What's up in
Science
Physics, climate, planetary science, and the research that shapes how we understand the universe and our place in it.
Time really does run faster for your head than for your feet. According to general relativity, clocks higher in Earth’s gravitational field tick slightly faster — and physicists have now measured the effect across distances as small as a millimetre.
The icy surface of Europa is constantly crystallising and reforming in different places at different rates and the James Webb Space Telescope has only just caught it happening
Baboons walk in single file not for safety or strategy but simply to stay close to their friends — and researchers say the pattern it produces serves no purpose at all
In September 2023 a mega-tsunami in Greenland sent tremors around the entire planet for nine days and scientists have only just confirmed how
It is impossible to burp in space, because in microgravity the human stomach cannot separate gas from the liquid and partially digested food it sits inside, and any attempt to burp expels a mixture of all three directly into the astronaut's mouth.
Scientists say the gold in wedding rings, teeth, and family heirlooms was forged in cosmic catastrophes long before our sun existed
The Pacific Ocean is so vast that every continent, every island, and every desert on Earth could fit inside it with room to spare, which is why calling our planet blue is almost an understatement
Scientists say the oxygen you just breathed in was once the deadliest poison on the planet, released by tiny microbes that accidentally wiped out most of the life around them in what geologists call the Great Oxidation Event
There is more freshwater locked inside the rocks of Earth's mantle than in every river, lake, and surface reservoir on the planet combined, hidden in a mineral called ringwoodite hundreds of miles beneath your feet
Nobody talks about why the Himalayas are still getting taller, and it isn't erosion slowing down or new rock forming, it's that India is still ramming into Asia at roughly the speed your fingernails grow
