The 2015 discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system, with its seven Earth-sized planets, has redirected much of the exoplanet search toward M-dwarf systems — and justifiably so. Based on Kepler data, researchers estimate M-dwarfs (the most common type of star) host around 10 billion Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way alone. But one question that immediately pops up regarding the search for exoplanets is that of habitability. In addition to other criteria, the presence of an atmosphe ...read more

Many people have pointed out to me that there is a news frenzy about "fissures opening near Yellowstone". Now, considering that if this were happening, that would be newsworthy, I had to check it out ... and with most "news" about Yellowstone, it is much ado about nothing related to the volcano in Wyoming. Climbers in Grand Teton National Park, to the south of Yellowstone, have noticed that the cliff face at Hidden Falls and Inspiration has been breaking off due to cracks ("fissures ...read more

Hunting for exoplanets is a complex and time-consuming process. When an exoplanet candidate is detected, researchers have to observe it passing by its host star three times before they can officially confirm its existence. This isn’t a problem if the orbital period lasts a few days, weeks, or months, but it isn’t exactly effective if the planet takes years to transit its star. Now, a new method published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics aims to ...read more

Since the announcement of its discovery earlier this month, the buried sarcophagus in Alexandria, Egypt, created a lot of speculation about who might be inside. Given the coffin’s large size and composition of granite, which would have had to be mined hundreds of miles away, experts said it was possible the coffin contained a man of importance, perhaps a nobleman of Alexander the Great. There was also a lot of online chatter about the possibility of unleashing a curse by openi ...read more

Tomorrow, on Saturday, July 21, Moth Week will commence! Running until Sunday, July 29, Moth Week is a way for people of all ages all around the world to come together to celebrate the beauty, life cycles, and habitats of moths. These self-described “Moth-ers� are in fact citizen scientists, as one of the key missions of Moth Week is to collect moth observation data. Though many of the events are in the United States, this is truly a worldwide effort. ...read more

If you had to give yourself a C-section to save your unborn baby, could you do it? Having given birth to my own child, I'm not sure I could. But this woman did it. She had no other choice: she lost a previous baby during protracted labor, and she lived in a small village eight hours drive from the nearest hospital. In the abstract and detailed case report below, doctors tell her (harrowing) story. And they tell it for a good reason: "This case, which would not have occurr ...read more

Scientists revealed a new species of armored dinosaur at the Natural History Museum of Utah on Wednesday. The animal, a species of ankylosaur, lived in a wet, tropical environment in what’s now Southern Utah roughly 75 million years ago. The herbivore sported spikes across its head and an intimidating tail club for fending off large predators like the tyrannosaurs that also roamed the landscape. Scientists dubbed it Akainacephalus johnsoni. “Literally tra ...read more

Those fruit flies buzzing around your pantry might be pesky, but to a neuroscientist, they’re a gold mine of information. The insects, tiny though they may be, are surprisingly sophisticated, boasting at least 100,000 neurons in a brain that handles everything from navigating via visual cues to complicated grooming rituals. For years, brain experts have been chiseling away at the daunting task of mapping this tiny insect’s brain, which is about the size of ...read more

You say to-MAY-to, I say to-MAH-to. You say po-TAY-to, I say po-TAH-to. You say Candida krusei, I say Pichia kudriavzevii  — and that should make you a little nervous. OK, so that last bit needs explaining. C. krusei is a drug-resistant yeast species that’s responsible for thousands of potentially fatal infections in the United States every year. P. kudriavzevii is a yeast species that’s been widely used for centuries in the ...read more

The deep reefs that lie out of sight of human eyes aren't similarly shielded from our destructive behaviors. A recent study of mesophotic reefs, those lying between 100 and 500 feet below the surface, finds many of the same issues plaguing reefs at shallower depths. It's overturning previous theories that deep reefs might be protected by virtue of their remote location, and that they could potentially serve as a haven of sorts for imperiled species living in shallower areas. Brand New Da ...read more