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What hidden realms lie beneath our feet? In this week's science news, geologists uncovered a series of "sunken worlds" hidden deep within Earth's mantle that they say shouldn't be there. The buried blobs appear to be chunks of our planet's ancient crust, but scientists can't figure out how they got there.
These geological formations on Mars look eerily like kidney beans, but are in fact frozen sand dunes that are locked in place until spring thaw melts them.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)
NASA satellites have spotted what appears to be a field of giant kidney beans on Mars. But despite their uncanny appearance, these legume lookalikes are actually frozen sand dunes.
Bay leaves are a controversial food item, with some saying they impart a distinctive flavor and others arguing they do nothing at all.
(Image credit: Westend61 via Getty Images)
When a recipe calls for bay leaves, how often do you actually use them? The leathery leaf has been a mainstay of Mediterranean cuisine for centuries — but what do bay leaves actually taste like? And do they really add flavor?
A breakthrough inspired by the Schrödinger's Cat thought illustration could. usher in error-proof quantum computing, a new study suggests.
(Image credit: Jean Landry via Alamy Stock Photo)
Quantum computers are inherently noisy, which means they are also prone to making errors. The error rate of these machines has been a major obstacle in their development. But now, by using the famous Schrödinger's cat paradox and atoms of antimony embedded in a silicon quantum chip, scientists have significantly reduced this error rate and detected problems before they occur.
Scientists have identified a new species of dinosaur from a series of lost photographs dating to the 1940s of fossils.
(Image credit: Joshua Knüppe)
A species of giant dinosaur has been identified from lost photos after its original fossils were destroyed during World War II. At 33 feet (10 meters) long, the newly named species, Tameryraptor markgrafi, is one of the largest land animals known to science.
Tameryraptor is thought to have existed in what is now North Africa around 95 million years ago. Its bones were first uncovered in Egypt's Western Desert in 1914 and were held in the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Germany until the building was bombed in 1944.
At the time, paleontologists believed the specimen belonged to a genus of large theropod dinosaurs called Carcharodontosaurus. However, previously unknown photographs — discovered in an archive at the University of Tübingen — suggest that the specimen belonged to a different group altogether.
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best long reads, book excerpts and interviews published this week.
Astronaut Don Pettit captured a stunning photo of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) as it streaked across the sky and fell behind Earth's horizon.
(Image credit: NASA/Don Pettit)
NASA astronaut Don Pettit snapped a stunning shot of comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) as it raced past our planet for the first time in 160,000 years. The comet made its closest approach to Earth on Tuesday (Jan. 14), although it was mostly only visible in the Southern Hemisphere. However, it could also be seen from the International Space Station (ISS).
"It is totally amazing to see a comet from orbit," Pettit wrote in a post on the social platform X.
Pandora is the trending news editor at Live Science. She is also a science presenter and previously worked as Senior Science and Health Reporter at Newsweek. Pandora holds a Biological Sciences degree from the University of Oxford, where she specialised in biochemistry and molecular biology.
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