Chinese Academy of Sciences

‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar interloper detected passing through our solar system, raised many questions. According to a new model, the object’s unusual shape and trajectory may be the result of a devastating close encounter with a star.

If you're wondering what the weather was like thousand of years ago, well … there aren't going to be weather reports from back then. What there are, however, are fossilized giant clam shells, and a new study suggests they could provide the answers.

Palaeontologists claim to have discovered evidence of cartilage cells, proteins, chromosomes and even DNA preserved inside 75-million year old dinosaur fossils, suggesting these molecules can survive for far longer than we thought.

They charge much faster than lithium batteries, they can put out massive power, and they last thousands of cycles with minimal deterioration. This energy density breakthrough could bring supercapacitors into the EV and consumer tech worlds.

It can sometimes be challenging for ophthalmologists, making definitive on-the-spot diagnoses of eye problems. A new "smart" contact lens is designed to help, however, by changing color in response to two common disorders.

Glass-clad skyscrapers need to be inspected on a regular basis, in order to ensure that the glass panes are securely attached and undamaged. Doing so might soon become much quicker and safer, with a little help from a special drone.

​Although jellyfish may not be the fastest animals in the ocean, they do swim in an energy-efficient manner – a manner that underwater robots might do well to copy. With that in mind, Chinese scientists have created a robotic jellyfish, that may someday autonomously explore the briny depths.

Amber can be a veritable treasure trove of ancient animals and insects, but it most commonly captures creatures that lived in forests – understandable, given the stuff starts life as tree sap. But now researchers have found a piece of amber bearing a strange mix of land and sea-dwelling creatures.

Like the Wright Brothers, evolution didn’t get flight exactly right the first time. It takes experimentation to find the best design, and now palaeontologists have found one of nature’s quirky side projects – a strange dinosaur that was covered in feathers but had leathery bat-like wings.

Engineers have developed a new type of hybrid cathode for a lithium-sulfur battery that seems to boast better energy density than existing versions of both lithium-ion and lithium-sulfur batteries.

Conventional wisdom has long held that the Milky Way was a flat disk of stars and gas, with a bulge in the middle. But now astronomers have created a more accurate 3D map of the galaxy and found that it’s more warped and twisted than previously thought.

​Rocketsondes, which are a type of sounding rocket, are used to make high-altitude weather observations. Given that they require launch sites, they're not used much over the ocean. That could change, though, as Chinese scientists have now launched one from an autonomous semi-submersible vehicle.