After Rosie’s mother died, she accompanied the lifeless body throughout the night, in apparent mourning. When Noel lost her adopted son, she picked his teeth clean with a grass stem. And Jire carried her infant’s corpse for 68 days after the one-year-old succumbed to a respiratory infection.
Rosie, Noel and Jire are chimpanzees, whose responses to death were documented by researchers. Their behavior makes one wonder: Do chimps and other animals understand death, or are humans the on ...read more
(Inside Science) — Nearly 30 years ago, the state of Washington and two federal agencies agreed to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a 586-square-mile chunk of sagebrush desert where the U.S. produced plutonium for nuclear weapons starting 75 years ago. In the process, half a trillion gallons of chemically toxic and radioactive waste was dumped on the ground or injected into groundwater. Some of it has reached the Columbia River. Another 56 million gallons of concentrated ...read more
People really like killer whales — from the popularity of whale watching and movies like “Free Willy,” to the recent viral tale of a killer whale carrying its dead calf for over two weeks off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia.
That makes the possible population collapse of these iconic creatures even more distressing.
A paper in the Sept. 28 issue of Science says killer whales are at great risk, but not from climate change, loss of habitat or loss of their prey. It wi ...read more
For the first time, astronomers have witnessed a fast-moving jet of material shooting outward from a neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field — one that is some 10 trillion times stronger than the Sun's. The surprising discovery not only caught researchers off guard, but is also forcing them to fundamentally rethink their current theories regarding how jets form throughout the cosmos.
Intense Magnetism
Astronomers have long been fascinated with neutron stars, which are t ...read more
A M7.5 earthquake struck on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi today and it appears to have generated a significant tsunami that struck, at the very least, the city of Palu. The city is only about 78 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake. This uncorroborated video on Twitter shows the wave arriving:
Its so close to my city. After earthquakes then we attack by tsunami again. Please pray for us :( #PrayForDonggala#Gempapic.twitter.com/9Q7fWBuOer
— ★ ghy ★ (@ksjnoona) Se ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine