Paleontologists in Thailand recently unveiled the discovery of a new dinosaur, Minimocursor phunoiensis, or “smallest runner” in Latin. The small, bipedal plant-eater likely ran in herds and occupied a lower rung on its local food chain. It would have dodged much larger predators, including the metriacanthosauridae theropods, predecessors to Tyrannosaurus Rex.The skeleton is one of the best-preserved ever recovered from Southeast Asia, where it was found in the Kalasin province in northeaste ...read more

A 46,000-year-old gopher hole in Siberia served as a time capsule for some very old plant material and a small nematode roundworm, which was later revived, according to a new study.Researchers from the Soil Cryology Lab in Russia extracted the contents of the hole from Duvanny Yar outcrop in Siberia, a sheer wall of prehistoric sediments. Ancient rodents had dug the burrow, about 10 inches wide, during the Last Ice Age, and cold temperatures had since frozen it into permafrost that never thaws.T ...read more

In a famous scene from “Jurassic Park,” ranger Robert Muldoon aims his sights at a velociraptor, only to be ambushed by another female velociraptor — a “clever girl,” as he says.Partly because of iconic films like this, pack hunting among theropods (two-legged, meat-eating dinosaurs, including velociraptor and many others) is well ingrained in the public imagination. But researchers are at loggerheads over whether these extinct hunters were ever actually smart enough to work together t ...read more

The heart is a complex organ with a simple purpose – pump blood in and pump it out again. It does this through an interconnected network of rectangular heart cells called cardiomyocytes that pump blood into the top of the heart (through the atria) and out through the ventricles at the bottom. Pacemaker cells on the heart keep it ticking away at 60 to 100 beats per minute, depending on the person’s basal heart rate.Because of the heart’s complexity, attempts to 3D print a model version to u ...read more

Deep inside stars, fusion reactions combine hydrogen atoms to form helium and release a burst of energy. That energy produces heat, and the heat rises toward the outside of the star, triggering waves along the way that can roll for hundreds of thousands of years.Scientists have blamed these waves for an odd flickering seen in the light of very massive, very hot stars. They have good reason: By compressing or decompressing plasma on the surface of the star, these convection waves should briefly i ...read more

Here’s the thing about solar panel waste: We’re about to have a whole heap of it on planet Earth.That’s because solar technology effectively went mainstream around the turn of the millennia, with units that have an estimated lifespan of 25 to 30 years. Now that we're well into the 2020s, millions of modules that were commissioned in those early days are entering retirement. But where will they go?The simplest answer: lots of different places, including many landfills, based on the immediat ...read more

Our research team recently published a study highlighting how partnerships between SciStarter and facilitator organizations like the Girl Scouts of the USA provide a supportive context for extending learning and action associated with participation in citizen science. One of the most inspiring findings of this study was that the vast majority of girls participating in the program (81%) took local action on topics related to science and the environment. Although citizen science has occasionall ...read more

A new study seeks to trace the origins of many of the attendants who lived at the famous archaeological site Machu Picchu during its heyday. Using DNA, the results open a window into the remarkable construction, which was built without mortar or even wheels during the 15th century.Hundreds of workers built Machu Picchu by pushing heavy stones uphill or carving them directly out of the mountainside’s bedrock. For walls, they used a method called “idquo ashlar” in which stones were fitted to ...read more

In a world where the gigantic often steal the spotlight, you may want to also consider exploring the smallest animals in the world.Among the microcosm of compact critters are the world's tiniest vertebrates – animals that, despite their diminutive size, harbor all the complex components necessary for life with a backbone. While insects, arthropods, mollusks and other invertebrates also boast members of vanishingly small stature, the spectrum of vertebrate sizes is truly astounding – from a p ...read more