Science
“Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It’s posing questions and coming up with a method. It’s delving in.”
Bond between dogs and humans dates back more than 15,000 years, study finds
Research suggests hunter-gatherers were feeding dogs and giving them ritual burials as early as the last ice age. They are humankind’s best friend, and now ancient DNA analysis has revealed that the enduring bond between dogs and humans dates back more than 15,000 years. The groundbreaking research, published in the journal Nature, pushes back the oldest genetic evidence for domestic dogs by 5,000 years.
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Source. theguardian.com, 25.03.2026
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‘A molten, mushy state’: scientists may have found a new type of liquid planet
Latest observations of L98-59d, about 35 light years from Earth, suggest it could be different to anything seen before. Astronomers have identified a planet composed of molten lava, suggesting the existence of an entirely new category of liquid planet. The distant world, known as L98-59d, is about 1.6 times the size of Earth and orbits a small red star 35 light years away. Astronomers initially thought the planet might harbour a deep ocean of liquid. Click her for more information
Source. theguardian.com, 16.03.2026
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A petri dish of human brain cells is currently playing Doom. Should we be worried?
Scientists in the US have uploaded a fruit fly to a computer simulation, while an Australian lab has taught neurons on a glass chip to play a 90s video game. How long before we are all living in a sci-fi movie? It sounds like the opening of a sci-fi film, but US scientists recently uploaded a copy of the brain of a living fly into a simulation. In San Francisco, biotechnology company Eon Systems created a virtual insect that knew how to walk, fly.
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Source. theguardian.com, 16.03.2026
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Can scientists really resurrect the dodo? Inside the company that says it can
Colossal Biosciences’ CEO says its work follows a ‘moral obligation’ while critics say it’s ‘tech bro’ hype that could undermine conservation. Can and should we resurrect animal species that have been extinct for thousands of years? Such weighty, existential questions were once the preserve of science fiction but are now being played out within an unassuming brick building in a Dallas business park.
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Source. theguardian.com, 15.03.2026
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‘The moon is safe’: asteroid is not on collision course, scientists confirm
ESA’s Planetary Defence team allays fears 100-metre-wide object could hit Earth’s moon and disrupt satellites. Fears that a 100-metre-wide asteroid could be on course to collide with the moon appear to have been misplaced, according to new observations. Discovered in December 2024, asteroid 2024 YR4 was briefly considered the “most dangerous asteroid” in decades after scientists initially estimated it had a 3.1% chance of colliding with Earth.
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Source. theguardian.com, 11.03.2026
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Short films made from brain activity of mice aim to show how they see world
Scientists hope results analysed after the mice watched video footage will help them understand their perceptions. Scientists have reconstructed short movies from the brain activity of mice that watched videos for a project that aspires to lift the veil on how animals perceive the world. The brief movie clips are grainy and pixellated, but provide a glimpse of how mice processed footage that featured people taking part in various sports.
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Source. theguardian.com, 10.03.2026
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T rex breath and Queen Elizabeth’s car: scientists creating ‘time machine for the nose’
Researchers are recreating ancient odours for museumgoers as interest in the archaeology of smell grows. From the interior of Queen Elizabeth II’s car to the scent of ancient Egyptian funerary practices, museumgoers are getting a whiff of the past like never before. Experts say the approach is more than a pungent stunt: it’s part of a broader effort to try to reconstruct the sensory worlds of the past, with collaborations involving historians.
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Source. theguardian.com, 28.02.2026
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Catch a falling star: cosmic dust may reveal how life began, and a Sydney lab is making it from scratch
Recreating cosmic dust may help answer questions about how meteorites hitting Earth came to contain organic matter. How does one acquire star dust? One option, as the Perry Como song suggests, is to catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, so to speak. Thousands of tonnes of cosmic dust bombard the Earth each year, mostly vaporising in the atmosphere. The asteroid and comet fragments that do not burn up – known as meteorites.
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 01.02.2026
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Our Changing World: Insect vibes
In a small room in the Bioeconomy Science Institute in Lincoln, Dr Mark MacDougall refocuses a laser so that the beam is centred on a piece of metal tape on a tomato plant leaf. He's using it to detect miniscule motions. The source of this movement? A tiny glasshouse whitefly on the underside of the leaf, trying to communicate in a type of insect language, one we can't sense or speak - a language of vibrations.
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 03.02.2026
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Nosy researcher’s quest to map the world’s ‘smellscapes’
We can share images and sounds, so why not smells? Dr Kate McLean-MacKenzie hopes her new atlas will make scents. Christmas may be associated with the aromas of oranges and mince pies but our towns and cities also boast special scents during the rest of the year. Now, one researcher is publishing an atlas attempting to capture these quirky “smellscapes”.
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Source. theguardian.com, 25.12.2025
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Uncovering the mysteries behind eel migration and spawning
Uncovering he mystery behind eel breed has proven to be a difficult task, but passionate scientists are far from calling it quits. Senior lecturer at AUT, Dr Amandine Sabadel is a chemist, ecologist, environmental scientist and an eel expert. She told The run home to Christmas that tracking technology has helped scientists find the first clues as to how and where eels spawn but there is still more to go in understand the process and location.
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 24.12.2025
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Organ-tuning books in English churches provide notes on a warming climate
Researchers have realised the records are a ‘goldmine’ to study changes in environmental conditions. Yangang Xing had never heard of organ-tuning books, but his colleague Andrew Knight often played the pipe organ at churches as a teenager. When the pair, who are researchers at Nottingham Trent University, set out to study how environmental conditions in churches had changed over time, Knight explained that all over the country.
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Source. theguardian.com, 22.12.2025
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Some dolphins appear to have orca friends - scientists think they have figured out what’s going on
A pod of Pacific white-sided dolphins off the coast of British Columbia have been observed cooperating with orcas, a traditional enemy that is better known for taking out great white sharks than friendly interaction. Scientists say they have documented the dolphins and a local population of killer whales known as Northern Resident orcas teaming up to hunt the orcas' staple food: salmon.
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 16.12.2025
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Humans made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests
Groundbreaking find makes compelling case that humans were lighting fires much earlier than originally believed. Humans mastered the art of creating fire 400,000 years ago, almost 350,000 years earlier than previously known, according to a groundbreaking discovery in a field in Suffolk. It is known that humans used natural fire more than 1m years ago, but until now the earliest unambiguous example of humans lighting fires came from.
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Source. theguardian.com, 10.12.2025
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Linguists start compiling first ever complete dictionary of ancient Celtic
More than 1,000 words used as far back as 325BC to be collected for insight into past linguistic landscape. It is not likely to be a hefty volume because the vast majority of the material has been lost in the mists of time. But the remnants of a language spoken in parts of the UK and Ireland 2,000 years ago are being collected for what is being billed as the first complete dictionary of ancient Celtic.
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Source. theguardian.com, 09.12.2025
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The safest way to get up close with sharks
From a shark the size of a cigar to the long-extinct 400-kilo 'buzzsaw' to those that glow in the dark, sharks are an incredibly diverse species - and according to the exhibition's curator, 'the most misunderstood animals on the planet'. Some are the size of a cigar, others outweigh an elephant, and all are on display at Auckland Museum's newest exhibition, titled: Sharks.
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 09.12.2025
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Scientists discover four major turning points for human brain
Scientists have discovered the human brain goes through five different phases of life, with key turning points at four different ages. These "major turning points" occur around the ages of 9, 32, 66 and 83, a media release from the University of Cambridge said. The neuroscientists found the brain structure changes over the course of a human life, as the brain rewires to "support different ways of thinking while we grow, mature, and decline".
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 26.11.2025
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Why does New Zealand keep disappearing from world maps?
Has anyone ever asked you whether New Zealand is part of Australia — or where exactly it sits on the world map? From the famous Universal Studios globe in Florida to a 2019 IKEA wall map, New Zealand has been cropping up as a glaring omission. But why does it keep happening, and what does it reveal about the way we read maps?
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Source. rnz.co.nz, 23.11.2025
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