It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news.
Startling archaeological finds, the Gulf Stream signals possible collapse, our sun's mass migration, the world's smallest QR code, and have we hit peak oil?
This week's science news was bursting with discoveries of archaeological treasures, starting with the revelation that a foundation stone for a Czech garden barn was actually a Bronze Age spearhead mold.
The mold, carved into ancient volcanic rock and dating to roughly 1350 B.C., is a relic of the ancient Urnfield culture, a late Bronze Age culture from Central Europe that's known for burying their cremated dead in urns across the Carpathian Basin and beyond. Making uniform weapons with molds such as these made armed conflict easier to sustain, while also enhancing the political and trading clout of the peoples in the region.
Yet nearly 3,000 years later, Europeans were starting to bring guns to the spearfights. That's according to the startling new discovery of Europe's oldest known portable gunpowder weapon, a handgun found in Brandenburg, Germany that dates to 1390 and could be linked to the famed siege of Kletzke Castle in the same year.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) brings warm weather to Europe and is a conveyer belt of carbon and nutrients across the globe. Yet while fresh water running off from Greenland's melting ice sheet is expected to sap this vital ocean current of its strength, and potentially even push it to collapse, scientists have yet to find a direct signal of this happening.
That may have all changed this week, however, with news from a new modeling study that points to a clear smoking gun for AMOC weakening — the deflection of the Gulf Stream's path farther north along the U.S. seaboard. Troublingly, satellite data shows that this shift may have already begun.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Everything that blocks light casts a shadow, and that includes Earth itself. But where can we spot our planet's umbra? We asked some astronomers, and it turns out that, under the right conditions, you can spot Earth's shadow every day.
Our sun was born 4.6 billion years ago near the busy center of our Milky Way galaxy, but new research suggests that the existence of life on our planet is linked to a 10,000 light-year migration by our star to its current galactic suburbs.
The new study used the Gaia space telescope to analyze the ages, temperatures and composition of our sun and chart more than 6,000 stellar "twins." The results showed that our solar system's move to more sedate surroundings — away from energetic events such as supernovas — could be what gave life a chance to flourish on Earth.
Oil is firmly back in the news this week. Iran's blocking of the Strait of Hormuz — the world's most vital oil transit choke point — in response to the U.S.-Israel war with the Middle Eastern country has sent oil prices rocketing to over $100 a barrel.
If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best features, crosswords and opinion pieces published this week.
It may not look like much, but that's because, at least physically, it isn't.
Measuring just 3.07 × 10⁻⁹ square inches (1.98 square micrometers) and created by etching a grid onto a ceramic film using an ion beam, this is the world's smallest QR code. It is captured here by an electron microscope (the wavelengths of visible light are too thick to resolve it).
And if you're asking what the point is, rest assured that the scientists who created it aren't trying to engineer the most annoying restaurant menu in the world. Instead they think their tiny codes could be an attractive alternative to using easily overwritten magnetic tapes for long-term data storage.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based writer and editor at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
Live Science Plus
