Ooh, shiny! The newest dinosaur on the paleoscene is more than a little eye-catching: Researchers believe the duck-sized Caihong juji was rocking iridescent feathers on its head, wings and tail. If it was indeed so fancy, it's the earliest example in the fossil record of such shimmering finery.
Formally described today, C. juji was discovered in northeastern China, home to many feathered dinosaur finds (but not any tyrannosaurs!). Its name translates from Mandarin as "rainbow with a big ...read more
Mayon in the Philippines hasn't erupted since 2014, but it appears that it is waking up from its brief slumber. PHIVOLCS raised the alert status at Mayon to Level 3 (of 4) after a weekend of steam-driven (phreatic) eruptions and hundreds of earthquakes. This change in alert level came with a mandatory evacuation of people living within 6 kilometers of the volcano and 7 kilometers from the southern side because of the potential for rock falls and pyroclastic flows. Schools in the area have a ...read more
About 40 percent of Americans have problems falling asleep and they spend billions every year on sleep aids and remedies. Instead of spending hard earned cash, falling asleep could be as simple as writing a to-do list.
Previous research has shown writing about worries can help someone quickly get to sleep, but is there a specific type of writing that's more effective? A group of researchers from Baylor University set out to answer that question.
Using polysomnography (t ...read more
Oh, to be a pitcher plant. Unlike most of the animal kingdom, who run around chasing money, antelopes, Twitter mentions and whatnot, pitcher plants just sit there and let it all come to them. It's like being inside one of those money booth things with dollar bills flying around and just letting them stick to your face.
It's not a lifestyle for everyone, of course, but if these guys can make it work, there's hope for the rest of us. I mean, they live on a freaking mountain for Chrissakes. ...read more
“Aw, you still have your baby fat!” This refrain plagued me throughout my childhood. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake my “baby fat.” I was not a particularly overweight child. I just seemed to maintain the round cheeks and pudgy tummy that most of my friends shed early on. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry,” my mother would say, “it will keep you warm. Just a little added insulation.” She wasn’t even half right.
In the years sinc ...read more
Human moms prefer to hold their babies on their left sides. Although this does make it easier for right-handed parents to feed themselves and do other necessary tasks, scientists think the true explanation is deeper. Now, a study of walruses and bats has shown that mothers and babies in these species also cuddle on the left—even when the baby is the one choosing the side.
Repeated studies have shown a bias among human mothers, as well as chimps and goril ...read more
The Wall that defends the Game of Thrones universe would need to be made of more than pure ice if it had stood for over 8,000 years.
According to the plot of George R. R. Martin's famous book and television series, the massive wall of ice protects humanity from the blue-eyed White Walkers, an ancient race of ice zombies that threaten all living things. But if the wall that shields the realm was made of pure water ice, it would not remain a wall for long; instead, it would quickly become a ...read more
By: Julia Travers
Songbirds may be nature’s pop stars, but the females are still waiting for a turn in the spotlight -- we don’t even know if females sing in about 70 percent of songbird species. This is because the study of birds has a gender gap: most previous research has focused on male song. Participants in the Female Bird Song Project are looking to right this imbalance.
“I think this is a very important project. It involves citizen science in gathering fundamental info ...read more
This week has been a tragic one for parts of Southern California. Heavy rains have triggered landslides and mudflows that have killed over 17 people with dozens more missing. Now, this tragedy is a sequel to an earlier disaster: wildfires that ravaged the coastal mountains near Santa Barbara. However, they are two events that tend to go together because the effects of one prompt the other.
The wildfires that burned forests and homes in 2017 have the net impact of destabilizing rugged terr ...read more
Despite the fact that Mars has an atmosphere just 1 percent as dense as Earth’s, the surface of the Red Planet still has to deal with plenty of weathering and erosion. In 2008, researchers even captured a full-scale avalanche on Mars as it plunged down a 2,300-foot slope into a valley. These types of geological events often expose the structures beneath the martian surface, revealing layers of rock, dry ice and even water ice.
In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, res ...read more
