If you've ever watched an ice cube melt or stirred creamer into a pool of black coffee, you've witnessed a fundamental truth about the universe: The "arrow of time" always marches forward. Time flows from past to future. What we call the present is a never-ending series of inflection points, where the collection of events that have already happened (the past) meets the collection of events that have yet to happen (the future). And while time doesn’t ever stop, it can slow down.Slowing Down Tim ...read more
With words like "unprecedented" "remarkable," and "utterly unbelievable," scientists are raising the alarm about climatic developments that have already been unfolding in 2023."This is getting to be utterly unbelievable," University of Miami researcher Brian McNoldy said of sizzling sea surface temperatures. In a Twitter post, he noted that "North Atlantic SSTs have just set a new record anomaly on June 20, beating the previous one from June 10." The chances of this occurring are more than one i ...read more
Tanystropheus, a strange marine reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs, has puzzled paleontologists since its discovery in the mid-1800s. At first, scientists mistook the species for flying reptiles, due to their extremely elongated neck bones. Only later did they realize that the vertebrae framed a neck so long that it looked like evolution was trying to create a cartoon.Now, a new paper seeks to answer a nearly 170-year-old question: Wasn’t such a long and awkward neck a liability?Just How L ...read more
Determining what is and isn’t art is tough. Determining who did and didn’t make a particular art piece is tougher. That’s the problem that torments the paleoarchaeologists and paleoanthropologists who study prehistoric paintings, anyway. And though they typically agree about which ancient scrapes, scratches and marks were made by human artists and which were not, they sometimes struggle to attribute those ancient markings to specific human species.According to a new paper in PLOS ONE, howe ...read more
Dinosaurs roamed Earth for millions of years, during a major geologic era known as the Mesozoic. Fossils, scientific discoveries and tireless research efforts have gradually unveiled the mesmerizing tapestry of the dinosaur timeline. Their captivating tale begins in the Triassic period, reaches its peak during the well-known Jurassic period and comes to a dramatic end in the late Cretaceous period. Discover how each of these distinct periods served as a stage for the evolutionary dramas that unf ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
