I've said this before in this space, but the Earth is weird. Consider this: These plots show the distribution of surface elevations on a bunch of large and small bodies in our solar system. Something should jump out pretty quickly: All have a single peak for elevation except for Earth and Mars. That's weird! Why would any planet have two different peaks for the distribution of elevation? For Earth, the explanation is relatively straight forward: we have two types of crust. Oceanic crust that und ...read more

For millennia, humans have been drawn to explore the cosmos. Since Apollo 11 astronauts first set foot on lunar soil in 1969, more than 72 countries have established their own space programs. And with NASA’s plans to establish a sustained presence on the moon by 2028, including a possible staging point for future missions to Mars, human space exploration is expected to rocket forward in the years to come. But any space-bound travelers may have to contend with a surprisingly mundane (and highl ...read more

We’re all familiar with (hic) the mildly uncomfortable sensation (hic) that is hiccups (hic). Perhaps you swallowed a bit too much air at once, downed your lunch with incredible speed or took a swig of something overly carbonated or alcoholic. Maybe you laughed at a phenomenal joke for way too long — or maybe you simply became over-excited for no reason at all. The fact is, any one of these things (and a great many more) can set off a round of hiccups. And while most attacks occur sparingly ...read more

Sea otters are innovative, adorable and apex predators in their ecosystem — until now. On Pleasant Island, a 20 square mile uninhabited island off of Alaska, the deer population has likely dropped due to wolf predation. With the decrease in available prey, it appears that sea otters are now on the menu for wolves. According to a new study from Oregon State University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, this may be the first time sea otters have become the predominant food source for a ...read more

The Great Salt Lake is yet another evaporating lake making headlines along with Lake Mead and Lake Powell due to low water levels. According to a report from Brigham Young University, unless measures are put in place to restore billions of gallons of water, the lake could be a bowl of toxic dust within the next five years.  Drying lakes can have disastrous effects on the planet and the people and animals who live there. Let’s take a look at why lakes are important and what happens when ...read more

In March of 1888, areas in the Northeast received as much as 55 inches of snow over the span of a couple of days. On Feb. 5, 1978, both Boston and Providence were met with 27 inches of snow, hurricane-force winds and coastal flooding. In Dec. 2022, Buffalo received over 55 inches of snow as a blizzard impacted nearly 60 percent of Americans. For as long as they’ve been recorded, blizzards have impacted the United States. As they’ve continued to make an impact, scientists have learned more ab ...read more

The discovery of 92 nesting sites with a total of 256 fossilized dinosaur eggs is an incredible feat in and of itself. But, the nests and eggs are helping researchers better understand one of the largest dinosaurs that once roamed across India.  According to a recent study from the University of Delhi, India, published in PLOS One, a team of paleontologists uncovered the nesting sites in the Lameta Formation — an area of the Narmada Valley in central India and a hotbed for dinosaur fossils ...read more

Ancient Egyptians went through a lot of linen when they wrapped up their lost loved ones. Winding long strips of the material around their torsos and their appendages — and sometimes around their individual fingers and toes — these wrappings were intended to protect and preserve the dead during their transition to the afterlife. But what was woven within and underneath these layers of linen? According to recent research in Frontiers in Medicine, the “digital unwrapping” of an approximate ...read more

Keibul Lamjao National Park is a natural wonder on many accounts. For starters, the park lies in the largest freshwater lake in northeast India, Loktak Lake, with a surrounding backdrop of low, gentle, green-tinged hills.   It's difficult to get more specific about the park’s location because its component parts don’t stick to one place — instead, they float. For that reason, Keibul Lamjao bills itself as the only floating national park in the world.   But the rich, biodiverse wetland ...read more

This article was originally published on Oct. 9, 2020. The scientific world is in the midst of a decade-long psychedelic renaissance. This revolution is expanding our understanding of one of the most captivating scientific puzzles: human consciousness. Numerous research fields are revealing new insights into how psychedelics affect the brain and which neural processes underly consciousness. Multiple studies testing psychedelic drugs for treating mental illness provide compelling evidence of the ...read more