As Antarctica plunges deeper and deeper into winter at this time of year, the frigid continent’s surrounding lid of floating sea ice should be expanding rapidly. But this year, sea ice has been growing at an agonizingly sluggish pace that has been setting records day after day. “In the midst of its winter growth phase, Antarctic sea ice has reached a record smashing-low extent for this time of year,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Sea ice extent is app ...read more

Sauropods that tower above treetops and tyrannosaurs that make the Earth tremble beneath their weighty footsteps are two iconic dinosaur images. These prehistoric giants have fascinated us for centuries, igniting our imagination and curiosity about the world that existed long before we set foot on this planet. Among the myriad of questions that arise when we ponder these magnificent creatures, two stand out. Why were some dinosaurs so big? How did their environment play a role in their size?� ...read more

Physicists have long studied soap bubbles for their extraordinary geometric properties as minimal surfaces, for the way they oscillate and for the beautiful interference patterns that appear on their surfaces.So it would be easy to think that soap bubbles have little more to give in terms of exotic physics and no new applications beyond the bathtub. But that would be wrong. Enter Zala Potŏcnik and Matjaž Humar at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, who have found a way to turn soap bubble ...read more

Causality is kind of important.Causality — the concept that causes always come before effects — forms the bedrock for our physical understanding of the universe. It isn’t just a theory or law of physics. Causality is physics.Therefore, we assume causality to be true every time we construct a new theory or develop a new model. And we always bake it into each of our equations, automatically constructing models where (you guessed it) causes lead into effects.But causality doesn’t just form ...read more

Perhaps no name is more recognizable in connection with The Manhattan Project than Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer, a genius theoretical physicist, was the director of the Los Alamos Lab, where the first atomic bomb was developed. (Credit:Jeffrey M. Frank/Shutterstock) replica nuclear weapon With a high level of intelligence and curiosity that started in childhood, Oppenheimer was a polymath. His breadth of knowledge exceeded the realm of physics and included history, the arts, language and ...read more

If you’ve heard Michael Jackson’s familiar refrain “Annie, are you OK?,” you know one of the first steps of performing CPR: assessing whether the other person is responsive. And that’s not a coincidence. It’s said that this particular lyric was directly inspired by Resusci Anne — the name given to the anatomical manikin found in first aid classes around the world. And she’s far more than just a pretty face.Receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, can double or triple the ...read more

Out of all the hundreds of millions of cats and dogs alive on the earth, only a rare few live well beyond what’s considered their species’ average lifespans. For cats, that’s generally considered to be 12 to 15 years, with a fair number of felines making it to between 17 and 20. For dogs, it’s usually 10 to 13 years, with great variability given a dog’s breed and particular circumstances.But whether it’s a quirk of genetics, a perfect blend of diet and exercise, or the undying love o ...read more

Clusters of cells began grouping together about 800 million years ago. This enabled greater life development, and eventually, these cells became the Earth’s first animals. Scientists always believed sponges were the earliest animals, but recent evidence suggests that the comb jellyfish was actually the first. Many animals from prehistoric times became extinct, but these are five that still exist. 1. Komodo Dragon(Credit:Sydney Faith Woodward/Shutterstock)Dating back about four million year ...read more

The Science Near Me blog is a partnership between Discover magazine and ScienceNearMe.org.In 2017, people across America turned out to watch one of the most stunning celestial events visible from Earth: a solar eclipse. An estimated 215 million Americans — 88% of the adult population, almost twice as many viewers as the Super Bowl  — watched the eclipse either in person or virtually. Now, in just under a year, we’ll be seeing another eclipse cross the continental United States.On April 8, ...read more

Ireland and Britain should be, seismologically speaking, equally boring. The two islands lie thousands of kilometers from the nearest plate boundary and are not volcanic hot spots. But though the ground rarely rumbles in Ireland, neighboring Britain experiences plenty of weak and moderate earthquakes.The lithosphere—Earth’s outermost rocky veneer, which includes the crust and the solid upper mantle—is thicker and cooler beneath Ireland than it is beneath Britain, new research has suggeste ...read more