(Credit: Africa Studio/Shutterstock)
Public interest in the science of powerful psychoactive drugs is at an-all-time, er, high. Evidence for the therapeutic benefits of marijuana, MDMA, psilocybin and more is growing, based on a resurgence of scientific interest in studying these compounds.
But many of these drugs are strictly banned by the federal government, and those caught with them on the street can face steep fine and felony prison time. So where are researchers getting the drugs fo ...read more
One of the meteorites that fell at Aguas Zarcas struck a doghouse's roof. (Photo courtesy of Michael Farmer)
A rare meteorite fall in Costa Rica has astronomers racing to get their hands on samples.
Meteorites are an astronomer’s dream. In a field that by definition studies objects and phenomena above and beyond Earth’s atmosphere, many researchers never get a chance to touch or see up close the things they study. But then, sometimes, these items simply rain down from the sky, ...read more
The fungus among us is a key player in the ecosystem — and was part of the world hundreds of millions of years before we were. Hold on, make that potentially a billion years before we came along. Fungi microfossils from the Canadian Arctic are 900 million-1 billion years old, pushing back the fossil record for these organisms by at least 450 million years.
This discovery is about more than the very distant evolutionary kin of mushrooms, however. The microfossils include the ...read more
A tiger shark — woodpeckers beware. (Credit: Shane Gross/Shutterstock)
Often called “the garbage cans of the sea,” tiger sharks are voracious eaters. The sharks will eat just about anything — fish, other sharks, seabirds, sea turtles, whale carcasses. The list goes on.
That hodgepodge of prey now also includes a few creatures that don't usually even go in the ocean. Young tiger sharks also feast on sparrows, woodpeckers and other land-based birds, says a group ...read more
The moon's far side, as photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)
The familiar lunar vista humans see when they look up at night reveals a face with dark "seas" and bright craters. The mysterious far side, which wasn’t revealed until humans started sending probes and then people in the 1960s, is far more heavily cratered, with few of the dark plains of the near side.
But what caused the two sides to be so different? That&rsqu ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine