Blood At A Crime Scene Can Reveal Age of Suspect or Victim

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Investigators working a crime scene have a potential new tool: a field technique that could quickly determine the age of the person who left behind a bloodstain, whether victim or suspect. (Credit: FBI) There’s a significant gap between the information that real-world forensics teams can glean from a crime scene and what turns up in glamorized tv shows such as “CSI.� Today, however, that gap gets a little smaller: Researchers reveal it& ...read more

Organs Grown to Order

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Chimera: A genetically modified mouse embryo successfully grew a beating heart from rat stem cells. (Credit: Salk Institute) More than 100,000 people in the United States need an organ transplant, but demand always outpaces supply. An average of 20 people in the nation died every day in 2016 because organs were unavailable, and that was despite record annual donations of more than 33,000. Physicians have proposed many solutions to encourage organ donations, including payment. But scientists a ...read more

Kīlauea Builds a Cinder Cone and a New Eruption Starts in the Galapagos

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The cinder/spatter cone being built by Fissure 8, here reaching 50 meters at its rim on June 16, 2018. USGS/HVO. The eruption on KÄ«lauea’s lower East Rift Zone continues onward, with Fissure 8 building an impressive cinder cone similar to the one that was formed during the 1960 eruption that the current lavas have wrapped around (see map below). The cinder cone, built by the fountaining of lava from fissure 8, is now over 50 meters (170 feet) tall wi ...read more

Dazzling satellite video reveals lightning dancing inside a mega-complex of thunderstorms

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

An animation of GOES-16 weather satellite imagery showing a complex of thunderstorms over Iowa on June 14, 2018, with an overlay of lightning mapping. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA GOES-16 Loop of the Day) As a giant complex of thunderstorms blew across Iowa and into Illinois and Missouri on June 14, the GOES-16 weather satellite was watching — and mapping the crackling lightning discharges. The result is the video above, originally posted to the terrific GOES-16 Loop of the Day ...read more

Dating Do-Over For Anzick-1, Famous First Americans Burial

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A white post to the left of the cliff base marks the location where the grave of Anzick-1 was found half a century ago. (Credit: PNAS) He is arguably the most famous ancient American baby: an infant First American whose partial remains were found 50 years ago on a Montana ranch. But while Anzick-1, as the child is known, changed our understanding of the human history of the Americas, critics have complained the dates around the burial are messy, and throw the significance of the site into quest ...read more