North America, as seen by the GOES-16 weather satellite on Nov. 10, 2017. The sun had already set on about three quarters of the continent. (Source: CIRA/RAMMB/Colorado State University)
With a month and a half to go until year’s end, it’s looking like 2017 will go down in the books as the warmest on record – that is, among years that received no temperature boost from El Niño.
Overall, 2017 is likely to be either the second or t ...read more
Will La Niña help bring a warmer or colder winter to your neck of the woods? And will it be wetter or drier? Read on.
Cool sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are part of La Niña’s fingerprint. According to the latest advisory from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, La Niña conditions are now in place and stand a 65 percent to 75 percent chance of persisting into April. (Image: earth.nullschool.net)
Before I delve into the substance of this post, ...read more
If you’ve ever worked in an office, you know about the battle of the thermostat. This futile clash costs quite a bit of energy: some 12 percent of the United States’ total energy consumption goes to regulating building temperature with air conditioning.
Now, a new fabric could end that war and save energy at the same time. The textile, described Friday in the journal Science Advances, offers wearers dual heating and cooling, allowing individuals to control their perso ...read more
Tending to a nursing newborn is hard enough, but sea lion moms have an extra challenge. To consume enough calories for themselves and their pups, they have to repeatedly leave their babies behind and swim out to sea to hunt. Each time the mothers return, they have to find their pups again. Australian sea lion moms use a pup’s smell and the sound of its calls to recognize it. They also use sight—which scientists learned by creating fake, stuffed sea ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock)
If you speak to someone who has suffered from insomnia at all as an adult, chances are good that person has either tried using marijuana, or cannabis, for sleep or has thought about it.
This is reflected in the many variations of cannabinoid or cannabis-based medicines available to improve sleep – like Nabilone, Dronabinol and Marinol. It’s also a common reason why many cannabis users seek medical marijuana cards.
I am a sleep psychologist who has treated hun ...read more
Animals also played an important role in Egyptian iconography. Gods were frequently portrayed as animal-human hybrids. For instance, the god of writing, Thoth, was sometimes shown with the body of a man and head of an ibis. The origin of this practice remains as elusive as the rise of those animal cults. But Barbash suspects it may relate to the relative ease of life in the lush Nile Valley, where people had the time to observe animal behavior and associate divine attributes with the traits of b ...read more
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1. With territories stretching from Arctic ice to south of the equator, the eight members of Ursidae include the planet’s largest land predators — and a seriously sketchy family tree.
2. For decades, researchers have struggled to chart the evolution of bears. A genomic analysis published in Scientific Reports in April explained why: Gene flow between different species is common and can result in fertile hybrids.
3. You may have heard about pizzlies and grolars, the offspring of grizz ...read more
A toxic fungus infects crops eaten across the developing world. Scientists are engineering a solution.
More than 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Andean foothills between Argentina and Bolivia, two wild legume species mixed, probably with the help of some pollinating bees. Their offspring was atypical — a freak of nature that couldn’t remix with its wild ancestors and cousins. The freak plant continued to evolve, first on its own, and then by selection as farmers domesticated ...read more
