Image(s): Left/Wikipedia/Right/Fandom Humanity has never had access to information on the scale available today. With a few taps, we can find scientific discoveries, historical records, news and opinions from almost anywhere in the world. Yet having more information does not necessarily mean becoming wiser about how to use it. Isaac Asimov captured this tension in…
A worker prepares the well on a Boston-area horse farm to lower Eden’s electrode (Image Credit: Bob O’Connor via IEE Spectrum) What if the rocks beneath our feet could one day be turned into a giant hydrogen factory, not by drilling up an existing fuel reserve, but by sending controlled bursts of electricity deep underground?…
PC: Eocene penguin fossils as archives of Antarctic weathering and climate change: insights from micro-X-ray fluorescence elemental mapping Fifty-five million years ago, Antarctica looked nothing like the frozen continent we know today. Its coastlines were warm and humid, its shores home to some of the earliest penguins ever to exist, and its rocks were quietly…
The method, called Extreme Event Aware, or “η-learning”, does not need previous extreme events to create these scenarios. (Representational AP photo) What would a once-in-a-century storm look like if it was stronger than anything recorded before? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a machine-learning method that can generate realistic scenarios for…
A pair of ornamental swans bought for a private pond in Montana in the 1960s eventually became the starting point for a very different kind of wildlife story. By the late 1970s, the flock in Paradise Valley had grown to 120, drawing the attention of Yellowstone National Park officials concerned about possible competition with native…
Huacas de Moche (Image Credit: Canva) Archaeologists working at the Huacas de Moche Archaeological Complex in northern Peru have uncovered the burial of an infant estimated to be about 1,500 years old. The child, approximately 1.5 years old, was buried with a funerary assemblage that included two whistles, a rattle and a sculptural vessel. Researchers…
A red fox introduced to California more than a century ago might seem far removed from the fate of a small marsh bird. Yet the two became linked in the coastal wetlands of Southern California, where the light-footed Ridgway’s rail has struggled to survive. The bird spends much of its time concealed among cordgrass and…
Representative Image (AI-generated) For humans to travel deeper into space and remain there for months or even years, they will need much more than powerful rockets. Astronauts must have a continuous supply of oxygen, water and food, while waste and carbon dioxide must be carefully managed. On short missions, these needs can largely be met…
For years, the dense loops of repetitive DNA clustered near the middle of chromosomes were treated as evolutionary clutter. According to the new study published in Nature, titled ‘Meiotic pairing through barcode-like satellite DNA repeats‘, researchers working with fruit flies have shown that this so-called satellite DNA forms a kind of barcode: a unique combination…
Representative Image of ancient human evolution showing the genetic connections between humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans (AI-generated image) Modern humans already carry small amounts of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, evidence that our ancestors interbred with other human groups tens of thousands of years ago. Both lineages are known from ancient remains, including fossils from which scientists…