On the list of exoplanets that could hold life, GJ 1132b wouldn’t come near making the cut. It’s a super-Earth whose upper atmosphere reaches 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 degrees Celsius), meaning it only gets hotter as you move down. It’s barely a hair away from its star, completing a year in 1.6 Earth days.
Life is incredibly unlikely to survive there. Yet it may be one of the most important planets to come along in the search for life. So why’s that?
Well, it’s ...read more
As I write this, a conglomeration of radio telescopes scattered across Earth are acting as one giant instrument to try to image the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. It’s no easy feat. A black hole, by definition, is so dense and the gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape its confines. So how can an object that can’t emit light and that doesn’t reflect light be observed? By looking for its shadow, and that’s exactly what the so-call ...read more
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When Jason Holmberg saw his first whale shark 15 years ago while scuba diving off the coast of Africa, he had no idea it would lead him to co-found a nonprofit that pairs citizen science with NASA technology to collect data on whale sharks around the world. ...read more
Garlic! So delicious, yet so stinky. If only there were foods you could eat after garlic to quench the stench. Well, according to this study, there are. These scientists first developed an automated method for detecting garlic odors, and then used this to “smell” the breath of participants after eating garlic followed by a variety of foods. The result? Turns out that eating parsley, spinach, mint, raw and microwaved apple, soft drink, green tea, and lemon juice all helped. Hmm&hellip ...read more
Depictions of the “tree of life” have come a long way — and changed in meaning — since this 17th century Russian take on it. (Credit Wikimedia Commons)
Who doesn’t love free stuff? I know I do. And a renovation of open access evolution database TimeTree is a treasure chest of data for the taking.
The idea of a tree of life has been an element across many cultures for millennia, but since the days of Darwin it’s become a handy way to visualize how sp ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
