Humanity’s ancestors nearly went extinct between 930,000 years and 813,000 years ago, when their numbers dwindled to about 1,280 breeding individuals, according to a new paper.The study blames climatic conditions during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, when encroaching glaciers and drought killed off many of the early humans’ food sources.Generations that lived through the stark 117,000-year period helped to rebuild hominid populations in Europe and Asia to a relatively stable level of about ...read more
Solar and wind power are excellent renewable sources, but they have one big problem: They’re not always available. The wind doesn’t always blow; the sun doesn’t always shine. To keep the power flowing whenever we need it requires batteries, but batteries are expensive and don’t last long. They’re also a waste problem and a hazardous one at that.Fortunately, researchers at MIT have come up with a solution. In a paper published this June, they detailed how they combined cement, water a ...read more
Anyone with a dog probably takes for granted the existence of animal dreams. Watch your pup’s legs pound the air as they yip drowsily, and it’s hard to think of an explanation other than an imaginary mail vehicle chase.To take a less commonplace example, an octopus named Costello was recently caught on camera during what appeared to be a nightmare. Apparently battling an invisible predator, the creature thrashed, shifted color and spewed a cloud of ink.Do Animals Dream?But how can we be sure ...read more
Movies are filled with bullies. In the 1980s, there was that raccoon-hat-wearing terror, Scut Farkus, in A Christmas Story, who made the narrator fear walking home from school. In the early 2000s, Regina George in Mean Girls personified the calculating bully who used verbal abuse and social isolation to harass other students. And Nelson on The Simpsons has bullied others for the last 34 years.Bullying is a common storyline because it’s common in real life. Twenty-two percent of kids ...read more
Around the world today, you’ll find at least 700 different kinds of carnivorous plants, ranging from pitcher plants that lure their victims into pools of digestive enzymes to adhesive-trap plants whose stalks secrete a natural glue, turning them into living flypaper. The fossil record contains evidence of early predator plants dating as far back as 40 million years, although many such plants likely existed much earlier than that. As fascinating as these plants are, none have captured the human ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine