What's up in
Science
Physics, climate, planetary science, and the research that shapes how we understand the universe and our place in it.
On Neptune and Uranus, the crushing pressure thousands of miles down is thought to tear methane apart and squeeze the loose carbon into showers of solid diamond, and in 2017 physicists recreated the exact reaction in a laboratory
The Strait of Malacca and Singapore Strait grow so shallow in places that fully laden supertankers carrying a quarter of the world's seaborne oil are required to keep at least three and a half metres of water beneath their keels — about the height of a one-storey room — and squat and swell can quietly shave even that
The FDA has added a new active ingredient to over-the-counter sunscreens for the first time in 20 years, and the reason bemotrizinol matters is not just regulation — it absorbs both UVA and UVB rays, offering U.S. formulas a tool many countries have had for years
Seahorses, giant clams and even the occasional dugong have been recorded in the murky shallows of the Singapore Strait, where conservationists track marine life surviving beside shipping lanes that see roughly 1,000 vessels pass through every single day
The narwhal's spiraled tusk is actually an inside-out canine tooth packed with roughly 10 million nerve endings, and field studies in Nunavut have filmed the animals using it to stun Arctic cod with sharp downward strikes before swallowing them whole
The Singapore Strait funnels roughly a third of the world's traded goods through a channel narrowing to about 3 kilometres wide near Phillip Channel, making it one of the busiest and most pirate-prone waterways on Earth, where ships sometimes queue for days awaiting passage
Sperm whales produce the loudest sound made by any animal, clicks measured at 230 decibels underwater, intense enough that researchers believe a close-range burst could theoretically stun or kill smaller prey and disorient divers within a few meters
The largest genetic study of anxiety symptom severity to date has found the condition is not only heritable but shows significant genetic overlap with heart disease, gut disorders, and migraine, in findings researchers describe as an important step forward in understanding anxiety's biological roots
There is a mountain range in Antarctica that no one has ever seen directly: the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, an Alpine-scale range buried beneath kilometres of East Antarctic ice. Unexpectedly detected by a Soviet seismic expedition in 1958, the range puzzled scientists for decades because its sharp peaks and deep valleys look geologically young, even though they sit in one of the oldest and most stable parts of the continent.
The Asian giant hornet, first confirmed in Washington State in 2019, delivers a sting so concentrated that around 50 people die annually in Japan from the venom, and a single nest can dismember 30,000 honeybees in a few hours, decapitating them to feed their thoraxes to hornet larvae.
