5 of the Most Outlandish Ideas to Fight Climate Change

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

When it comes to fighting climate change, the more ideas, the better. While these creative solutions may at first seem rash, if there were ever a time to welcome creative and even crazy ideas, now would be it. Here are a few of the most surprising ideas scientists have thought of to combat climate change. 1. Mechanical Trees[embedded content]What do you do when you don’t have real trees? You plant fake ones, of course. Klaus Lackner, a professor of engineering, has invented a mechanical tree ...read more

What It Takes to a Volcano to Impact Earth’s Climate

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Whenever images of giant ash plume show up in the news, one of the first questions that arrives in my inbox is whether that eruption will impact the Earth's climate. It turns out that it takes more than just an ash column that towers 100,000 feet (30 kilometers) over the volcano to drive the needle when it comes to our planet's climate. What might be the most important factor for an eruption to impact climate?First, a few volcano-climate basics. It isn't the ash that causes Earth's climate to ch ...read more

Scientists Study the Secrets of 2,500-Year-Old Mummified Animals

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

For the first archaeologists, the only way to peer inside an ancient coffin or container was to take the artifact apart. In fact, it was only through the dismantling of ancient artifacts that these individuals learned about the lives, religions and rituals of antiquity, including those of Egypt.Nowadays, there's a longer list of less invasive approaches for learning about antiquity, and that list is expanding. According to a paper published in Scientific Reports, for instance, a team of research ...read more

At Long Last, Hobbyist Discovers “Einstein” Tile

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

In his free time, David Smith designs tiles. More specifically, the retired print technician and recreational mathematician pieces together as many tiles as he can (no gaps allowed) before the pattern either repeats or cannot continue.Until recently, every shape anyone had ever tested met one of those two fates — despite the scrutiny of many brilliant minds over the past 50 years. Then, one day last November, Smith found the only known exception.13 Sided ShapeUsing an app called PolyForm Puzzl ...read more

How Do Scientists Reconstruct What Dinosaurs Looked Like?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Despite having roamed the planet millions of years ago, thanks to advances in technology, dinosaurs aren’t as inscrutable today as they once were. And over the past decades, in addition to studying what they acted like, including their habits and diets, researchers have specialized in reconstructing and depicting what they looked like — all the way down to specific details like texture and color.But how do scientists go about pinpointing these details for creatures that died 65 million years ...read more

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