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Don’t be fooled by their cute beaks and innocent waddle – puffins may be smarter than they first let on. Researchers have captured first-of-a-kind footage of puffins using small twigs to scratch their backs and ruffle their chests, marking the first time a seabird has ever been documented using a tool.  Annette Fayet, a zoologist from the University of Oxford in the UK, first witnessed this behavior in June 2012 while observing Atlantic puffins living on Skomer Island off the coast of Wales, as reported in the journal PNAS.  This impressive…

Faint star V Sagittae is already known as a unique binary system in its own right, but astronomers now believe it will become much more so by the end of the century. The two stars will merge into a nova, one that is possibly as bright as the brightest star in the sky. The prediction comes from careful analysis of data collected since the 1890s. The binary system is what is known as a cataclysmic variable (CV), where an ordinary star orbits a white dwarf. The dwarf is constantly stealing material,…

Atoms are commonly known as the building blocks of the world. Yet the possibility of being able to film atomic bonding seemed almost impossible. At lengths of between 0.1-0.3 nanometers, chemical bonds are about half a million times smaller than the width of a human hair. Until now, the bonding process has been shown in classrooms and labs using ball-and-stick models. However, thanks to a research team from the UK and Germany, students will now be able to see 18 seconds of two rhenium (Re) atoms performing a bonding dance. As…