The grassy Eurasian steppes cover thousands of miles, from northwestern China to Hungary, creating what one researcher calls a “highway” for cultural exchange and conquest. (Credit Wikimedia Commons)
A trio of new studies, two in Nature and the third in Science, analyzed genetic material from scores of ancient humans to create a new map of human movement, as well as the spread of language, the hepatitis B virus and horse domestication, across the sprawling Eurasian steppes ...read more
(Credit: Igor ZH/Shutterstock)
On a basic level, it seems that most of the universe can be divided into two kinds of big objects: stars and planets.
A star is a massive ball of burning gas whose main function is fusing hydrogen into helium. They are formed by huge clouds of gas that eventually come together in sufficient quantities to kick off nuclear reactions.
Planets, in turn, come from the material left around the star after its formation. They form from small bits that clump together ...read more
The new report from the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT) is out: “Information to Action: Strengthening EPA Citizen Science Partnerships for Environmental Protection.” This report is a follow-up to the Council’s first report, “Environmental Protection Belongs to the People.”
There are ten recommendations to the EPA in the report(s). As articulated on the EPA’s website: The Council’s April 2018 report, Information ...read more
Ugh, another sunburn! (Credit: Shutterstock)
Does your skin tend to tan after basking in the sun? If not, blame it, in part, on your genes.
A new study, released Tuesday in Nature Communications, found 10 new pigmentation genes that may determine whether skin ends up tanning or just turning bright red from too much sunlight. These findings could also help pinpoint those likely to develop skin cancer, which is often tied to sun exposure.
Skin cancer is the most common type of canc ...read more
A Regal Jumping Spider. (Credit: Jiri Prochazka/Shutterstock)
Spiders may give you the creeps, but they’re pretty cool critters. They create silk that scientists are still learning from, and use them to spin webs that are natural works of symmetric art.
And, uh, some spiders can jump. That might not seem as cool — and certainly doesn’t help on the creepiness front — but as a team of UK scientists has shown, we could learn a lot from the leaps a spider makes, too.
How to ...read more
Verlinde believes that this is an indication that he is on to something.
“That fact kind of hints that it has something to do with the Hubble expansion [of the universe], which at present is due to the presence of dark energy,” he says.
The Hubble constant describes the observed accelerating expansion of the universe. This acceleration is unexplained, but has been attributed to “dark energy,” which Verlinde says can be used to explain away the idea of dark matter.
“ ...read more
Elephants like this African elephant create vibrations with every step they take. Now, researchers are measuring those vibrations to try and determine elephant behavior from a distance. (Credit: Robbie Labanowski)
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an elephant? Smart? Definitely. Social? Yup. Quiet? Maybe not. Now researchers could take advantage of the pachyderms’ sometimes-noisy habits to help keep tabs on them.
A new paper published in the journal C ...read more
(Credit: zizar/Shutterstock)
Should I stay, or should I go? It’s a question we might imagine birds asking themselves every time the seasons change. Many, of course, do decide to leave, packing up for warmer or cooler climes, depending on the time of year.
But many, the majority, in fact, don’t migrate. The old adage might be true after all. If you stay there will be trouble — but if you go, it’ll be double.
Clash of Opinions
What then, is the deciding factor for the bir ...read more
Temperature anomalies at Earth’s surface for April 2018 relative to the April average for the period 1981-2010. (Source: European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Copernicus Climate Change Service. Adapted by ImaGeo)
Some regions of the world shivered last month. But as was the case in March, most of the planet continued to be unusually warm.
You can see the pattern in the map above showing temperature anomalies for April, produced by Europe’s Copernicus Climate Chang ...read more
A new scandal hit the world of psychology last week when it emerged that Robert J. Sternberg, an eminent experimental psychologist and former President of the American Psychological Association (APA), has been engaging in text recycling aka self-plagiarism.
It has emerged that Sternberg re-used large chunks of previously published text in several publications without any acknowledgement that this done. This discovery came after Sternberg was already under scrutiny for a very high rate of self- ...read more
