Humans who built massive “desert kites” in ancient times first carved to-scale plans of them, creating an 8,000-year-old schematic, a new study says.Scientists found the maps carved into boulders lying on the ground in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, not far from the kites they depicted. Desert kites are ancient, keyhole-shaped structures designed to funnel in animals, which walk in through one end and get stuck in the round enclosure or pit at the other.What Were Desert Kites Used For?The current ...read more
March 17, 2022, was a rough day for Jorge Vago. A planetary physicist, Vago heads science for part of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars program. His team was mere months from launching Europe’s first Mars rover — a goal they had been working toward for nearly two decades. But on that day, ESA suspended ties with Russia’s space agency over the invasion of Ukraine. The launch had been planned for Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is leased to Russia.“They told us we had to call ...read more
Quantum materials offer many benefits to the future of electronic devices — from batteries to sensors and even our smartphones. Thanks to quantum behaviors like entanglement, these materials exhibit unusual electronic, optical and magnetic properties, making them more energy efficient.“Being superior to conventional materials for certain electronic processes, quantum materials open vast application opportunities,” says Carmine Ortix, an associate professor of physics at the University of S ...read more
Bats often get a bad rap. They’re known mostly as characters in spooky myths or Halloween stories. But these flying mammals are responsible help keep ecosystems in balance and our food economy humming. Bat Species and Their AbilitiesBats comprise one fifth of all living mammal species and are found everywhere on Earth except the ice-covered poles. They first appeared on Earth over 50 million years ago, long before humans. While many people assume bats are related to rodents because of their s ...read more
This article was originally published in Eos.Along with Egypt and Babylonia, the Hittite Empire was one of the major powers of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East during the late Bronze Age. For more than 500 years, the empire’s military might and sociopolitical complexity allowed the Hittites to control the strategic region straddling eastern Anatolia and the northern Levant.But by about 1200 B.C., the empire had collapsed. Researchers have cited armed conflict, disease, and political cri ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
