The fact we can confidently balance on top of a pair of meat-sticks without toppling over is the very symbol of human evolution. Yet just how we came to stand upright in the first place remains a hotly debated topic.Now we have a new piece in the puzzle. Recently discovered fossils left by a relative who lived during the some 11.6 million years ago has provided compelling new evidence that our journey onto open ground could be compared to a toddler learning to walk, rather than a baby rising from a crawl.Thanks to an assortment of well-preserved hominid bones uncovered from a German dig...…The fact we can confidently balance on top of a pair of meat-sticks without toppling over is the very symbol of human evolution. Yet just how we came to stand upright in the first place remains a hotly debated topic.Now we have a new piece in the puzzle. Recently discovered fossils left by a relative who lived during the some 11.6 million years ago has provided compelling new evidence that our journey onto open ground could be compared to a toddler learning to walk, rather than a baby rising from a crawl.Thanks to an assortment of well-preserved hominid bones uncovered from a German dig...WW…

Last year, scientists took a big step towards creating the next generation of computers.For the first time ever, they stored light-based information as sound waves on a computer chip - something the researchers compared to capturing lightning as thunder. While that might sound a little strange, this conversion is critical if we ever want to shift from our current, inefficient electronic computers, to that move data at the speed of light. Light-based or photonic computers have the potential to run at least than your laptop, not to mention the fact that they won't produce heat or...…Last year, scientists took a big step towards creating the next generation of computers.For the first time ever, they stored light-based information as sound waves on a computer chip - something the researchers compared to capturing lightning as thunder. While that might sound a little strange, this conversion is critical if we ever want to shift from our current, inefficient electronic computers, to that move data at the speed of light. Light-based or photonic computers have the potential to run at least than your laptop, not to mention the fact that they won't produce heat or...WW…

Researchers have been able to coax human breast cells to turn into fat cells in a new proof-of-concept study in mice.To achieve this feat, the team exploited a weird pathway that metastasising cancer cells have; their results are just a first step, but it's a truly promising approach.When you cut your finger, or when a foetus grows organs, the  cells begin to look less like themselves, and more 'fluid' – changing into a type of  called a mesenchyme and then reforming into whatever cells the body needs.This process is called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and that cancer...…Researchers have been able to coax human breast cells to turn into fat cells in a new proof-of-concept study in mice.To achieve this feat, the team exploited a weird pathway that metastasising cancer cells have; their results are just a first step, but it's a truly promising approach.When you cut your finger, or when a foetus grows organs, the  cells begin to look less like themselves, and more 'fluid' – changing into a type of  called a mesenchyme and then reforming into whatever cells the body needs.This process is called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and that cancer...WW…

A new discovery could be a clue for us to see if life could emerge elsewhere in the Solar System. Using a new analysis technique, scientists think they have found an extraterrestrial protein, tucked inside a meteorite that fell to Earth 30 years ago.If their results can be replicated, it will be the first protein ever identified that didn't originate here on Earth."This paper characterises the first protein to be discovered in a meteorite," the researchers wrote in a paper . Their work is yet to be peer reviewed, but the implications of this finding are noteworthy.Over the last few years,...…A new discovery could be a clue for us to see if life could emerge elsewhere in the Solar System. Using a new analysis technique, scientists think they have found an extraterrestrial protein, tucked inside a meteorite that fell to Earth 30 years ago.If their results can be replicated, it will be the first protein ever identified that didn't originate here on Earth."This paper characterises the first protein to be discovered in a meteorite," the researchers wrote in a paper . Their work is yet to be peer reviewed, but the implications of this finding are noteworthy.Over the last few years,...WW…

Hollywood has never produced a movie about South Africa's Cape honeybees, and frankly it's a travesty.The pitch writes itself: Aspiring to become a queen, a lowly worker leaves home to invade a rival nest and successfully fills it with her clones. All thanks to the talents of a single, amazing gene that allows her to ditch men.Research by scientists from the University of Sydney means we can even slap 'loosely based on a true story' under the title credits. Unlike the majority of related honey-loving subspecies, any old Cape honeybee sister to produce a perfume that tells the hive she's now...…Hollywood has never produced a movie about South Africa's Cape honeybees, and frankly it's a travesty.The pitch writes itself: Aspiring to become a queen, a lowly worker leaves home to invade a rival nest and successfully fills it with her clones. All thanks to the talents of a single, amazing gene that allows her to ditch men.Research by scientists from the University of Sydney means we can even slap 'loosely based on a true story' under the title credits. Unlike the majority of related honey-loving subspecies, any old Cape honeybee sister to produce a perfume that tells the hive she's now...WW…

Life isn't always easy for astrophysicists: just when they've figured out another aspect of the patterns of movement in our Solar System, along come two of the moons of Neptune to mess everything up.The two moons in question are and , both around 100 kilometres or 62 miles wide, which race around their planet in what NASA researchers are calling a "dance of avoidance".Their strange orbit was first detected by NASA researchers in November 2019.Compared with Thalassa, Naiad's orbit is tilted by about five degrees – it spends half of its time above Thalassa and half of it below, in a linked...…Life isn't always easy for astrophysicists: just when they've figured out another aspect of the patterns of movement in our Solar System, along come two of the moons of Neptune to mess everything up.The two moons in question are and , both around 100 kilometres or 62 miles wide, which race around their planet in what NASA researchers are calling a "dance of avoidance".Their strange orbit was first detected by NASA researchers in November 2019.Compared with Thalassa, Naiad's orbit is tilted by about five degrees – it spends half of its time above Thalassa and half of it below, in a linked...WW…

Another ancient star has been found lurking in the Milky Way. Around 35,000 light-years away, a star named SMSS J160540.18–144323.1 was found to have the lowest iron levels of any star yet analysed in the galaxy.This means that it's one of the oldest stars in the Universe, probably belonging to the second generation of stars after the Universe burst into existence 13.8 billion years ago."This incredibly anaemic star, which likely formed just a few hundred million years after the , has iron levels 1.5 million times lower than that of the Sun," of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky...…Another ancient star has been found lurking in the Milky Way. Around 35,000 light-years away, a star named SMSS J160540.18–144323.1 was found to have the lowest iron levels of any star yet analysed in the galaxy.This means that it's one of the oldest stars in the Universe, probably belonging to the second generation of stars after the Universe burst into existence 13.8 billion years ago."This incredibly anaemic star, which likely formed just a few hundred million years after the , has iron levels 1.5 million times lower than that of the Sun," of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky...WW…

No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time and stop your parents from meeting, for instance, how can you possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?It's a monumental head-scratcher known as the 'grandfather paradox', but now a...…No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time and stop your parents from meeting, for instance, how can you possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?It's a monumental head-scratcher known as the 'grandfather paradox', but now a...WW…

Researchers have finally found credible records of someone being killed by a falling meteorite.On 22 August 1888, according to multiple documents found in the General Directorate of State Archives of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, a falling meteorite hit and killed one man and paralysed another in what is now in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq.This constitutes, according to researchers, the first-ever known proof of death by meteorite strike. And it hints there could be more such records out there, hiding in archives, waiting to be discovered.Earth is not an unassailable fortress....…Researchers have finally found credible records of someone being killed by a falling meteorite.On 22 August 1888, according to multiple documents found in the General Directorate of State Archives of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, a falling meteorite hit and killed one man and paralysed another in what is now in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq.This constitutes, according to researchers, the first-ever known proof of death by meteorite strike. And it hints there could be more such records out there, hiding in archives, waiting to be discovered.Earth is not an unassailable fortress....WW…