Here’s how surface temperatures around the globe in May varied from the long-term average for the month. Last month was the fourth warmest May globally on record. (Source: NASA/GISS)
In their monthly climate reports released today, both NASA and NOAA agree that last month was fourth warmest among all Mays dating back to 1800.
This means that the period 2014 through 2018 has brought the five warmest Mays in 138 years of record-keeping, according to NOAA&ac ...read more
I’ll have another post later today with some of the geology news of the weekend, including the eruptions in Kīlauea and Fernandina, along with the earthquake in Japan. However, first I’ll give everyone a chance to vote for Groups C and D in the Geology World Cup. If you haven’t voted in Group A or Group B, do it!
Group C
Part of the Great Barrier Reef, seen from space. NASA.
Australia: The only country that is also a whole con ...read more
The Cizhutuo fossil, a 22,000-year-old giant panda skull. (Credit: Yingqi Zhang and Yong Xu)
When Qiaomei Fu got her hands on a 22,000-year-old panda skull in 2014, she was both surprised and elated.
An expert in paleogenomics, Fu had done most of her past work on the DNA of ancient humans, but she has a personal interest in pandas. Now, in 2018, she and her team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences are the first to have sequenced the entire mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome of an ancient giant p ...read more
Danny Perez CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
From June 18 to June 24 we celebrate the pollinators that make most of our food possible. This week, take a moment to make and share your observations with scientists. Our editors selected five projects in need of your help. More about pollinators from Penn State’s website:
“Pollinators include bees, butterflies, beetles, flies, some birds and some bats. They move pollen from male structures (anthers) of flowers to t ...read more
A traditional Amazonian psychedelic brew is an effective and rapid-acting antidepressant, according to a paper just published. But the new study revives some long-standing questions.
Ayahuasca is a mixture of herbs, traditionally used for spiritual and therapeutic purposes. The main active ingredients are N,N-DMT, a potent psychedelic, and several molecules that inhibit the enzyme MAO. The MAO inhibitors serve to prevent the N,N-DMT from being broken down by the digestive system, allowing it to ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
