Two Hadza hunters returning from a hunt. A new study of chronotypes, or sleep and activity patterns, among the Tanzanian hunter-gatherers sheds light on the evolutionary advantages of staggered snoozing. (Credit Wikimedia Commons/Andreas Lederer)
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight… catchy song, even if it misrepresents Panthera leo.
Lions, like many other predators, are opportunistic about when they hunt, and that includes plenty of nocturnal prowling. New research ...read more
During the N-ICE2015 expedition, scientists froze their boat, the Lance, into the Arctic sea ice to gather data from January to June of 2015. (Source: Norwegian Polar Institute)
During each of the past three years, something quite bizarre has happened in the central Arctic.
No, global warming did not cause some Thing to rise up out of the ice and go on a rampage. It was temperatures that rose up. And not just by a little.
This occurred during extreme warming events near the Nort ...read more
A station used for receiving information from the satellite. (Credit: Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
Chinese researchers have successfully transmitted quantum entangled particles from a station on earth to a satellite orbiting far overhead.
The experiment is part of an ongoing effort by researchers using the Micius satellite to achieve long-distance quantum communication, a feat that would yield hacker-proof information networks. In this most recent work, researchers from the University of Science an ...read more
A total solar eclipse over Australia in 2012. (Credit: NASA)
Solar-eclipse fever is about to heat up as millions of Americans celebrate the astronomical spectacle happening Aug. 21. Businesses and universities along its shadowy bandwidth from Lincoln Beach, Ore., to Charleston, S.C., are organizing days-long events.
There will be festivals with live music, art displays and camping. A special event in Illinois features a performance by hard-rock legend Ozzy Osborne. Many more are organizing ecl ...read more
Meanwhile, 2,000 miles to the north, it’s fire and ice — as seen by NASA’s Terra satellite
Twin Southern California California wildfires — the Alamo Fire and the Whittier Fire a little to the south of it — are seen in this animation of imagery acquired by the GOES-16 weather satellite. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA/NOAA)
It’s that time of year. Sixty-five wildfires — 20 of them new — are blazing in the United States across some 1,100 square miles of l ...read more
If you’re familiar with “hackathons” – intense hacking marathons, or “mapathons” – mapping parties commonly held by mappers worldwide, the term “catchathon” might be starting to make some sense by now. If not – read on. There’s a marathon of Alzheimer’s citizen science coming on July 22nd, and you can be part of it!
By Egle Marija Ramanauskaite, Citizen Science Coordinator at EyesOnALZ
Stall Catchers pizza party a ...read more
On Twitter, I learned that the British government is citing neuroscience studies as part of a new welfare initiative.
The “Health and Work Conversation” (HWC) is a newly-introduced procedure for welfare claimants receiving support because sickness or disability impairs their ability to work. The one hour “conversation” is mandatory in most cases and it seems intended to encourage people to seek whatever work they are able to do.
A Freedom of Information Act request has r ...read more
A spurge hawk-moth caterpillar. (Credit: Chekaramit/Shutterstock)
It’s a twist of fate that wouldn’t feel out of place in a horror movie: A platoon of caterpillars, young and hungry, descend on a defenseless tomato plant to feast, but as they begin to eat something goes terribly wrong. The leaves no longer satisfy, and they turn on each other in a cannibalistic frenzy — feeding wildly until just one, sated and content, remains.
You can read it as a Carrie-like ...read more
Image: Flickr/Mark Strobl
Although the best-known mummies are the cloth-wrapped Egyptian variety so often seen in horror movies, many kinds of mummies have been found all over the world. And it’s not only the human bodies that have been preserved during the process of mummification–often human parasites are, too! Scientists can use the presence of parasites on and in mummies to track the history of their association. Here, scientists report finding head and pubic lice on mummi ...read more
This post is part of our Divers’ series. We encourage readers to continue the conversation by adding their own comments, question or concerns on our Facebook page. You’ll find links to other posts at the end of this story.
Two years ago I rang in the New Year by scuba diving with giant manta rays off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. It was a bucket list experience I will never forget and one that introduced me to a new form of citizen science.
That evening, after en ...read more
