A red panda perches in a tree. (Credit: Frenchwildlifephotograher/shutterstock)
Mammals are going extinct at an alarmingly accelerated rate. Now, researchers say that recovering the lost biodiversity will take millions of years. The discovery suggests shifting conservation tactics to protect evolutionarily distinct species.
Looming Species Loss
Mass extinctions — when Earth loses more than three quarters of its species in a short geological period — have happened five tim ...read more
Can we go to Mars without going crazy? In May 2001, Discover’s cover story asked exactly that, exploring unanswered questions about the psychological perils of humans crammed together and flung through space.
At the time, scientists didn’t have much data to predict how people would handle the six-month journey. Researchers realized interpersonal skills and camaraderie would be critical to success.
We’re still not sure how things would go. But growing interest in the mental risk ...read more
A dubious predatory academic publisher called Open Access Publishing London (OAPL) seems to have died. Their website has gone down, taking some 1,500 scientific papers with it. What can we learn from this?
Long-time readers will remember my series of posts on OAPL back from when I first investigated it in 2013. As far as I can tell, it was a one-man operation. The man turned out to be a Dr. Waseem Jerjes. Jerjes is a dental surgeon with many legitimate research papers to his name, and he was fo ...read more
My favorite stock image of God, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (Credit: Creative Commons)
It’s natural to believe in the supernatural. Consider how many people worldwide belong to a religion: nearly 6 billion, or 84 percent of the global population, and these figures are expected to rise in the coming decades. In the U.S., surveys show 90 percent of adults believe in some higher power, spiritual force or God with a capital G. Even self-proclaimed atheists have supernatural lean ...read more
This month, the five brightest planets in our solar system align and be visible in the night sky. (Credit: Derek Bruff/flickr, CC BY-NC)
For the second time this year, the five brightest planets in our solar system — Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars — will be visible in the night sky at the same time.
The planets will form a line that rises up from the horizon in the western sky and it will be easiest to see after sunset this Thursday, October 18. However, all month t ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
