List of All Articles with Tag 'science'

Try as you might, the moon is famously difficult to photograph. Smartphone images inevitably turn out blurred, or with the light all wrong. With Monday’s full moon set to be a supermoon, then, how can people try to ensure that they actually get a decent shot of it? A supermoon is an occasional coincidence that happens when the moon is at its closest point to the Earth in its orbit. When this happens, the Moon is usually brighter and appears larger in the sky than at other times. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The best time to catch it is just after sunset, when the Moon is just on the rise. The colour of the sky, and sometimes the clouds, should make it easier to get the right exposure, because the difference between the sky and the Moon’s colour is not so extreme. If you have a newer smartphone, you may also have settings which let you alter the focal length, exposure, ISO (the sensitivity of the camera) and shutter speed. “Make sure not to use flash, and switch on HDR (high dynamic range), if your phone has it. HDR, simply put, means that there will be a high contrast between the darkest and lightest parts of an image,” Mark Lord, founder and owner of Mark Lord Photography, told IFLScience. “This typically makes images more striking. Many modern smartphones feature HDR. Using flash, meanwhile, has ruined many a night sky capture.” Meanwhile, think about the focus too. Tempting as it may be to zoom in on the moon and try to get as much of it as you can is usually not going to work. “Even newer smartphones lack the capacity for zoom. Trying to zoom in on an object, particularly one as far away as the moon, may compromise the resolution and quality of an image” Lord added. “Instead, I recommend creating a more interesting shot by taking a landscape-style photo, adding depth and variety by making use of objects and landmarks in the foreground. A full moon captured through tree branches, for example, can make for a very spooky and atmospheric image.” So it’s time to get ready, and get snapping. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Ever wondered how optical illusions actually work? Wonder no more. A new study by University of Exeter visual ecologist Jolyon Troscianko, and neuroscientist Daniel Osorio from the University of Sussex in the UK has weighed in on the debate over whether we perceive things weirdly because of certain errors in the ways our brain processes colour, shade, and shape or because of our eye's function or the brain's neurological wiring. They reckon it is all in the eyes. The pair found ways our visual neurons – cells that process information coming in from the eyes – work, showing how they can affect our perception of patterns on different scales. "Our eyes send messages to the brain by making neurons fire faster or slower," said Troscianko. "However, there's a limit to how quickly they can fire, and previous research hasn't considered how the limit might affect the ways we see colour." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The new model suggests limits in processing and metabolic energy force neurons to compress visual data coming in through our eyes when looking at simple patterns. "Our model shows how neurons with such limited contrast bandwidth can combine their signals to allow us to see these enormous contrasts, but the information is compressed – resulting in visual illusions," said Troscianko. "The model shows how our neurons are precisely evolved to use every bit of capacity." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

It’s a question that’s fascinated mankind for centuries – but could there really be life out there in the universe? Now, more than ever, the search is taking place in earnest and there have been plenty of developments in 2023. So, on World UFO Day these are the 9 biggest UFO stories of the year so far. 'Alien spacecraft' found at the bottom of Pacific Ocean For years people have been looking to the skies for signs of alien life - but maybe, they should have been looking at the bottom of the ocean this whole time. A Harvard physicist has claimed that parts of an alien 'spacecraft' could have been uncovered under the sea. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Professor Avi Loeb set off on a search along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and found 50 iron pieces that originated from the IM1 meteor. IM1 crashed off the coast of Papua New Guinea and Leob believes it could contain key information in the search for life out there in the universe, saying he hasn’t discounted the idea of the pieces being evidence of a “spacecraft” from an “extraterrestrial technological civilization” which crashlanded on Earth.' Alien in New York' video sparks fresh speculation about UFOs in the United States More so-called footage of aliens on Earth has gone viral on social media - this time supposedly showing an extraterrestrial in a backyard in New York. The footage comes just days after a family in Las Vegas reportedly found aliens on their property before it was widely debunked by fact-checkers as nothing more than CGI. There had also been false claims that the family in question had gone 'missing' which was quickly dismissed. Inevitably another video has now gone viral on TikTok, racking up more than 300,000 views at the time of writing. UFO expert claims that the south pole is an 'air traffic control' for aliens Ufologist Dr. Steven Greer recently hosting a conference on the subject of UFOs. A range of people were invited to share their insights as part of an event streamed online and it saw Eric Hecker describe the south pole as an “air traffic control” hub for aliens. The conspiracy theorist made some pretty out-there claims at the conference, but it’s the discussion about the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station that was most significant. He claimed the station actually operated as an “air traffic control” centre for UFOs and communicated with “exotic” crafts by sending neutrino rays up into space. Nasa astronaut claims that aliens have prevented a nuclear war on Earth Could we have aliens to thank for preventing a nuclear war on Earth? That’s what one former Nasa astronaut has claimed. Edgar Mitchell, who was involved in the Apollo 14 mission, gained a reputation for sharing conspiracy theories when he arrived back from the moon in 1971. Mitchell was the sixth man on the moon and was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 14. Before his death in 2016, Mitchell spoke at length claiming that aliens visited Earth. Speaking to the Mirror, he alleged that aliens were responsible for preventing nuclear war between the US and the Soviets at the height of Cold War tensions. Pentagon whistleblower claims that ‘UFOs have killed humans’ A whistleblower who claims that the US government has been operating UFO retrieval research in secret has reportedly said that UFOs have been responsible for the deaths of humans. David Grusch worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and was involved with the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. He claimed that some of the “non-human intelligences” discovered have malevolent intentions and have killed people. The US government has apparently found an 'intact' alien aircraft One former US agent has claimed materials have been recovered that could support the existence of UFOs. David Charles Grusch, an ex-member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office, claimed the US government has a 'non-human origin' in-tact craft that they're keeping from the public. Speaking to NewsNation, Grusch said: "These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it a spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed." UFO spotted on Google Earth near Harry and Meghan's home A flying saucer was allegedly been found near Harry and Meghan’s £11 million mansion. The mysterious circular object was spotted by an eagle-eyed UFO hunter on Google Earth. Alien boffin Tony Moreno’s finding could be embarrassing for NASA. It comes as the space agency prepares to publish findings from its own nine-month probe into unidentified anomalous phenomena this summer. Logan Paul shares the one thing that could 'validate' the most 'compelling' UFO video ever Logan Paul has possession of the “best UFO footage ever”, or so he claims. It comes after documentary filmmaker James Fox spoke on The Joe Rogan Experience about a video rumoured to have been uncovered by UFO specialist Chuck Clark around 30 years ago. Fox claimed that the clip shows two men in the Nevada desert encountering a UFO, and he believes that if Paul released the footage it could be key to changing people’s perceptions about alien sightings. Now, Paul has stated that he does indeed have a copy of the video. He claimed that he tried to purchase the footage from Clark for $100,000. After the offer was turned down, he then used a hidden camera to record the footage after he was invited to a screening. Model captures 'best UFO footage ever' from her private plane A model has shared what some are describing on social media as the 'best UFO footage ever' after spotting something strange during a flight. Valentina Rueda Velez, a Colombian model who goes by the username @Valentinarueda.v on Instagram, shared a clip during a recent journey on a private plane. Valez, who has worked with the likes of Pretty Little Thing during her career, claims to have seen something strange pass by her window while flying on April 4. UFO enthusiasts have seized on the footage, which appears to show an object appearing against the clear blue sky. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The world's youngest self-made billionaire has come out with some advice for people. Austin Russell, 28, who left Stanford University in 2012 to start his own hardware and software business, Luminar Technologies, after being awarded a $100,000 grant from the Peter Thiel Fellowship, said he recommends dropping out of university because it is "not for everyone". In an interview, he said: “If you’re wondering if I would have dropped out [without the grant], yeah. Absolutely. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind,” Austin stated. “It was going to happen anyway.” When asked if he would recommend dropping out of college to other students, the 28 year old entrepreneur stated: "Absolutely." Speaking to CNBC Make It, Austin continued: “College is not for everyone.It’s just sort of the traditional approach around what you do and what you’re supposed to do.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter He added people can learn from the internet, not just university. "All this information is available at our fingertips now online," the Luminar Technologies founder said. "This is not something that was true 50 years ago, [but] it totally is true now." He added: “You can do all these kinds of things that were never possible. You can get through entire curriculums and annual courses in weeks if you watch it back to back. There are so many ways to get knowledge imparted upon oneself." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The online gaming world has a new obsession, with a game called Only Up where you simply have to keep climbing up a series of random objects until you reach space. The game sounds relatively straightforward as anyone who has even the most basic concept of videogames knows how to climb up various structures. However, Only Up does not make the game easy for players as the seemingly infinite amount of objects range from pipes, bridges and trampolines but even the slightest of mistakes can end in disaster sending the players plummeting all the way back to the start of the game. Only Up was developed by SCKR Games and released in May 2023. It is available to play on Steam for the price of £8.50 ($10.80). Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The game has gone viral thanks to high-profile streamers such as Adin Ross, Hasan Piker and iShowSpeed playing the game on their respective streams. iShowSpeed, who has 17 million followers on YouTube, attempts to play the game have proved to be particularly entertaining. At one point he lost 8 hours of progress. Thankfully, while playing the game on Tuesday the 18-year-old was able to complete the game in just under 5 hours. The most impressive run on the game so far has come from streamer Shade managed to find a glitch which allowed him to complete it in just 33 seconds. Whether you want to complete the game properly or use the glitch is your call but have fun regardless. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Scientists have found an explanation for a 'gravity hole' in the Indian Ocean. A gravity hole is an area where gravitational pull is low, causing the seafloor to sink. Deep beneath the ocean, there is one that is three million square kilometers in size and previously it has confused scientists. Now two researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Debanjan Pal and Attreyee Ghosh, think they have solved the mystery. More than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) beneath Earth's crust, they found cold, dense remnants of an ancient ocean plunged into a 'slab graveyard' beneath Africa some 30 million years ago, stirring up hot molten rock. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Pal and Ghosh retraced the formation of the massive geoid by modeling how tectonic plates skimmed over Earth's mantle for the past 140 million years. They ran simulations and compared the shape of the oceanic low those models predicted with observations of the dent itself. The models that reproduced the Indian Ocean geoid low in its current form all had one thing in common: plumes of hot, low-density magma wafting up beneath the low. These plumes, as well as a distinctive mantle structure, are what created the geoid low; if they rise high enough, Pal and Ghosh reckon. "In short, our results suggest that to match the [shape and amplitude of the] observed geoid low, plumes need to be buoyant enough to come up to mid-mantle depths," the pair wrote. The first of these plumes appeared about 20 million years ago, to the south of the Indian Ocean geoid low, and around 10 million years after the old Tethys Sea sank into the lower mantle. As the plumes spread beneath the lithosphere and inched towards the Indian peninsula, the low intensified. But more research needs to be done to work out what is really going on as not all scientists are convinced. Science is crazy. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Sister Sledge was right, we are family. It's well-known that all humans share a common ancestor but according to researchers almost all Europeans can trace that back to one guy. That guy is Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. In 2013, scientists Peter Ralph and Graham Cooper published a study indicating that all Europeans are descendants from the same people, mainly from the ninth century. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Charlemagne, who lived during the 800s allegedly produced eighteen children with seven different women. By number standards, this means that people of European decent are most likely related to Charlemagne in some way. Celebrities like Bill Hader and Brooke Shields have revealed that they share the common ancestor. Even Sir Christopher Lee is a descendant of the Holy Roman Emperor. And if you're European, you probably are too. According to Scientific American, "because Charlemagne lived before the isopoint and has living descendants, everyone with European ancestry is directly descended from him." Some Europeans who take a DNA tests can see even their lineage directly traced back to the common ancestor. But before you jump at the chance to see for yourself, more than likely it won't pop up- even if you are a descendant of the Roman Emperor. This is because bloodlines have been diluted and not all genes are passed on from parent to child. So while you may be vaguely related to Charlemagne, you may not carry any of the same genes. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Ever since ChatGPT went viral last fall, companies have touted many ways artificial intelligence can make our lives

There are eight planets in our solar system – plus poor old Pluto, which was demoted in 2006 – but what if there were more? Turns out that might be the case. Astronomers have calculated there is a 7 per cent chance that Earth has another neighbour hiding in the Oort cloud, a spherical region of ice chunks and rocks that is tens of thousands of times farther from the sun than we are. “It’s completely plausible for our solar system to have captured such an Oort cloud planet,” said Nathan Kaib, a co-author on the work and an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Hidden worlds like this are “a class of planets that should definitely exist but have received relatively little attention” until now, he said.. If a planet is hiding in the Oort cloud, it’s almost certainly an ice giant. Large planets like Jupiter and Saturn are generally born as twins. They have huge gravitational pulls of their own, however, and sometimes destabilise one another. That could have led to a planet to be nudged out of the solar system entirely – or exiled to its outer reaches, where the Oort cloud resides. “The survivor planets have eccentric orbits, which are like the scars from their violent pasts,” said lead author Sean Raymond, researcher at the University of Bordeaux’s Astrophysics Laboratory. That means that the Oort cloud planet could have a significantly elongated orbit, unlike the near-perfect circle Earth tracks around the sun. Trouble is, when things are that far away, they’re pretty difficult to spot. “It would be extremely hard to detect,” added Raymond. “If a Neptune-sized planet existed in our own Oort cloud, there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t have found it yet,” said Malena Rice, an astronomer at MIT not involved in this work. “Amazingly, it can sometimes be easier to spot planets hundreds of light-years away than those right in our own backyard.” Time to crack out the telescope. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

After it was discovered that the OceanGate submersible imploded during its expedition to the Titanic, some have wondered why the Titanic did not reach the same fate when it sank. Last Thursday (June 22), the U.S. Coast Guard had announced that the OceanGate submersible which contained five people, had suffered a "catastrophic implosion" that killed all onboard. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Since learning about the news, some have asked why the sub imploded but the Titanic didn't as it sank. One user took to Twitter to ask the question that was on many minds: Many quickly replied to help explain why the Titanic didn't implode, the answer being that because the Titanic wasn't pressurised, the lack of pressure differential means that the sinking would not result in an implosion. Writing for Northeastern Global News, Arun Bansil, professor of physics, explained that "when a submersible is deep in the ocean it experiences the force on its surface due to water pressure. When this force becomes large than the hull can withstand, the vessel implodes violently." Many also took the opportunity to inform that some parts of the Titanic actually did implode. The stern (the rear) of the ship imploded roughly 60 metres (200 feet) below the surface of the water. Lots of air was trapped in the back of the ship, so when the external pressure got high enough, it imploded. Whereas the air had been released from the front of the ship, which caused the pressure to be equal on the outside and inside, therefore no implosion occurred. As one user explained: Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A low intergalactic grumbling is emanating from deep space, according to scientists. And no, it’s not the start of the end times. Astronomers say they detected the first-of-their-kind low frequency ripples, described as a “cosmic bass note” of gravitational waves, which is thought to be caused by supermassive black holes merging across the universe. The discovery could unveil new secrets about how the monster black holes, which lie at the centre of galaxies, work. The objects are millions – possibly billions – the times the mass of the sun, but little is known about them because no light can escape. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “This is huge news,” said Dr Stephen Taylor, chair of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (Nanograv) consortium, which led the team which made the discovery, and an astrophysicist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. Dr Michael Keith, of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and a member of the team which helped find the signal, added: “The results presented today mark the beginning of a new journey into the universe to unveil some of its unsolved mysteries. “We are incredibly excited that after decades of work by hundreds of astronomers and physicists around the world, we are finally seeing the signature of gravitational waves from the distant universe.” Before the discovery, scientists have only captured short “chirps” of gravitational waves which are linked to the massive objects merging. But the “bass note” comes after they tuned into a deeper range of frequencies. It is thought to be caused by a single complete gravitational wave travelling at the speed of light. Astronomers think it is produced by the entire population of supermassive black hole binaries from over roughly the last 8bn years of the universe. “We think each pair contributes a little wave, which is added to a little wave of another, and all together that is what we may see right now – a sort of murmur of the entire population,” said Prof Alberto Vecchio of the University of Birmingham and a member of the European Pulsar Timing Array. Prof Andrew Pontzen, a cosmologist at University College London, added: “It’s not often that we get a glimpse of the universe through a totally new lens, but after 15 years of patient work, Nanograv seems to be providing just that. It’s tremendously exciting to see initial evidence for these waves, which will eventually teach us an enormous amount about supermassive black holes, hundreds of millions of times the mass of the sun.” The findings were published on 29 June by Astrophysical Journal Letters. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Fans of The X Files have got a new alien-related US government drama to get stuck into, it seems. Senior Republican Marco Rubio claims that those who have reported alien aircraft being retrieved by the US government “have held very high clearances and high positions within our government." The Florida senator and vice chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence did not reveal who had come forward with claims, but said: “Frankly, a lot of them are very fearful.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Fearful of their jobs, fearful of their clearances, fearful of their career.” At the start of June, James Comer, chair of the influential House Oversight Committee, said the group was looking into allegations that a top-secret military program already had a fully intact UFO. Republicans Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a committee member, and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who is not a committee member but has made claims about a government cover-up on the subject in the past, are to lead the probe. The investigation came after David Grusch, a 36-year-old airforce veteran, made public claims about UFOs. Grusch previously worked at the National Reconnaissance Office, on what is now referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). Grusch told NewsNation that the government had retrieved a number of “non-human origin technical vehicles,” some of which contained “dead pilots”. “There are people who have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years,” Rubio said on 26 June. Referring to Grusch, he added: “I would imagine some of them are potentially some of the same people perhaps he’s referring to.” Following the NewsNation interview, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said it had “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” NASA also said that despite one of its priorities being the search for extraterrestrial life, it had not found credible evidence. Rachel Partlow, communications director for Burchett, told Newsweek on 27 June that the congressman was “aware” of Grusch's claims. She declined to comment on whether the veteran would be brought in to provide testimony, with hearing dates not yet set in stone. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.