Earth’s early evolution: fresh insights from rocks formed 3.5 billion years ago: The Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains look peaceful today – but 3.5 billion years ago the earth there was roiled by volcanoes. Instinctively RDH/Shutterstock Our Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Way back in its earliest years, vast oceans dominated. There were frequent volcanic …
Kiswahili: how a standard version of the east African language was formed – and spread across the world: Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images Kiswahili originated in east Africa, spreading around the continent and the globe. It’s been adopted as a working language at the African Union and there’s a push for it to become Africa’s lingua franca …
Manchester City: how Pep Guardiola’s leadership style formed a squad of champions: As the final whistle blew in Nottingham Forest’s 1-0 win over Arsenal on May 20, celebrations erupted approximately 85 miles away in the city of Manchester. Thanks to the points Arsenal lost in their defeat, Manchester City were crowned Premier League champions for …
Saturn: we may finally know when the magnificent rings were formed: A colour-exaggerated view of Saturn backlit by the sun. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Saturn’s rings are one of the jewels of the solar system, but it seems that their time is short and their existence fleeting. A new study suggests the rings are between 400 …
Two years into the pandemic, which of our newly formed habits are here to stay?: The World Health Organization officially declared COVID a pandemic on March 11 2020. Now, two years later, there’s light for some at the end of the tunnel. In many wealthier countries, which have benefited from several rounds of vaccination, the …
Storm Eunice: how forecasters predicted super-strong winds days before it even formed: Storm Eunice is in full flow as I write this and has already broken the record for the fastest ever gust recorded in England. Before the wind even really got going here in Reading, where I work as a natural hazard forecaster, I …
Ukraine crisis is reminding Nato why it was formed in the first place: As Russian troops mobilise near Ukraine’s border and appear poised to invade, so the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) has assumed its traditional role as a bastion of European defence. That mission – the one for which Nato was founded way back …
Curious Kids: how are galaxies formed?: There's a lot we don't know about galaxies. Zakharchuk/Shutterstock How are galaxies formed? – Harsh, aged 14, Kolkata, India To answer the question of how galaxies were formed, we need to travel back in time to close to the birth of the universe, nearly 14 billion years ago. The …
A nice Paternoster image: Image from page 210 of “Ootheca wolleyana : an illustrated catalogue of the collection of birds’ eggs formed by by the late John Wolley, Jun.” (1864) Image by Internet Archive Book Images Identifier: oothecawolleyana01woll Title: Ootheca wolleyana : an illustrated catalogue of the collection of birds’ eggs formed by by the …
Here’s how the ‘brightest’ object in the universe formed: Artist's impression of quasar W2246-0526. NRAO/AUI/NSF; Dana Berry / SkyWorks; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), CC BY-SA Active galaxies are some of the most luminous and impressive objects in the sky. They tend to be massive, distant and emit extraordinary amounts of energy as material falls into the supermassive …
What could explain the mystery of how land formed on Mars without much water: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, Author provided The surface of Mars, with its dune flows, gullies and slope movements, is the result of sediment being transported downwards in the recent past as well as today. But this “mass wasting”, typically caused by flows …