Mike McRae

Canberra

Journalist at Freelance

Deputy Editor at ScienceAlert

Articles

Worms Use Their Bodies to Build Towers as a Wild Survival Strategy

1 day ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

Under the clinical sterility of glassware, life can do some rather curious things. Whether such behaviors are exclusive to laboratory environments or represent a common survival strategy is often a topic for heated debate. One bizarre activity glimpsed in past lab experiments has now been recorded under natural conditions, proving once and for all that some worm species will construct towers from their own squirming bodies to catch a ride out of town when the going gets tough.
2-Year-Old Prodigy Joins 'High IQ' Club Mensa as Youngest Member Ever

4 days ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

At an age most children struggle to make it through the alphabet, two-year-old British toddler Joseph Harris-Birtill can already read full books. He's now moving on to Morse code and the Greek alphabet, as well as showing an interest in the periodic table of elements. Recognizing their son's exceptional abilities, parents Rose and David reached out to the British branch of Mensa for advice on nurturing Joseph's potential.
The Universe's Most Powerful Cosmic Rays May Finally Be Explained

6 days ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

Somewhere in our galaxy are engines capable of driving atomic fragments to velocities that come within a whisker of lightspeed. The explosive deaths of stars seems like a natural place to search for sources of these highly energetic cosmic bullets, yet when it comes to the most powerful particles, researchers have had their doubts.
Are Dogs Replacing Babies in Countries With Declining Birth Rates?

1 week ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

Forgoing the stress and expense of a child for a furbaby or two is rapidly becoming a social norm in Western society, with dog ownership rising even while birth rates plateau and fall. Across the US, Canada, Australia, and much of Europe, between a third and half of all households own at least one dog. As this number slowly creeps up, most nations are experiencing a steady drop in fertility predicted to put population sizes at risk in coming decades.
Unknown Species of Bacteria Discovered in China's Space Station

2 weeks ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

Swabs from China's Tiangong space station reveal traces of a bacterium unseen on Earth, with characteristics that may help it function under stressful environmental conditions hundreds of kilometers above the planet's surface.
Unknown Species of Bacteria Discovered in China's Space Station

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Mike McRae

Swabs from China's Tiangong space station reveal traces of a bacterium unseen on Earth, with characteristics that may help it function under stressful environmental conditions hundreds of kilometers above the planet's surface.
New Theory Suggests Dark Matter Is Frozen Relics of Light-Speed Particles

3 weeks ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

In an ongoing quest to guess the secret behind the Universe's excess in gravity, two researchers from Dartmouth College in the US have proposed a chilling union between massless particles soon after the Big Bang. For the better part of a century it's been frustratingly clear that estimates of the Universe's visible mass have failed to account for the way galaxies rotate, pointing to slow-moving clumps of matter we can't see. This stuff has been dubbed ' dark matter'.
We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die, Says Surprising New Study

3 weeks ago | sciencealert.com | Mike McRae

Life truly is radiant, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada. An extraordinary experiment on mice and leaves from two different plant species has uncovered direct physical evidence of an eerie 'biophoton' phenomenon ceasing on death, suggesting all living things – including humans – could literally glow with health, until we don't. The findings might seem a little fringe at first glance.
We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die, Says Surprising New Study

3 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Mike McRae

Life truly is radiant, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada. An extraordinary experiment on mice and leaves from two different plant species has uncovered direct physical evidence of an eerie 'biophoton' phenomenon ceasing on death, suggesting all living things – including humans – could literally glow with health, until we don't. The findings might seem a little fringe at first glance.
We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die, Says Surprising New Study

3 weeks ago | flipboard.com | Mike McRae

15 hours agoIt sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it actually comes from a lab in Maryland. In 2018, Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, devised a way to turn ordinary wood into a material stronger than steel. It seemed like yet another headline-grabbing discovery that …