Elevation changes also indicate where Mars may have once had a vast northern ocean. (Credit: Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter Science Team/NASA)
Three and a half billion years ago, an asteroid slammed into Mars. The cataclysm wasn’t terribly unusual for this period in the solar system’s history, but the fallout would leave its mark. The asteroid carved out an enormous crater. It also sent a wall of water a thousand feet high hurtling around the young Red Planet, which was much more bl ...read more
(Credit: T. L. Furrer/Shutterstock)
What if I told you that countless tiny beings living inside your body right now were responsible for everything from the health of your gut to your mental health? It sounds crazy. But, that’s exactly what research into the microbiome is showing us.
Tens of trillions of bacteria inhabit our bodies — scientists call them the human microbiome. The past decade or so has seen an explosion of studies linking gut bacteria with all sorts of diseases ...read more
Sandpiper eggs in a nest. (Credit: Drakuliren/Shutterstock)
The speckled brown eggs of seabirds may look like lifeless lumps of shell, but inside, developing chicks are already paying attention to their parents. Researchers studying yellow-legged gull chicks have discovered that the animals can respond to their parents’ alarm calls while in the egg and even pass on the information to younger nestmates by rattling their shells.
The discovery shows that “even before hatching, em ...read more
As the Suomi NPP satellite watched overhead on July 21, 2019, a swirling low-pressure system over Siberia pulled wildfire smoke into its giant vortex . (Source: NASA Earth Observatory)
Heat records were obliterated across Western Europe yesterday, with Paris reaching an unfathomable all-time high of nearly 109 degrees.
It's the second heat wave in the region in as many months — and this one has been even more brutal than June's. As I wrote earlier this week, research shows that huma ...read more
The eruption of the Icelandic volcano Hekla may have led to the collapse of multiple thriving Bronze Age societies. (Credit: Abraham Ortelius/Wikimedia Commons)
Life, as they say, goes on. Until one day
it doesn’t. For ancient societies, without the means to predict natural
disasters, destruction could often come suddenly and completely by surprise.
Below are four of the most devastating natural events in recorded human
history, and the societies that they wiped off the map.
The Stor ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine