First used for battle in China in about 900 A.D., gunpowder spread throughout Eurasia by the end of the 13th century, eventually revolutionizing warfare as a propellant in firearms and artillery. Meanwhile, master gunners tinkered with gunpowder formulas, trying to find the ideal concoction. Now, researchers have recreated medieval gunpowder recipes and analyzed the energies…

Volcanic eruptions deep in our oceans are capable of extremely powerful releases of energy, at a rate high enough to power the whole of the United States, according to new research. Eruptions from deep-sea volcanoes were long-thought to be relatively uninteresting compared with those on land. While terrestrial volcanoes often produce spectacular eruptions, dispersing volcanic…

In the Van Allen radiation belts, electrons can reach almost the speed of light. Researchers have revealed conditions for such strong accelerations. They had demonstrated in 2020: during solar storm plasma waves play a crucial role. However, it remained unclear why ultra-relativistic electron energies are not achieved in all solar storms. They now show: extreme…

Sidewinders’ bellies are studded with tiny pits and have few, if any, of the tiny spikes found on the bellies of other snakes. The discovery includes a mathematical model linking these distinct structures to function. Scientists took a microscopic look at the skin of sidewinders to see if it plays a role in their unique…

A ‘slow-motion’ earthquake lasting 32 years — the slowest ever recorded — eventually led to the catastrophic 1861 Sumatra earthquake, researchers have found. The NTU research team says their study highlights potential missing factors or mismodelling in global earthquake risk assessments today. ‘Slow motion’ earthquakes or ‘slow slip events’ refer to a type of long,…

Snow monkeys living in one of the world’s coldest regions survive by ‘going fishing’ — scooping live animals, including brown trout, out of Japanese rivers and eating them to stay alive, a new study reveals. The snow monkey (Japanese macaque Macaca fuscata) is native to the main islands of Japan, except Hokkaido. The most northerly…

Being inconspicuous might seem the best strategy for spiders to catch potential prey in their webs, but many orb-web spiders, which hunt in this way, are brightly colored. New research finds their distinct yellow and black pattern is actually essential in luring prey. The webs of Nephila pilipes also capture prey during the night, and…

Huhu grubs have long been prized as a traditional food source and their nutritional value has just been analysed. The study of the mineral and macronutrient composition of huhu grubs (Prionoplus reticularis larvae) was undertaken by Food Science PhD student Ruchita Rao Kavle and the results have recently been published in the International Journal of…

The oldest fossil of a modern bird yet found, dating from the age of dinosaurs, has been identified by an international team of palaeontologists. The spectacular fossil, affectionately nicknamed the ‘Wonderchicken’, includes a nearly complete skull, hidden inside nondescript pieces of rock, and dates from less than one million years before the asteroid impact which…

Analysis of observations made by satellites in 2014 has revealed a long-lasting ‘space hurricane’ — a swirling mass of plasma several hundred kilometers above the North Pole, raining electrons instead of water. Hurricanes in the Earth’s low atmosphere are known, but they had never before been detected in the upper atmosphere. An international team of…