How did dinosaurs have sex? It sounds like the start of a risqué joke. In the early years of paleontology, it would have been considered beneath the dignity of the field even to pose the question. These days, though, it’s a completely legitimate subject, one to which paleontologists and paleobiologists have devoted years of patient study.The problem is, science may never have a definitive punchline to the question, because we honestly aren’t sure exactly how dinosaurs reproduced, or whether ...read more
The first woolly mammoths were warm, but the last woolly mammoths were warmer. In fact, a paper published in Current Biology states that the most famous features of the woolly mammoths, including their fluffy fur, intensified throughout their 700,000-year stint in Siberia.Love Dalén, one of the authors of the paper, poses with the Yuka mammoth, whose genome was included in the analyses. (Credit: Ian Watts)Woolly, Woolly, Woolier The token trait of the woolly mammoth, its fur, allowed the specie ...read more
If you regularly ignored a playground’s monkey bars, seesaw and slide — and instead made a beeline straight to the merry-go-round — you’re likely familiar with the intoxicatingly dizzy feeling that accompanies a good spin session.The light-headedness may come with a touch of vertigo, causing the world to tilt around you, or even bring on feelings of sudden elation. Sufi whirling dervishes take advantage of these effects, in fact, as a form of meditation and to induce spiritual experience ...read more
Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor in the solar system, has for a long time remained shrouded in a cloud of mystery — literally. The planet is ensconced in a thick, dense carbon dioxide atmosphere that obstructs our direct view of its surface.Recently, however, planetary scientists have made new discoveries about the geography of Venus, which suggest the planet has at least 85,000 volcanoes on its surface (and potentially even more smaller volcanoes). The research is bringing us closer to u ...read more
In Liu Cixin’s famous science fiction series The Three Body Problem, human beings make first contact with the Trisolarans – an alien civilization incapable of deception or lying because they broadcast their thoughts. This ability creates a deep mistrust of human beings on behalf of the Trisolarans, as our thoughts and agendas are private to our own subjective reality. Human beings have no foolproof way to know if someone is telling the truth. Sometimes our intuition can give us clues; strang ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
