Bone Cancer In 240 Million-Year-Old Proto-Turtle Pappochelys

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

While many people think of cancer as a modern plague, researchers continue to find examples of tumors in animals much older than our own species. Discovery of bone cancer in a very early member of the turtle lineage, which lived 240 million years ago, reveals new information about the disease and just how long it's been a scourge to living things. The aggressive osteosarcoma was found in the femur of Pappochelys rosinae, a roughly 240 million-year-old reptile. Though you might m ...read more

Researchers Think They’ve Identified the Brain Pattern that Signals Consciousness

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Imagine lying in a hospital bed, conscious, but unable to convey that to the world around you. For sufferers of strokes, traumatic brain injuries or the ever-terrifying locked-in syndrome, it’s not just nightmare fuel — it's reality for some patients. What’s potentially more frightening is that neuroscience hasn’t landed on a way to truly test for consciousness. That's not for a lack of trying. But a new paper published in Science Advances could help pave the way for ...read more

NASA Honors Fallen Astronauts with Day of Remembrance

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Every year, NASA recognizes astronauts who lost their lives in the pursuit of spaceflight with an official Day of Remembrance. This year, it's celebrated Feb. 7. And NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Another wreath-laying ceremony will also happen at Kennedy Space Center’s Space Mirror Memorial. Both ceremonies will also include observances for NASA’s lost explorers. The three great disasters ...read more

The First CubeSats Ever to Visit Mars Have Gone Silent

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

When NASA's InSight mission reached Mars last year, it wasn’t alone. It was accompanied by two tiny satellites called CubeSats, or in this case, MarCO, for Mars Cube One. They were the first CubeSats ever to visit the Red Planet. The pair, nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, after Pixar’s fictional robots, relayed information from InSight’s descent. But their real mission was simply to show off their abilities so far from home and prove that such small missions – the total MarCO pr ...read more