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Gold is an element, which means you can't make it through ordinary chemical reactions — though alchemists tried for centuries. To make the sparkly metal, you have to bind 79 protons and 118 neutrons together to form a single atomic nucleus. That's an intense nuclear fusion reaction. But such intense fusion doesn't happen frequently enough, at least not nearby, to make the giant trove of gold we find on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. And a new study has found the most commonly-theorized origin of gold — collisions between neutron stars — can't explain gold's abundance either. So...

When humanity finally detected the collision between two neutron stars in 2017, we confirmed a long-held theory - in the energetic fires of these incredible explosions, elements heavier than iron are forged. And so, we thought we had an answer to the question of how these elements - including gold - propagated throughout the Universe. But a new analysis has revealed a problem. According to new galactic chemical evolution models, neutron star collisions don't even come close to producing the abundances of heavy elements found in the Milky Way galaxy today. "Neutron star mergers did not produce enough heavy elements...

Ivermectin, an antiparasitic used to treat river blindness, is being prescribed off-label to treat COVID-19 in some parts of the world, but regulatory agencies are recommending that randomized controlled trials be conducted before widespread use is adopted.On April 3, researchers from Monash University in Australia showed that ivermectin could inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures, spurring a wave of enthusiasm to repurpose the drug as an antiviral at a time when few alternatives were available. Although the concentration of ivermectin used in vitro was far greater than physiological levels in human clinical use, the positive findings were quickly circulated and have...

Unearthed in 1912, squirreled away for a lifetime and then handed in to a museum — the story behind the discovery of an ancient Egyptian coin in far north Queensland is almost as mysterious as how it came to be there.The bronze coin — about the same size as a 50 cent piece — was minted during the reign of Ptolemy IV, between 221 and 204BC.More than two millennia later it was found about seven centimetres underground in the depths of the far north Queensland rainforest.The man who found it, Andrew Henderson, had abandoned the gold mining fields of...

Using the oldest fossil micrometeorites -- space dust -- ever found, Monash University-led research has made a surprising discovery about the chemistry of Earth's atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago. The findings of a new study published today in the journal Nature -- led by Dr Andrew Tomkins and a team from the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash, along with scientists from the Australian Synchrotron and Imperial College, London -- challenge the accepted view that Earth's ancient atmosphere was oxygen-poor. The findings indicate instead that the ancient Earth's upper atmosphere contained about the same amount of oxygen as...

According to two research scientists the mystery of vanished ships and airplanes in the region dubbed "The Bermuda Triangle" has been solved. Step aside outer space aliens, time anomalies, submerged giant Atlantean pyramids and bizarre meteorological phenomena ... the "Triangle" simply suffers from an acute case of gas. Natural gas—the kind that heats ovens and boils water—specifically methane, is the culprit behind the mysterious disappearances and loss of water and air craft. The evidence for this astounding new insight into a mystery that's bedeviled the world is laid out in a research paper published in the American Journal of Physics....

SO it wasn't a political stunt. It isn't about Iraq. And the threat of Islamist terror right here is more real than many pretend. How real? If the police are right, they have saved scores of you from being blown up -- as people in Madrid and London were blown up. As NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney put it, the arrest yesterday of 17 Muslim men disrupted "the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack". He said explosive material had already been collected. Yet only last week, Prime Minister John Howard was pilloried by many for having warned of an...