For decades, warmer waters seeping into the Arctic Ocean have increasingly threatened Arctic sea ice, with scientists predicting the ice pack could disappear entirely in summers from the middle of the next decade. Researchers have now uncovered one of the mechanisms driving this catastrophe, identifying how ‘heat bombs’ of warm, salty water from the Pacific
Month: April 2021
The Wonderwerk Cave site in South Africa is one of very few places on Earth where human activity can be traced back continuously across millennia, and scientists just established the oldest evidence of archaic human habitation in the cave: some 1.8 million years ago. That’s based on an analysis of sedimentary layers containing animal bones,
For thousands of years, horses and donkeys have been some of our species’ most important partners. A new study published Thursday shows they’re also friends to desert animals and plants, by digging deep wells that provide a vital source of water, especially at the height of summer. Biologist Erick Lundgren, lead author of the paper
A teeny tiny fossil found in the Scottish Highlands could be a missing link in the evolutionary history of animals. Dated to around a billion years ago, the microfossil shows evidence of two distinctly different types of cells, and it seems to belong to an ancient organism somewhere between unicellular and multicellular animals. This makes
When considering matters of intelligence among animals, it’s not irrational to assume size matters. Bigger bodies allow for bigger brains, after all, and bigger brains provide the potential real estate for developing better problem-solving skills. Yet neurons don’t work for free, a fact that constrains how nervous systems might evolve in size and complexity in
Seaspiracy, the Netflix documentary premiered in March 2021 which exposes the darker side to the fishing industry, has caused much controversy since its release. One of the more dramatic claims made in the film was that, due to fishing, all of the fish in the sea will have disappeared by 2048. To check this fact,
Perovskite has a lot going for it in our search for a cheap, efficient way to harvest solar energy. With a dusting of organic molecules, these crystalline structures have been able to convert more than a quarter of the light falling onto them into electricity. Theoretically, perovskite crystals made with the right mix of materials
At first, archaeologists thought they were scanning the mummy of an ancient Egyptian priest named Hor-Djehuty. Then, in the body’s abdomen, images revealed what appeared to be the bones of a tiny foot. Full scans confirmed it: the foot belonged to a tiny fetus, still in the womb of its deceased and mummified mother. Not
Mantis shrimp wield a spring-loaded appendage that punches through water with explosive force – and their babies can start swinging just nine days after they hatch. In a new study, published Thursday (April 29) in the Journal of Experimental Biology, scientists studied larval Philippine mantis shrimp (Gonodactylaceus falcatus) originally collected from Oahu, Hawaii. The team also reared some
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter was scheduled to embark on its most daring flight yet on Thursday. But it failed to lift off, so NASA plans to try again on Friday. Ingenuity made history when it flew for the first time on April 19 – a 3 meter (10 foot) hover that marked the first controlled, powered flight
In a map of the gamma-ray sky – the highest energy electromagnetic radiation streaming through our Universe – 14 objects could be hiding a big secret. In a new analysis of the properties of that radiation, a team of astrophysicists have determined that it’s consistent with what we’d expect from stars made of antimatter –
The legacy of abandoned oil wells in the US isn’t hard to see, even leaving gaping holes in the landscape that are frightening to look at. But their invisible aftermath is more alarming still. Across the US and Canada, there are millions of abandoned or inactive oil and gas wells left behind by their former
The discovery of a giant, ghostly circle in extragalactic space is bringing us closer to understanding what these mysterious structures actually are. The so-called odd radio circle, named ORC J0102-2450, joins just a handful of previously discovered space blobs. Given the low sample size, the new discovery adds important statistical data that suggest these objects
Earth’s glaciers are shrinking, and in the past 20 years, the rate of shrinkage has steadily sped up, according to a new study of nearly every glacier on the planet. Glaciers mostly lose mass through ice melt, but they also shrink due to other processes, such as sublimation, where water evaporates directly from the ice, and calving,
American astronaut Michael Collins, who piloted the Apollo 11 command module while his crewmates became the first people to walk on the Moon, died on Wednesday of cancer, his family said. Sometimes called “the loneliest man in history” because of his long solo flight while his colleagues loped across the lunar surface, Collins never earned
Meet Yamatosaurus izanagii, a new genus and species of hadrosaur (or duck-billed dinosaur) discovered on a small island off the southern coast of Japan in 2004, and now identified in a new study. As well as expanding the dinosaur family tree, the fossil find is going to be useful for experts trying to track the
In the area where the Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexican borders now meet, ancestral Pueblo societies thrived and then collapsed several times, over the span of 800 years. Each time they recovered, their culture transformed. This shifting history can be seen in their pottery and the incredible stone and earth dwellings they created. During
The extremely slow, steady pulsations of light from many red giant stars may finally have an explanation. According to a new analysis, these mysterious fluctuations in brightness are not caused by internal processes after all, but by binary companions obscured in clouds of dust siphoned off the dying giants. When stars of intermediate mass below
An extinct ‘horned’ crocodile that once called Madagascar home has finally found its place on the tree of life, according to a new study of two skulls stored at the American Museum of Natural History. Based on ancient DNA extracted from the museum specimens, researchers have posited that the horned crocodile was closely related to
Ambitious climate policies could reduce extreme poverty in developing countries if governments opted for robust taxes on emitters that were then fairly distributed to help the poor, new research showed Tuesday. Authors of the study said the results showed that policymakers were facing a false choice between climate change mitigation and poverty reduction. Since fossil
In a major milestone for quantum physics, thousands of molecules have been induced to share the same quantum state, dancing together in unison like one huge super molecule. This is a goal long-sought by physicists, who hope to harness complex quantum systems for technological applications – but getting a bunch of unruly molecules to work
Why did the sponge cross the seabed? It’s a legitimate question, especially since scientists have only just now discovered that these strange organisms may be significantly more sprightly than anybody ever realized. In a new study, researchers surveyed the deep Arctic seabed with a remotely operated submersible, looking for signs of life in the bottom
Humans around the world are consuming far more natural resources than our planet can continue to sustain, condemning the majority of people to ecological poverty, according to new research. When researchers tried to put a number on our natural resource deficit for the year 2017, they found our global population of over 7.5 billion people
No matter where you are in the world, and no matter how light the skies are, the Moon is always there. Our only natural satellite has inspired literature, art and science for thousands of years. As the days lengthen in the northern hemisphere, it gets harder to spot some of the fainter stars in the
Some call them crazy worms. Pick one up, and you’ll see why, as the creepy-crawly jerks, writhes and springs out of your hand. (It may even leave its tail behind, as a grim souvenir.) And now, scientists are finding the wrigglers have spread to at least 15 states across the US. The worms of the genus Amynthas –
The spectacle of space has our jaws constantly dropping, and the picture that was just released to celebrate 31 years of the Hubble Space Telescope is another incredibly powerful shot that we could gaze at for hours. It shows the giant, ultra-bright star AG Carinae, 20,000 light-years away from Earth, in a phase that makes
In the salt water marshes of southern California, a splashing killifish is easy prey for a hungry shorebird. Like a jerking marionette, the helpless creature shimmies and flashes on the surface of the water. And all the while, hiding deep in its brain, an invisible other quietly pulls the strings. The puppeteer in question is
Deep underground, in mysterious caverns that seem almost measureless to humans, caves have devised their own strange ways of keeping time as the eternities pass by. Over millennia, a ponderous exchange takes place so slowly, it makes the growing of grass look action-packed in comparison. Hanging from cave ceilings, downward-growing stalactites drip water containing chemicals
Scientists already know the oceans are rapidly warming and sea levels are rising. But that’s not all. Now, thanks to satellite observations, we have three decades’ worth of data on how the speeds of ocean surface currents are also changing over time. In research published on 23 April in the journal Nature Climate Change we detail
Humanity’s impacts on our planet’s climate are so profound, we have for decades been unwittingly shifting the very axis upon which Earth spins around, scientists say. In a new study, researchers examined the phenomenon of polar wandering, in which Earth’s magnetic north and south poles drift around the surface of the planet, restlessly roaming from
Fifteen volunteers have emerged from a cave in the southwest of France after spending 40 days without clocks, phones, or sunlight for a human isolation experiment. The group of eight men and seven women lived in the Lombrives cave as part of a $1.4 million project called Deep Time, which set out to explore the limits of human
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter successfully executed its third flight over the surface of Mars on Sunday. The helicopter made spaceflight history last Monday when it lifted off Mars and rose 3.05 meters above the planet’s surface. Never before had a spacecraft conducted a controlled, powered flight on another planet. Then on Thursday, Ingenuity flew even higher –
The way humans manage the environment doesn’t have to be destructive. In the western corner of Canada, ecologists have shown forests once tended by First Nations people are healthier and more resilient – even now, 150 years after these ancient custodians were forcibly displaced by colonial settlers. The study is among the first to compare
The Northern Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa recently experienced their longest drought in 100 years. The seven-year drought, starting with lack of rains in February 2013, wrought havoc on this sheep farming community. When the summer rains finally fell in October 2020 the farmers had to contend with a locust outbreak as
Scientists have identified another major incoming shift in weather patterns caused by the pressures of climate change, predicting more rainfall along the coast of Antarctica, currently the driest continent on the planet. Between now and 2100, the rain in Antarctica is projected to become more frequent and more intense, according to the new research. In
Confirming a new species of octopus usually involves lab tests and dissections. Not so with the Grimpoteuthis imperator dumbo octopus that has just been identified, with non-invasive scanning doing almost all of the work. Discovered in the northern part of the Emperor Seamounts, an underwater mountain ridge in the northwest Pacific Ocean, researchers identified G. imperator through
A new international crew of astronauts, riding SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts – Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur of NASA, Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency – launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Friday morning. Their mission,
In the last two decades, the Anthropocene has become an informal buzzword to describe the numerous and unprecedented ways humans have come to modify the planet. As the concept has become more widely adopted, however, definitions have begun to blur. Today, the very meaning of the Anthropocene and its timeline differs considerably depending on who
SpaceX’s latest rocket launch included a special guest: an adorable penguin toy named “Guin Guin.” At 0949 UTC (5:49 am ET) Friday, a multinational squad of four astronauts left Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship, kicking off a NASA-funded mission called Crew-2. “Now we have a fifth crew member,” one of the astronauts, Akihiko Hoshide
If you’ve ever wondered why rabbits and hares never evolved to be the size of horses, scientists have now got the answer. It might sound like a flippant question, but it gets to an important part of evolutionary science: What is it that causes some animal taxonomies to have such a wide variation in size,
The Pink Moon – the second largest full moon of 2021 – will light up the night sky shortly before midnight on Monday (April 26), according to NASA. Skywatchers will be able to catch the moon at its fullest at 11:32 p.m. EDT on Monday (3:31 a.m. UTC on Tuesday, April 27). The moon will appear full
SpaceX is attempting to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station – using a recycled Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft It’s the first time that a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon will be reused for a crew mission, which makes it a big milestone for affordable space travel. Launch is scheduled for
SpaceX launched its third crew to the International Space Station an hour before sunrise Friday, recycling a rocket and spacecraft for the first time. The Crew-2 mission, the first involving a European, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 09:49 UTC (5:49 am Eastern Time). “Endeavour launches once again – four astronauts
Our language weighs heavily with idioms and clichés about the human gaze. Whether they’re windows to the soul, or we’re staring daggers, eye contact communicates more about our intentions than words ever could alone. Poetry aside, the mechanisms behind our response to the gaze of another human are less than clear. Is it an emotional
If you didn’t know already, we have bad news – the plastic recycling industry is severely under-performing. Only 9 percent of plastic waste ever produced has been recycled. Around 12 percent has been burnt, leaving 79 percent of all plastic ever produced still out there in the world. While we work out how to be less
Two years ago, our star’s next door neighbor – Proxima Centauri – got a little emotional. It happens from time to time, only this time, the small red star really let go. A storm of fury that breaks its previous records, outdoing anything our own Sun could manage by magnitudes. Sure, we were eavesdropping, but
Global warming thresholds that could tip massive ice sheets into irreversible melting or see the Amazon rainforest shrivel into savannah have “grace periods”, giving humanity more time to draw down planet-warming carbon emissions, researchers have calculated. More than a dozen tipping points triggered mainly by rising temperatures could unleash catastrophic changes in Earth’s climate system.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter successfully executed a second, more daring flight over the surface of Mars on Thursday morning. Ingenuity made its aerial debut with a 3 meter (10 foot) hover on Monday – the first controlled, powered flight ever conducted on another planet. The helicopter flew higher and further on Thursday morning, completing its first sideways
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