An ice core from Antarctica showing a thick layer of volcanic ash (grey). Oregon State University
The Earth's ice caps, in Greenland and Antarctica, are an invaluable record of climate over the past hundreds of thousands years. As each annual layer of snow falls, gets buried and eventually becomes glacial ice, it traps with it particles and gases from the time it fell. We use that record to examine how the atmosphere has changed.
This turns out to be one of the most important pieces of e ...read more
The nest of a female bagworm. (Credits: Will478/Shutterstock)
Is that a cluster of miniature Lincoln Logs hanging off a branch? Not quite — what may look like a meticulous assortment of twigs is actually the home of a bagworm moth. These bug architects spend most of their short lives weaving homes out of plant debris.
As larvae, the silky worms find a place to settle down and feed, such as a leaf or the branch of a tree. Then, they crawl around and collect materials like twigs, dirt ...read more
Teas, sodas, sports drinks, more: A broad variety of beverages contain caloric sweeteners, but beverage taxes don’t treat them equally. For example, 100% fruit juice generally gets a pass for nutritional reasons, even though it contains plenty of sugar that’s chemically no different than sugar added artificially. In a similar vein, among public health researchers and policymakers there’s disagreement on whether to tax sweetened milk, because the added sugar may make it more lik ...read more
The tiny rover only weighs a little over two pounds. (Credit: Spacebit)
The United Kingdom is sending a small, four-legged robot to the moon in 2021. The tiny rover, which looks like a cross between a spider and a children’s toy, will be the first moon rover for the U.K. It will also be the first rover with legs to walk on the moon.
Created by the private U.K.-based company, Spacebit, the tiny rover will fly on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket, and be launched from Cape Canaver ...read more
An artist's representation of big data applied to DNA. (Credit: Zita/Shutterstock)
At first, it was just Mendel and some pea plants. In the 150 years that followed, matching pairs of chromosomes were labeled, As, Ts Cs and Gs were coupled off and, ultimately, 3 billion base pairs were sequenced in the correct order. By the end of the decade-long global effort known as the Human Genome Project, the genetic blueprint of life was finally sketched out.
Now, a smattering of
scientists are joi ...read more
