The Caspian tiger's (Panthera tigris virgata) story is a tragic tale. Once a dominant predator of Asia's diverse landscapes, its disappearance testifies to the darker sides of agricultural development. And though its demographic traits distinguished it as a unique subspecies within the tiger family, those traits didn’t last long, and the cat was lost to extinction in the late 20th century. So, why don't we see any of these tigers in the world today?What Was the Caspian Tiger?With a wide habita ...read more
Fossils provide important insights about the existence and adaption of living organisms — over millions of years. Ancient plant fossils provide clues about climate conditions and environmental change. Among the most interesting are Glossopteris leaf fossils, which have been found in Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, and parts of Asia — mostly India. With more than 70 identifiable species, this once prevalent plant is a valuable information source on Earth’s conditions, lo ...read more
Old Tom, a particularly long-lived orca that participated in whale hunts in the early 1900s, may have sounded a call-to-arms early in the morning, or even in the middle of the night — a loud slapping of tail fins off the surface of the water.In a small town called Eden off the coast of southeastern Australian, orca pods would alert whalers and heard humpback whales that swam through these waters every year towards the Twofold Bay area. The whalers would then get out on the water as quickly as ...read more
For tens of millions of years, the asteroid Bennu traveled through the vacuum of space, likely originating from our own solar system. But one small hunk of debris from the sample brought back to Earth — the first piece of an asteroid ever obtained by NASA — took its most recent trip on a subway car in Washington, D.C.“The good people at [the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority] can say they transported a piece of Bennu,” says Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian ...read more
There’s an academic exercise in psychology classes that asks students to take Sigmund Freud’s concept of the id, ego, and superego and apply it to characters from The Simpsons. Homer’s impulsiveness typically casts him as the id, Marge’s down-to-earth mentality makes her the ego, and Lisa’s conscientiousness represents the superego.The activity helps students learn about the history of psychology, and although Freud’s theory directed the discipline for decades, scholars now debat ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine