Science

The venom of black widow spiders can cause an array of symptoms in humans. (Image credit: Kimberly Hosey/Getty Images) Most encounters with black widow spiders happen by accident, a hand in a shed, a brush against a web. In one rare and extreme case documented by clinicians, a woman deliberately introduced black widow venom directly…

Dreams of space travel often start with rockets and starry views, not dental chairs. Yet for astronauts, small and ordinary parts of the body can become serious concerns once Earth is far behind. Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station, recently spoke about one such detail that rarely makes headlines….

On record 2025 as one of the most amazing years in contemporary astronomy, providing findings that would turn our collective understanding of our planet and our place within our galaxy on its head. Ranging from finding a rare interstellar comet passing through our solar system to hints that point towards signs of past life on…

January tends to pass quietly for most people, but above Earth, it rarely does. The International Space Station keeps moving, orbit after orbit, while small changes continue to shape its future. Early in the year, two planned spacewalks will take place outside the station, part routine work, part long-term preparation. Before any astronaut steps outside,…

Carl Sagan once said, “Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still.” These words perfectly encapsulate humanity’s eternal urge to push boundaries, a spirit that continued in 2025 and was even exemplified in spectacular fashion across space. As we flip through the starry pages of the year, 2025 stands…

The plateau does not look special at first. Dry ground. Pale rock. Wind moving through long grass. It is the kind of place people pass without slowing down. Yet beneath this quiet surface, something old has been waiting. In central Bolivia, inside Torotoro National Park, stone slabs carry the marks of movement from a vanished…

The rolled-up piece of lead contains inscriptions that are barely visible to the naked eye. (Image credit: Archeology in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (AIM-V)) The discovery came from a place no one expected to yield anything remarkable. During routine excavation work for an extension to Rostock’s town hall, archaeologists lifted an unassuming, tightly rolled strip of lead…

Breakthroughs in scientific research are not always made in experienced laboratories and research teams. Occasionally, they are made by new eyes that are eager to challenge how data is analysed. This is exactly what happened when Matteo Paz, a teenager from the United States, used AI to re-analyse data from NASA’s now-retired research project. Given…

Some questions arrive quietly. When is the next full Moon 2026 is one of them. It usually turns up while scanning a calendar or noticing the moon hanging a little brighter than usual. The full moon does not announce itself loudly. It simply shows up, round and pale, pulling attention for a few nights before…

Meteor showers promise a diverse and exciting year for sky gazing in 2026, ranging from brief and bright outbursts at rapid rates to prolonged and faint displays spread throughout the year. These phenomena are produced when Earth intersects with trails of debris trailed by comets and asteroids, which then result in the fragmentation and ignited…