What's up in
Science
Physics, climate, planetary science, and the research that shapes how we understand the universe and our place in it.
Scientists have now made the most comprehensive tally yet of deep-sea exploration — 43,681 dive records dating back to 1958 — and found that humans have directly seen less than 0.001% of the deep ocean floor, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, leaving the vast seafloor across 66% of Earth’s surface essentially unobserved.
A University of Washington researcher published a finding in 2025 that stops you cold: blue whales sing at frequencies so deep that killer whales, their only natural predator, cannot hear them at all — their calls are invisible to orca ears beyond one kilometre
A whippet can accelerate from a standstill to 56 kilometres per hour in just a few strides — not by running harder than other dogs, but by leaving the ground twice in every single stride
A 2013 study found that bottlenose dolphins could recognise the signature whistles of former companions they had not heard for more than 20 years — one of the longest social memories ever documented in a non-human animal.
For much of the past century, scientists believed dinosaurs were already in decline when the asteroid struck 66 million years ago — but a 2025 study published in Science found fossils in New Mexico showing they were flourishing in diverse, thriving ecosystems right up until the moment of impact
Cooling a data centre on Earth can consume 10 to 30 per cent of its energy budget and millions of litres of water; in orbit, there is no air, no cooling towers, and no river to dump heat into — only vast radiator panels bleeding waste heat away as infrared light into the blackness of space
The debate over how many Earth-like planets exist has a wide range — from one, if the Rare Earth hypothesis is right, to something approaching a hundred quintillion, if Milky Way rates hold across the universe's roughly two trillion galaxies — and both answers are supported by serious researchers
Saturn used to be listed with 83 moons. Then astronomers looked harder, found dozens more, and by 2026 the count had exploded to 285 — so many that Saturn now has nearly three times as many confirmed moons as Jupiter.
If microbial life is ever confirmed on Mars, on Europa, or in the plumes of Enceladus, it will be the most consequential discovery in the history of science — not because aliens exist, but because it would mean life is ordinary, and the universe is full of it
NASA tested a nuclear rocket engine dozens of times in the 1960s, proved it could work, then shelved it before it ever flew — and now the same basic idea is being revived because it could make the trip to Mars far shorter than chemical rockets allow.
