Sports betting apps’ notifications and leaderboards encourage more and more wagers – a psychologist who treats gambling addictions explains why some people get hooked

Joe is a full-time college student who also works some nights as a security guard. He played basketball all through high school and loves to follow the sport. Tonight one of his favorite teams is playing and he’s placed a US$100 bet for them to win. As he sits in his vehicle with one eye […]

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why launching rockets from UK soil can benefit industry and security

Having the capability to launch satellites from UK soil has been a long time coming. The recent attempted launch from Cornwall did not succeed, despite high hopes. Nevertheless, it marks an ambitious new chapter in the UK’s long record of space exploration. As a country, we are good at making satellites, but we have typically […]

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More lunar missions means more space junk around the Moon – two scientists are building a catalog to track the trash

Scientists and government agencies have been worried about the space junk surrounding Earth for decades. But humanity’s starry ambitions are farther reaching than the space just around Earth. Ever since the 1960s with the launch of the Apollo program and the emergence of the space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, people have been […]

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Men often don’t see mess like women do – changing that could make housework more equal

Picture a professional couple, Jack and Jill, who are committed to a relationship in which household responsibilities are shared evenly. Now imagine Jack and Jill differ in how they see their home. When Jill enters the messy kitchen, she sees the dishes as to be washed and the recycling bin as to be taken out. […]

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DNA in the water shows South African scientists where to find a rare pipefish

Keeping track of the world’s wildlife populations is fundamental to conservation efforts in the face of the continued deterioration of global biodiversity. But some species are harder to study than others. Some aquatic species, for instance, elude detection because they are extremely rare and sparsely distributed. One especially elusive example is the estuarine pipefish (Syngnathus […]

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Is the gruesome fun in Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ realistic? What science says about getting eaten by piranhas and poisoned by nightshade

Editor’s note: This article contains minor spoilers for the Netflix series “Wednesday.” The popular Netflix series “Wednesday” chronicles the adventures of the Addams family’s teen daughter. After her parents send her to Nevermore Academy, a school for “outcasts,” Wednesday Addams, played by Jenna Ortega, is pulled into a perplexing murder mystery. The show is infused […]

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Scientists ignored animal clitorises for centuries – now we’re discovering just how varied they are

The sometimes astonishing sex lives of animals are well known, especially the huge range in penis structures, evolved to increase the number of offspring that males father. For example, ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises, and echidnas (also known as spiny anteaters) have a four-headed penis. But what about female genitalia? For hundreds of years, scientists assumed […]

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Putting the bones of giant, extinct ‘thunderbirds’ under the microscope reveals how they grew

The largest flightless bird found anywhere in the world today is the ostrich. It stands about 2.7 metres tall and can weigh up to 150kg. But millions of years ago ostriches would have been dwarfed by several other flightless bird species. One was Dromornis stirtoni, nicknamed the thunderbird. It lived in the late Miocene period […]

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modern technology has given these old-fashioned eyes in the sky a new lease of life

The US military has now shot down four high-altitude objects that had entered American and Canadian airspace, raising questions about their purpose and origin. The first of these objects, a Chinese balloon, was downed by a fighter jet on 4 February. While China says it was for weather monitoring, US officials say it was being […]

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