One of the curious features of Taylor Swift’s work is that she regularly uses words borrowed from astronomy and cosmology. “Taylor Swift’s discography frequently incorporates astrophysics terminology,” point out Sophie Newman and Ana Sainz de Murieta at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. That reflects the role that science and technology play in shaping cultural phenomena. But for Swifties, it also raises the question of which areas of ...read more
If you matched a Swiss singer against a monkey vocalist in a yodeling contest, the non-human primate would win handily, according to a study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.It turns out apes and monkeys possess vocal membranes in their throats that humans lack. Scientists suspect these structures slowly disappeared through evolution to allow for more stable speech. So what evolutionary advantages do these throat structures provide monkeys and apes? How do ...read more
It sounds like a paleontological crime scene: dozens of ancient amphibian fossils found buried relatively close together. The bones of the crocodile-sized creatures — known as metoposaurid temnospondyls — lie intact. What brought them there? What killed them? Why did the fossils remain undisturbed?Researchers report a detailed analysis of the single-largest collection of the species’ fossils found together in Wyoming in the journal PLOS ONE. But the survey of what appears to be a mass die- ...read more
The stars in our galaxy are serenading us with songs, that is, if we take the time to translate them.According to a new paper published in Nature, constant “starquakes” cause some stars to fluctuate in brightness — a result that seems mostly unrelated to music. But by translating these fluctuations in brightness into fluctuations in acoustic frequencies, scientists can tune in to a star’s sound, learning important information about its age and its other traits. Studying 27 separate stars ...read more
With winter having come to a close, people living near the Rocky Mountains will have to reckon with the effects of snow contamination, an enduring issue magnified by mining activities in the region. A new study provides an unprecedented look at the heightened levels of contaminants that have been carried to the Rockies by winter storms. The study, recently published in the journal Environmental Pollution, has pinpointed mining operations in the Pacific Northwest as the source of contaminants. M ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine