A Delaware-sized Antarctic Iceberg Has Broken Into the Ocean

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A 70-mile-long crack runs across the Larsen C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, months before it calved into the ocean. (Credit: Jeremy Harbeck) After months of dangling on by a miles-thin thread of ice, an iceberg roughly the size of Delaware just calved off Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf and began drifting out into the ocean. Scientists say the complete breakthrough happened sometime between July 10 and today, July 12. It was spotted by NASA’s Aqua MODIS satellite instrument ...read more

Chronotypes: Evolution Explains Night Owls and Early Birds

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Two Hadza hunters returning from a hunt. A new study of chronotypes, or sleep and activity patterns, among the Tanzanian hunter-gatherers sheds light on the evolutionary advantages of staggered snoozing. (Credit Wikimedia Commons/Andreas Lederer) In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight… catchy song, even if it misrepresents Panthera leo. Lions, like many other predators, are opportunistic about when they hunt, and that includes plenty of nocturnal prowling. New research ...read more

Remember the North Pole winter thaw? A new study finds a rising trend in Arctic warming spikes in winter

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

During the N-ICE2015 expedition, scientists froze their boat, the Lance, into the Arctic sea ice to gather data from January to June of 2015. (Source: Norwegian Polar Institute) During each of the past three years, something quite bizarre has happened in the central Arctic. No, global warming did not cause some Thing to rise up out of the ice and go on a rampage. It was temperatures that rose up. And not just by a little. This occurred during extreme warming events near the Nort ...read more

In a First, Photons are 'Teleported' from Earth to Space

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A station used for receiving information from the satellite. (Credit: Xinhua/Jin Liwang) Chinese researchers have successfully transmitted quantum entangled particles from a station on earth to a satellite orbiting far overhead. The experiment is part of an ongoing effort by researchers using the Micius satellite to achieve long-distance quantum communication, a feat that would yield hacker-proof information networks. In this most recent work, researchers from the University of Science an ...read more

How Ancient Peruvians Partied on Eclipse Day

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A total solar eclipse over Australia in 2012. (Credit: NASA) Solar-eclipse fever is about to heat up as millions of Americans celebrate the astronomical spectacle happening Aug. 21. Businesses and universities along its shadowy bandwidth from Lincoln Beach, Ore., to Charleston, S.C., are organizing days-long events. There will be festivals with live music, art displays and camping. A special event in Illinois features a performance by hard-rock legend Ozzy Osborne. Many more are organizing ecl ...read more