With that in mind, those social media platforms waiting with open arms are making changes to their offering, and it looks like they are trying to replicate the Twitter experience. TikTok, for instance, has announced the introduction of text-only posts, which users will also be able to add coloured backgrounds and stickers to, and which have a limit of 1,000 words. It follows Threads, Instagram’s text-based app, which was launched earlier this month. While Threads saw 100 million people sign up in fewer than five days after its launch, the number of active daily users has since fallen by 70 per cent, Forbes reports. The moral of this story? Don't mess with a beloved social media app - people will only get annoyed. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Scientists have discovered one of the strangest exoplanets ever that is so light and fluffy that it is actually being compared to candyfloss (or cotton candy if you are American). The planet is called WASP-193b and is 1,232 light-years away and was discovered by researchers at the University of Liège in Belgium. The findings of their study, led by astronomer Khalid Barkaoui has been published on arXiv. The planet, which is believed to be a so-called gas giant is nearly 50 per cent bigger than Jupiter and is orbiting a Sun-like star named WASP-193, which the scientists believe is up to 6 billion years old. Although this star is slightly bigger than our sun it is still said to have the same temperature but compared to Earth, WASP-193b orbits its star just every 6.25 days. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter By studying the planet, Barkaoui and his team were able to determine that its density was around 0.059 grams per cubic centimetre. Earth's density per cubic centimetre for comparison, is 5.51 grams whereas candyfloss has a density of 0.05 grams. There are few other examples of a planet like this existing but its close proximity to a star may give an indication as to how it came to exist as its heat is likely to have warmed up the planet's puffy atmosphere, which is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium. This state of the planet is only set to last for around a few ten million years as the temperatures and winds emitted from the star are only likely to strip back the atmosphere further. Due to this scientists cannot fully recreate or determine what is causing WASP-193b's unique atmosphere but is it likely to be a continued source of study to try and determine the cause of this phenomenon. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Time travel, or just an illusion? Eagle eyed art lovers have spotted what appears to be a satellite in a four-century old painting of Jesus Christ. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are depicted in the ‘Glorification of the Eucharist’, a painting by Ventura Salimbeni from 1595. But in the background is something surprising – a blue sphere with spikes sticking out of it, which some people have interpreted as Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth in 1957. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Steve Mera, chairman of the Manchester Association of Paranormal Investigation & Training (MAPIT) and a paranormal specialist and lecturer, said at a conference: “You start to find a lot of religious connotation linked in with the UFO phenomenon. “This painting [the Eucharist] was painted in the 1600s and nobody ever really knew what that was a painting of, until we kind of looked at Sputnik, which was the first satellite to pass round the Earth,” he said. “What is really, really interesting is it is surprisingly similar to Sputnik, even to the point there is a little nodule there (on Sputnik) and the exact same nodule on the side there [on the object in the painting].” Clearly, Salimbeni wouldn’t have known about Sputnik. Or would he…? Mera added: "Did they somehow have knowledge of future events?" Well, we can probably assume not. Instead, experts think the ball is a representation of the so-called celestial sphere (or the universe), while the spikes indicate God’s power over it. But for conspiracy theorists, it’s yet another win for time travel. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Scientists think they have discovered a previously unknown hidden structure inside the Earth’s core that could change our understanding of our planet. In school, most of us were taught there are four main layers to the Earth’s structure: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. What we know about the Earth’s insides has mostly derived from geologists’ knowledge and observations of volcanoes and seismic waves. But now, scientists believe that there may also be a whole extra layer hidden inside the inner core that no one knew about. Earth’s molten inner core is predicted to be around 5,000 degrees Celsius in temperature and scientists have calculated that it takes up around just 1 per cent of the planet’s total volume. The discovery of a potential fifth layer to the planet’s core came a few years ago when scientists used an algorithm to model thousands of scenarios of the inner core to observe the length of time it takes seismic waves to travel through Earth based on data by the International Seismological Centre. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists were able to analyse how different material properties within the inner core would affect seismic waves differently and found that some scenarios were certainly more likely than others. The algorithm showed how different materials altered the angle of seismic waves, leading them to hypothesise that there was a change of material somewhere in the inner core. Joanne Stephenson, an Australian National University geophysicist, explained: “We found evidence that may indicate a change in the structure of iron, which suggests perhaps two separate cooling events in Earth's history.” She continued: “The details of this big event are still a bit of a mystery, but we've added another piece of the puzzle when it comes to our knowledge of the Earth's inner core.” While their data isn’t conclusive, it does correlate with other similar studies that have looked into the anisotropy of the Earth’s inner core. Stephenson said: “It's very exciting - and might mean we have to re-write the textbooks!” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Sixteen members of a roving paid workforce. A volunteer steering committee of former military chiefs of staff, public-relations

It feels like there have been staggering science stories emerging every other day recently, all of which have blown our tiny little minds. First, there was the discovery of a terrifying black hole pointing right at us, then there was a huge hole found in the sun and a missing continent found after going missing for 375 years. Now, people are only just realising that there’s a massive ocean hidden under the Earth’s crust. It turns out there’s a huge supply of water 400 miles underground stored in rock known as 'ringwoodite'. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists previously discovered that water is stored inside mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which isn’t a liquid, solid or a gas, but instead a fourth state. The scientific paper titled ‘Dehydration melting at the top of the lower mantle’ was published in 2014 and laid out the findings. "The ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water, there is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water," said geophysicist Steve Jacobsen at the time. "This mineral can contain a lot of water under conditions of the deep mantle,” added Jacobsen, who was part of the team behind the discovery. He added: "I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades." Scientists made the findings at the time after studying earthquakes and discovering that seismometers were picking up shockwaves under the surface of the Earth. From that, they were able to establish that the water was being held in the rock known as ringwoodite. If the rock contained just 1 per cent water, it would mean that there is three times more water under the surface of the Earth than there is in the oceans on the surface. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

When Tesla revealed its Cybertruck in 2019, it didn’t go so well. The supposedly bulletproof windows were smashed when hit by a metal ball, much to the embarrassment of chief executive Elon Musk. Now, the electric car company is nearing the point when it starts shipping the product – which it says is new and improved – but people still aren’t particularly impressed. Musk has said deliveries can be expected at the end of this year, with mass production set to begin in 2024. And during the firm’s latest earnings update this week, it gave a fresh sneak peak of the highly anticipated truck driving through a desert. But eagle eyed observers have already noticed a problem: the wiper doesn't cover the whole windscreen. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The Tesla Cybertruck Is Officially HERE! www.youtube.com In the video, the Cybertruck’s enormous glass windscreen has been covered in muddy water, some of which is pushed away by the long, singular wiper. But the passenger’s side is still completely covered in mud. For $40,000 dollars, which is the Cybertruck’s expected cost, it’s probably safe to say you’d be disappointed. Meanwhile, the wiper also rests upright on the side of the windscreen, unlike most cars where it sits horizontally next to the bonnet. Tesla’s design chief Franz von Holzhause also shared a picture of him standing in front of a dust-covered Cybertruck at a construction site in Texas earlier this year, and the top part of the passenger side was again untouched by the wiper. Watch the Tesla Cybertruck's Windows Get Smashed www.youtube.com People took to Twitter to criticise the design. One person said: “Am I the only one who thinks that Tesla Cybertruck Windshield Wiper needs to be better? They can put two wipers, one on each side, just like it is now or at the bottom like a traditional one.” “They can even put a pushing motion on the one they have to get more coverage.” Another person added: “I can only imagine the visibility from inside this tin can is horrible.” Even Musk is aware of the issue. He told Fox News earlier this year: “The wiper is what troubles me most.” And on Twitter, he said there's “no easy solution” to the massive windshield, saying: “Deployable wiper that stows in front trunk would be ideal, but complex.” That said, at least there’s a wiper now. The famous 2019 version didn’t even have one. Keep plugging away, Tesla galaxy brains. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.