One of the curious features of the laws of physics is that many of them seem to be the result of the bulk behavior of many much smaller components. The atoms and molecules in a gas, for example, move at a huge range of velocities. When constrained in a container, these particles continually strike the surface creating a force. But it is not necessary to know the velocities of all the particles to determine this force. Instead, their influence averages out into a predictable and measurable bulk p ...read more
The cell is a biochemical factory of immense complexity. As fundamental units of life, cells harvest energy from the environment and use it to synthesize complex molecular machinery, to build replicas of themselves and to move. This is a 4-billion-year-old trick that even today mystifies biologists who struggle to understand the processes and principles at work.To change this, life scientists have modeled cells at various levels of detail. These models can simulate some important biomolecular pr ...read more
A large and unique discovery in Spain reveals how sauropods may have dispersed across Asia and Europe before dinosaurs went extinct.The well-preserved bones of the newly named Qunkasaura have improved paleontologists’ knowledge of dinosaurs in Europe during the Late Cretaceous.“Qunkasaura was one of the most outstanding specimens in our quarry,” says Pedro Mocho, a paleontologist at the University of Lisbon in Portugal.How Was Qunkasaura Discovered?(Credit: GBE-UNED)
General view of the ...read more
A rare, nearly complete fossil of an extinct North American porcupine helped me and my colleagues solve a decades-long debate about how the modern North American porcupine evolved from its ancestors.Published in Current Biology, our paper argues that North American porcupine ancestors may well date back 10 million years, but they wouldn’t be recognizable until about 8 million years later.By comparing the bone structure of porcupines across North America and South America, we determined that fo ...read more
It has been over 10 months since the on-again, off-again eruption near Grindavík in Iceland began. Since then, multiple eruptions have tapped a source of magma at the base of the crust under the island nation. That magma made its way to the surface to eruption as spectacular lava fountains and flows that have covered a significant area of real estate near the small fishing village and Blue Lagoon hydrothermal area.Thankfully, there has been only one death from a worker falling into a crack whil ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine