New Zealand's kiwi birds, a national symbol, are endangered. And scientists say the rest of the island's bird populations have also been hard hit by humans. (Credit: Lakeview Images/Shutterstock)
When the Maori arrived to New Zealand from Tahiti some 700 years ago, they found a “land of birds.” The gargantuan, ostrich-like moa stood as tall as 10 feet and the kakapo – a giant flightless parrot with the face of an owl –then roamed the island country in abundance. Today, ...read more
The brain is buzzing with gamma oscillations - cycles of neuronal activity with a frequency (around 40-60 Hz) higher than that of other major brain waves.
A longstanding hypothesis is that gamma serves as a kind of 'clock signal' that enables the coordination and integration of signals. Gamma has even been proposed as the mechanism by which the brain 'binds' information from different brain areas into a unitary consciousness.
However, while the gamma-clock hypothesis is intriguing, direct ...read more
To understand what life-signs astronomers read from a planet, they must first understand the planet’s star. (Credit: NASA/GSFC/C. Meaney/B. Monroe/S. Wiessinger)
When astronomers look for signs of life outside of the solar system, they’re mostly looking for what researchers call biosignatures. These are tell-tale indicators that something is living on another world.
So, while the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) draws headlines for hunting alien communications l ...read more
(Credit: Immersion Images/Shutterstock)
From the time we see Bambi’s mom bite the dust, we all know what death
is. At least, we think we do. But the simple definition of death—that the body
stops working—doesn’t take into account how weird our bodies actually are.
“We really know nothing about what happens when you die,” says Peter Noble, a former professor at the University of Alabama. Noble knows firsthand that surprises await scientists studying the e ...read more
Comparison of satellite images of the western edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet about 250 miles across, one acquired in 2018 on July 30, and the other on July 31 of this year. Vastly expanded areas of blue in this year's image are indicative of water at the surface. The gray area, known as the "ablation zone," is where ice is exposed and experiencing melting. (Images: NASA Worldview. Animation: Tom Yulsman)
As forecast, the dome of heat that brutalized Western Europe has moved over Greenland, ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine