A new global study has upended previous assumptions about dogs’ widely varying characteristics The origins of the incredible variety in dog species, from Great Danes to chihuahuas, did not begin, as previously thought, with selective breeding efforts by the Victorians. Ruth Carden, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Technological University (ATU), said researchers had assumed that the many breeds of dogs, with different skull and body sizes and shapes, had developed as a result of breeding in Victorian kennel clubs about 200 years ago.

‘Space weather’ can also affect radio and navigation systems Huge solar storms now exploding on the surface of the sun mean the Northern Lights are visible in Irish skies this week. The light show is predicted to start late this evening, experts say, and again early tomorrow - with more possible later in the day. It all began with the largest solar flare of the year, just before 10am on Tuesday, when a colossal swollen sunspot on the sun’s surface suddenly snapped.

People from countries where multilingualism was common were 2.17 times less likely to experience accelerated ageing Learning to speak one or more new languages can slow biological ageing and protect the brain against age-related cognitive decline. So says new research reported in Nature Ageing, by scientists at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the Basque Center On Cognition, Brain and Language in San Sebastian and the Latin American Brain Health Institute in Santiago, Chile.

Harvard University professor says encounter could be ‘a blind date of interstellar proportions’ An interstellar comet barrelling through the solar system towards Earth at 60km a second could be alien technology, a leading astronomer has suggested. Harvard University astronomer Professor Avi Loeb said the object known as 3I/Atlas had eight “anomalies” that together made a strong case against it simply being a natural comet.

‘Universal thermal performance curve’ means life cannot adapt well to extremes of temperature Life forms are more threatened by with rising global temperatures and less able to cope with them than scientists had thought. That's according to research published today by Trinity College Dublin zoologists, Professor Andrew Jackson and Dr Nicholas Payne, and colleagues overseas in the top journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

Photos posted on Instagram by “citizen scientists” are tracking an invasive plant species that is “highly harmful” to Ireland’s native plants and disruptive for pollinators. By analysing over 1,700 photos from social media and citizen science platforms, scientists at the University of Galway discovered that the colourful carpobrotus plant – often seen brightening up holiday photos – flowers for much longer in regions it has invaded than in its native South Africa.

Irish company Exergyn has developed approach to avoid high costs of heating and cooling systems The ubiquitous heating and cooling technology used today in everything from heat pumps to refrigerators and air conditioners – that make our lives more comfortable, safer and convenient – comes at a price because they fuel global warming. Irish company Exergyn believes it has found an alternative approach.

Researchers in Ireland involved in work on brain ageing and creativity Taking a dance class, playing a musical instrument, or even taking part in a video game can help people stay sharp into old age. That’s according to new research by a team of scientists from around the world, including Ireland, in Nature Communications. Creative activity works best to protect our brains when it is done regularly, said Professor Augustin Ibanez, Global Brain Health Institute at TCD, and one of the co-authors of the study.

Astronomers at Trinity College Dublin have discovered ‘Northern Lights’, similar to those seen on Earth, around a distant planet 20 light years away. A team led by Johanna Vos, Associate Professor of Physics at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), has found an ‘aurora’ around a planet called SIMP-0136, using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The institute has been a unique fixture in Ireland, and now, with space central to its future, the sky is no limit Although it has rarely attracted the attention of the Irish public, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) has been viewed internationally as a centre of excellence in the physical sciences and Celtic studies since it began life 85 years ago.

Bees and butterflies do not have enough natural habitat to survive in Ireland or globally, an international study has found. Pollinators, which are crucial to the health of ecosystems, require between 16 and 37pc natural habitat coverage in farmland areas to survive, according to 59 studies worldwide, as reported in the journal Science. “About 13pc of Ireland is officially protected for nature under EU nature directives, but most of those habitats are not in a good state for nature,” said Jane Stout, Professor of Ecology at Trinity College Dublin, and a co-author of the study.

It took science about 40 to 50 years to reach the stage where weather could be predicted with around 80pc accuracy. But in the past few years alone, AI has helped forecasters to achieve a 90pc rate of confidence for their predictions, up to 10 days in advance. Now a new AI-led weather forecasting service for Ireland has been set up, promising better predictions of the intensity of future storm and flooding events.

A major new study has found that almost 90pc of GAA players who suffer ACL injury have a similar recovery rate to professional sports. The work involved researchers from Dublin City University (DCU) and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) at the UPMC Sports Surgery Clinic, in Santry. They reported the recovery rate after investigating anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery outcomes in 1,891 Gaelic football, hurling and camogie players.

Eirsat-1 was built by UCD staff and students, as part of an educational programme by the European Space Agency The first fully Irish-designed satellite is set to fall out of orbit this week and disintegrate in the atmosphere, marking the culmination of pioneering UCD-led project that has advanced science. Eirsat-1 has nurtured a generation of home-grown space experts who have gone on to work in industry.

‘Climate chaos’ is disrupting Ireland’s plants, which will have a knock-on affect on the animals that rely on them to survive In the hedgerows and woodlands of Ireland, autumn has been marked out by the first flush of blackberries, the fall of conkers and the golden turn of leaves. But, in recent years, and again this autumn, reassuring natural milestones have begun to change and shift, and – in some cases – have been severely disrupted.

Human beings first developed the ability to stand on two legs following two critical evolutionary changes to the ilium in the upper part of the pelvis. This finding is reported today in top journal Nature by an international team including Niamh Nowlan, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, UCD and a Fellow of the Conway Institute on the Belfield campus. The ilium is the big, flared part of the pelvis that anchors the powerful gluteus maximus muscles that humans use to stay upright.

A device developed in Ireland to treat the hearing condition tinnitus, which affects 15pc of all adults, has ‘significantly’ reduced people’s symptoms. “Many people experience short-term, or transient, tinnitus, after loud noise exposure at a concert or work,” said Dr Ross O’Neill – who received his PhD from Maynooth University - the inventor of the Lenire device. A US clinical trial of Lenire, involving 220 patients at the Alaska Hearing & Tinnitus Center, reported in Nature Communications Medicine found that 91pc of patients involved had a “clinically significant” reduction in their tinnitus after 12 weeks of treatment with Lenire.

For years, Timmy Reen tried to hide his compulsions and rituals from everyone at his New York City firehouse — until his secret was forced out in the open.

That’s according to new research published today in the journal Nature by an international team of scientists, including Professor Tomas Ryan, School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin and the Trinity College Institute of Neurosciences (TCIN). Prof Ryan has conducted previous research on how engrams – physical or chemical changes in brain cells – can create memories in the brain.

Hay fever and asthma sufferers are likely to be enduring more severe symptoms at this time of year due to widespread use of nitrogen to fertilise crops in Ireland, according to a new study. Commenting on the report, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, leading pollen researcher Dr David O’Connor said increased nitrogen levels “lead to higher concentrations of allergenic pollen, exacerbating allergic reactions such as hay fever and asthma”.

A study led by Trinity College Dublin (TCD) that aims to establish how sports-related traumatic brain injuries affect brain health in mid-life before dementia shows up has begun. Scientists including Lorina Naci, professor at the Dublin university’s school of psychology and the Global Brain Health Institute at TCD – the joint lead investigator of the study – have known from previous research that a sport-related traumatic brain injury (TBI) increases dementia risk in later life by between 3 and 15 per cent.

Ireland must ramp up its biosecurity and surveillance measures to prevent invasive Asian hornets devastating bee populations across Europe, an expert has warned. Collie Ennis, biodiversity officer at Trinity College Dublin, said the insects were a “major threat to Irish biodiversity”, particularly our native bees and pollinators. “We need enhanced surveillance at ports, public awareness campaigns, stricter biosecurity and a formalised alert network.

An early human species – the Denisovans – who went extinct 25,000 years ago – lived across more of the world than was thought, according to new research by a UCD-based archaeologist. Meaghan Mackie, a third year PhD candidate from Canada who plans to stay in Ireland after conferral, analysed proteins taken from an ancient human skeletal remains found in Taiwan, and confirmed it was a Denisovan.

If you are up in the early hours of tomorrow morning watching Netflix, or heading home from a night out, you might look up and see what’s known as a pink moon. The pink moon is a full moon, but it is not actually pink. The name arose in North America whose native people linked early spring pink wildflowers such as creeping phlox bloom with the appearance of the April moon.

The Brazilian rainforest is thought of as the world’s greatest “carbon sink”, yet our wet Irish peatlands store four times as much carbon per hectare, while also yielding a range of profitable products such as peat moss; trees, berries, biofuels, herbal medicines and even mozzarella cheese. The old Cromwellian taunt “go to hell or to Connaught” no longer applies as farmers in the most boggy parts of Ireland – including the west – stand to gain through adoption of paludiculture, a form of wetland farming where even the stoniest hillside or blanket bog can be harnessed by skilful farming and rewetting techniques to yield valuable products and new income streams.

Chemotherapy is set to become better at treating cancer, while also carrying fewer debilitating side effects, thanks to a new drug delivery method which has been developed by a chemistry professor at Dublin City University (DCU). “Traditional chemotherapy treatments can be imprecise,” said Silvia Giordani, professor of nano materials at DCU’s school of chemical sciences, who led research funded by…

The government has no specific plans to protect infants and young children in Ireland in the event of a national emergency, say authors of a new report. During storm Éowyn in January researchers monitored social media, said Dr Aileen Kennedy, School of Biological Health and Sports Science at the Technological University Dublin (TUD) to better understand how young children might fare in a national emergency.

Spoke to Pat Byrne on Dundalk FM's Town Talk today, 26/03/25, about: The new evidence of how dog walking prevents life-threatening falls in people 60 or over. How wet bogs can earn farmers additional income while reducing Ireland's carbon emissions. How the food supplement - Bovaer - is safe to use to reduce methane emissions from cattle.

Regular dog-walking at least four times a week has been found to reduce the risk of falls in older people – the most common cause of accidental death in over-60s. “We showed that people who walk their dog four times per week had a lower likelihood of unexplained falls,” said Dr Robert Briggs, a consultant geriatrician at St James’s Hospital and co-author of new research published in…

Methane is an immensely challenging problem for the Irish dairy and beef sectors, but science is providing the means – mainly through new feed additives and breeding techniques – to reduce associated emissions. When ruminant animals like cattle and sheep digest food, they produce methane, a greenhouse gas 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. This fact is an existential threat to the dairy and cattle industries, but research breakthroughs suggest they can each pivot to a sustainable future.

Early risers on Friday will be treated to the spectacle of the moon turning blood red as it drops towards the horizon. The celestial display is due to a total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event that last occurred back in November 2022. It will be visible in Irish skies from 5.10am and peak in intensity at about 6.20am. The Earth orbits the sun, and the moon orbits the Earth.

Join us at Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again for a series of readings organised with St. Patrick’s Festival and Writer’s Upstairs.

Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton died in 1865 but his work remains critical for many scientists today, such as space flight engineers, protein biologists and artificial intelligence researchers. This week he is remembered at his alma mater, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), with a conference of leading thinkers and mathematicians, which takes place on Thursday and Friday. “His research was groundbreaking at the time but what is truly astounding is how it is still at the centre of some of the most flourishing work today,” says Prof Samson Shatashvili, chair of natural philosophy (1847) and the director of the Hamilton Mathematics Institute at TCD.

Technology designed in Dublin will assist a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft called Hera as it navigates a close fly-by of Mars on Wednesday. An instrument designed by InnaLabs Ltd in Blanchardstown will provide the mission with key altitude and navigation data as it passes the red planet. “Hera’s orientation during the Mars fly-by will depend on the information provided by the ARIETIS-NS gyroscope navigation system,” said Dr Alberto Torasso, vice-president of space programmes at InnaLabs.

Infants with Cystic Fibrosis lack crucial ‘beneficial bacteria’ in their gut’s bacteria according to new research. Scientists say this opens the door to dietary treatments for CF that provide infants with the missing bacteria. As a child goes from the breastfeeding stage to a solid diet, its microbiota – the population of bacteria that reside in the gut – changes along with it.

Goal is to inspire next generation of astronomers with theme ‘Our place amongst the stars’ Irish astronomy week, which begins this weekend and runs to March 8th, will coincide with the “great planetary alignment” taking place in our skies. “The event is planned to coincide with a magnificent sky feast for the eyes,” said Ronan Newman, the Mayo-based astronomer organising the week.

The US Surgeon General has called loneliness a public health crisis, and an epidemic on a par with smoking and obesity.  Ireland, which has been found to be the loneliest EU nation, is not doing enough to tackle something research has linked with heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and suicidality. It’s thought that loneliness evolved in our species as a way to ensure that we kept close and meaningful connections with each other, something that was essential for the group, as a whole, to survive.

High-traffic tourism can boost biodiversity, according to Trinity College Dublin research conducted at a popular Co Kerry location on the Wild Atlantic Way.