Science

Allow me to preface the title: Longshot Space wants to build a 6-mile-long (10-km) space cannon to shoot several-ton objects into low Earth orbit (LEO). The company has already built a working proof of concept.

Biologists in Australia have developed a scanning device to accurately detect how potent a cannabis plant is, well before it's harvested. And no, it's not for selecting the choicest buds to get blasted with.

It's a well-known fact that if you're trying to cool your mouth after eating spicy food, you should drink milk, not water. Bearing that fact in mind, scientists have developed an "artificial tongue" that measures food spiciness using a milk protein.

A new project called TreeSoil is reimagining how architecture can support vulnerable environments. It proposes a small but radical idea: build structures not for people, but to protect saplings struggling to survive in degraded landscapes.

As our evolution slows and industrialization and technology accelerates, research suggests that human biology is struggling to keep pace. A new study investigated whether rapid and extensive environmental shifts have compromised the fitness of Homo sapiens.

Glass-filled polypropylene is already a very commonly used plastic for automotive parts, but could it be improved? Well, yes. A new substance, Gratek, is claimed to make the plastic 20% stronger yet 18% lighter, thanks to the addition of graphene.

A stealthy parasite queen can turn an ant colony against itself. The invading queen has been found to sneak into an ant colony, creep towards the resident ant queen, and spray a chemical that tricks ants into slaughtering their own mother.

In a first, scientists believe they have confirmed we have another sense – a “remote touch” that we share with others in the animal kingdom, like some shorebird species that can sense prey beneath sand without seeing or touching it first.

At the bottom of the ocean, where metal-rich hydrothermal vents exhale poison, a bright yellow worm has mastered an impossible art: turning lethal elements into armor. Meet Paralvinella hessleri, the deep-sea super-worm that turns arsenic into crystal.

A recently published study shows promising results from combining edible turkey tail fungus with a solution of wood fibers. The end product is a natural sustainable waterproof coating that may be a replacement for single-use plastic food wrap.