Orcas can get organized. When hunting for whale sharks — the world’s largest fish — a pod of killer whales appears to target the youngest most vulnerable sharks, ram them to turn them upside done — thus immobilizing them, and will then focus on high value organs like the heart and liver.Although there have been scattered reports of such incidents, scientists in Mexico recorded and studied four specific attacks, analyzed them, and described them in an article in Frontiers in Marine Scienc ...read more
We talk a lot about the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Rising sea levels, heat waves, melting glaciers -- they are all changes our planet is experiencing as the temperature rises. However, these can seem a little abstract if you're not experiencing them yourself. Sometimes it takes a concrete example of just how climate change is influencing not only changes to our landscape and ecosystems, but also to things like ... baseball.The Tampa Bay Rays play at Tropicana Field, a domed stadium ...read more
Scientists seeking the secrets of the universe would like to make a model that shows how all of nature’s forces and particles fit together. It would be nice to do it with Legos. But perhaps a better bet would be connecting everything with strings.Not literal strings, of course — but tiny loops or snippets of vibrating energy. And the “fit together” needs to be mathematical, not via properly shaped pieces of plastic. For decades now, many physicists have pursued the hope that equations in ...read more
About 1.5 million years ago, two different species of early man likely came within hours of passing each other on the shores of what is now known as Lake Turkana in Kenya. Two sets of footprints tracing each hominin’s path represent the first geological record of such an example, according to a report in Science.Those footprints are part of a much larger picture that tells a more complete story of life there then. “The footprint evidence provides a unique window into the occupation of the la ...read more
When you bite into a juicy hamburger, slice into the perfect medium-rare steak, or gobble down a plateful of chicken nuggets, your senses are most likely responding to the food’s smell, taste, texture, and color. For a long time, these four attributes set meat apart from other food groups.But in recent years, food companies have started to focus on the development of meat alternatives. Many people believe that transitioning away from meat-heavy diets can help with environmental sustainability ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine