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Think you could survive this? Photo ©Joanne Fraser/Ocean Artworks LLC Sharks are pretty incredible animals. They’ve lived on this planet for more than 400 million years, and in that time, come to dominate the oceans they inhabit. That kind of survival when so many other lineages have gone extinct requires serious resilience. Now, a lemon shark off Florida has shown off just how tough these animals can be: he survived for at least 435 days with a hole in his body created as ...read more

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We exist in a veritable flood of digital images, with at least 350 million a day uploaded to Facebook alone, and odds are significant number of those images are fake. And, given results from a recent study, most people can’t tell the difference. Can you identify the part of the top photo that’s been altered? Don’t worry, we’ll tell you later. Psychologist Sophie Nightingale and her colleagues at the University of Warwick used photo-editing software to doctor real-world p ...read more

A map showing the Earth’s antipodes — the places where you’d appear on the other side if you dug straight down. Most are in the middle of the ocean. (Credit: imgur) Almost every child, shovel in hand, is struck by a tempting thought. What if I just kept digging and popped out on the other side of the world? The imagination conjures a muddy face emerging in the middle of a Shaolin temple or some such, China being the nominal “other side of the world” to Americans. ...read more

New study suggests African wild dogs may be doomed by climate change. Photo by Mathias Appel Things aren’t looking good for Africa’s iconic wildlife. Already, many species are threatened by human activities and habitat loss. Even species once thought to be resilient, like giraffes, are suddenly struggling. Just earlier this week, scientists reported that aardvarks, one of sub-saharan Africa’s most successful and adorable insect-eaters and essential ecosystem engineers—fa ...read more

The Prop M rover. via NASA Before Curiosity took selfies and Opportunity rolled a marathon, rovers on Mars were more modest. Sojourner, NASA’s first rover, was a microwave-sized robot designed to last just seven days, and more than two decades earlier the Soviet Prop M rovers were tiny little squat boxes that reached the red planet for a ski vacation.  Mars 2 and Mars 3 were twin missions launched to the red planet in 1971,May 19 and May 28 respectively. Both were landers designed su ...read more

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A landfill in Strambino, Italy. (Credit: MikeDotta/Shutterstock) I want to say just one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics. There was indeed a great future in plastics back in 1967 when “The Graduate” came out, and those words ring true even today as plastic production continues to soar. Try imagining toothbrushes, dashboards, pens, video game controllers, the ephemera of our daily lives, made from wood or metal — plastics are indispensable ...read more

The month of June by itself was third warmest in records dating back 138 years, according to NOAA The Mer de Glace, or “Sea of Ice,” is the best known part of the Mount Blanc Glacier in France. It has been receding rapidly for the past 30 years, now at a rate of about 15 feet each year. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Redal) The Earth has been cooling somewhat since the epic El Niño of 2015/2016. But even so, conditions are still plenty warm. The National Oceanic and Atmo ...read more