Trace fossils indicating the first signs life on Earth or just deformed rock? Researchers previously interpreted several anomalies (yellow arrows) found in 3.7 billion-year-old rock as the oldest evidence of life, but a new study, which focused on one portion of the sample (blue box), questions the previous findings. (Credit Allwood et al 2018)
Fossil or faux pas? A 2016 study that interpreted rock anomalies as the oldest evidence of life on our planet got it wrong, say researchers be ...read more
(Credit: MPH Photos/Shutterstock)
The first farmers of Europe didn’t leave anything to chance. When they migrated west from the Near East, beginning about 10,000 years ago, they brought everything they needed: crop seeds, domesticated animals, pottery and agriculture tools.
And, oh yes, man’s best friend.
In a study published Tuesday in Biology Letters, a journal published by the Royal Society, a team of international researchers says that dogs accompanied Near Eastern farmers ...read more
The new shape of Kīlauea’s summit area, where the caldera floor collapsed over the course of the summer. USGS/HVO.
A few weeks back I wrote about how much the lower East Rift Zone of Hawaii’s Kīlauea had been changed by this summer’s eruption. Over half a cubic kilometer of lava came pouring out of the multitude of fissures that opening in Leilani Estates and the neighboring area and 850 acres were added to the Big Island from all those lava flows entering the ocean. ...read more
Last March, it snowed. And snowed and snowed. It was so heavy that roofs around my town were caving in, trapping pets and trucks and leaving people homeless. My own roof had several feet piled on. One night, flakes perpetually pelting down, I couldn’t sleep. I listened for the creaks of soon-to-collapse timbers. I imagined the porch overhang ripping away from the kitchen. I stared into the dark.
Did I eventually haul myself out of bed to shovel the roof? No. My fear of falling from such a ...read more
1. Chances are, you can thank a laser for helping you get through the day. The technology lets us do everything from scan groceries at the checkout to remove regretted tattoos.
2. The word laser, coined in 1957, is an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” Since that -er ending makes a laser seem like a doer of ... something, it soon spawned the verb “to lase.”
3. Unlike the sun or a flashlight, which shines in a broad range of colors combi ...read more
The hot gaseous exoplanet, also referred to as a “hot Jupiter,” HD 80606b. After finding a hot Jupiter around a surprisingly young star, scientists have now found three other massive planets in the system. (Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech)
A Surprising Young Star
Researchers have discovered a strange, young “toddler” star with four massive planets in orbit around it. This is the first time that so many massive planets have been found in such a young stellar system.The sta ...read more
Amanita muscaria. (Credit: FotoLot/Shutterstock)
Psilocybin mushrooms, the “magic” fungi famous for giving users hallucinations and spiritual insight, may not actually be supernatural, but they come pretty close. A growing body of research suggests they might help treat a range of mental disorders, and there’s little evidence that they’re addictive.
But the world of magic mushrooms extends far beyond psilocybin. Though they may not have intended it, these fungal chemica ...read more
Ganymede is one of Jupiter’s four Galilean satellites. It is the largest moon in the solar system, with a magnetic field capable of generating aurorae and a subsurface ocean of liquid water. (NASA/JPL)
Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, is an icy world that astronomers believe hides a liquid ocean beneath its surface. That fractured surface, which jumbles old and new features together, has long hinted at a complex history astronomers have sought to understand. Now, a new study to be ...read more
(Credit: D. Pimborough/Shutterstock)
(Inside Science) — The crackle of wet rice puffs is more than a snappy advertising strategy: Pouring milk into a bowl of cereal might help shed light on the collapse of ice shelves and dams of compacted earth, a new study finds.
Brittle, porous materials are prone to suddenly crumbling when they encounter high pressure or are soaked in liquids, an effect linked with the collapse of rockfill dams and the formation of sinkholes. However, ...read more
