The incessant “eep, eep, eep” of hundreds of hungry flamingo chicks bounces off the concrete walls of a feeding room at the SANCCOB wildlife sanctuary in Cape Town, South Africa. Teri Grendzinski reaches into a pen and plucks out a fluffy, pale pink chick. She grips it gently with one hand. The bird opens its mouth eagerly as her syringe squirts out a kind of warm shrimp milkshake.
It’s noisy, hot work. To keep the chicks warm away from their nests, their rooms are heated to a ...read more
If you could peer through the 160 miles of noxious clouds driven by hurricane-force winds over Venus, you’d witness a barren landscape strewn with volcanoes, mountains and high plateaus. Scientists have long suspected that these features formed hundreds of millions of years ago. And today, the thinking went, Venus is geologically dead. But now a cascade of new research in is forcing astronomers to reconsider that idea.
Explaining Venus’ Young Surface
Venus is often called Earth&rsquo ...read more
Between the third and second millennium B.C, trade networks crisscrossed the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe moving amber, a rare and valuable commodity, across the continent. Now researchers say some of that amber was actually clever fakes. They suspect the counterfeit gems may have been used to swindle wealthy buyers.
“This is the first time that the imitation of a very valuable material is recorded in European Prehistory,” said Carlos Odriozola, an archaeologist at ...read more
Humans have turned many wild animals into cuddlier creatures. We've domesticated wolves into dogs, boars into barnyard pigs and mountain goats into livestock that do yoga. But in addition to helpful animals and adorable pets, humans may have also domesticated an altogether different creature: Homo sapiens.
The so-called self-domestication hypothesis, floated by Charles Darwin and formulated by 21st century scholars, is now popular among anthropologists. They see parallels between changes ...read more
Ah, giant pandas. Aside from their reputation for being, well, not the sharpest crayons in the box, they’re most closely associated with munching almost exclusively on bamboo. But that taste for bamboo has always stumped researchers. First off, other members of the bear family are either carnivorous or at the very least omnivorous. Plus, despite having evolved specific physical traits, like their strong jaws and pseudo-thumbs, to help them eat bamboo, pandas have what’s essentially a ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine