The moon's far side, as photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)
The familiar lunar vista humans see when they look up at night reveals a face with dark "seas" and bright craters. The mysterious far side, which wasn’t revealed until humans started sending probes and then people in the 1960s, is far more heavily cratered, with few of the dark plains of the near side.
But what caused the two sides to be so different? That&rsqu ...read more
(Credit: Gudkov Andrey/Shutterstock)
Seeing anyone special? Thinking about having kids? When am I going to have some grandchildren?
Many moms nag their adult children about the prospect of grandchildren. But bonobo moms take their maternal harassment to another level: They actively participate in helping their sons find mates.
Even more surprisingly, the pushy tactic gets results. The sons of overbearing mothers are more likely to father offspring, says a group of researchers.
"Th ...read more
Upcoming missions like NASA’s Mars 2020 might already have the technology to find tiny micro-fossils on the Red Planet. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
When most people imagine hunting for fossils, they probably think of finding dinosaur bones laid down in layers of rock. But the vast majority of life – and therefore fossils – across Earth’s history has been microorganisms. These tiny lifeforms, either plants, animals or fungi, can be smaller than the width of a human hair. ...read more
The potential for AI to propel citizen science efforts forward is incredible; from rapidly analyzing your data or identifying insects, to helping you find and join the best project for your research goals. Here are some ongoing citizen science projects and research efforts that involve AI and citizen science to maximize the efforts of participants and scientists.
Cheers,
The SciStarter Team
Intelligent recommendation for citizen science
Thanks to a new grant from NESTA, ...read more
A platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) pauses for a moment after being released by scientists into the Little Yarra River, its home stream in Victoria, Australia. (Credit: Douglas Gimesy)
With the bill of a duck, the body of an otter, and the tail of a beaver, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) has a long history of confounding the humans who’ve encountered it. Early European settlers took to calling the strange, semi-aquatic mammals they found living in eastern Australian streams ...read more
As of today, new standard defines the kilogram. (Credit: Shutterstock/Piotr Wytrazek)
We measure stuff all the time – how long, how heavy, how hot, and so on – because we need to for things such as trade, health and knowledge. But making sure our measurements compare apples with apples has been a challenge: how to know if my kilogram weight or meter length is the same as yours.
Attempts have been made to define the units of measurement over the years. But today – Interna ...read more
Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia may be insulating its underground ocean. (Credit: NASA/JHU-APL/SwRI)
Pluto has left astronomers puzzled ever since the world was discovered in 1930. And its mysteries only grew in the aftermath of NASA’s New Horizons probe, which cruised by the dwarf planet in 2015. One point of confusion is Sputnik Planitia, part of the now-familiar heart-shaped region on Pluto’s northern hemisphere.
New Horizons' instruments hinted that there might be an underg ...read more
From Doggerland to Beringia, the sea took some of prehistory’s most important archaeological sites. All over the world, scientists are beginning to find them again. ...read more
