Researchers Lambast Daily Mail's Climate Change Article

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: lexaarts/Shutterstock) A recent article published in the Daily Mail critical of climate science has drawn sharp criticism from multiple climate researchers. The controversy concerns a paper, published in 2015 by a team of NOAA researchers led by Thomas Karl, that revealed a purported “pause” in global warming was nothing more than an artifact of incomplete data. Now, the Daily Mail has published an article based on an exclusive interview with former NOAA empl ...read more

Midwest Meteor: Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A still image from a dashcam video caught by Glendale, Wisconsin police officer at 1:29 a.m. Monday. (Credit: Glendale Police Department) Dash cam footage of a meteor streaking over the Midwest on Feb. 6 is collecting views and instigating an envy of regional night owls who witnessed the event live. The National Weather Service detected the meteor around 1:29 a.m. It flew over Lake Michigan between Sheboygan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The meteor was spotted as far south as Kentucky and as f ...read more

Snakes Use Their Tongues and Tails as Lures for Prey

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The African puff adder kills more people with its venomous bite than any other snake on the continent. To find prey, it doesn’t need to go hunting; the snake simply lies in wait and attacks small animals that wander past. An ambushing puff adder is both camouflaged and unsmellable to predators. This snake is not goofing around—but it does like to stick its tongue out. Researchers discovered that puff adders in the wild waggle both their tongues and their tails to lure ...read more

How Pitcher Plants Acquired a Taste for Meat

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: National Institute for Basic Biology) Researchers have peered into the genome of pitcher plants to see how they developed their carnivorous appetite. Genes that once helped to regulate stress responses may have been co-opted to assist with capturing and digesting insects and other creatures. Looking at several different species an international team of researchers led by Mitsuyasu Hasebe says the same genomic regions were all altered in the same way at different times, ...read more

Has Dogma Derailed the Search for Dark Matter?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A Hubble composite image shows a ring of ‘dark matter’ in the galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17. Courtesy NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford. (Credit: Johns Hopkins University) According to mainstream researchers, the vast majority of the matter in the Universe is invisible: it consists of dark-matter particles that do not interact with radiation and cannot be seen through any telescope. The case for dark matter is regarded as so overwhelming that its existence is often reported as fact. Late ...read more