Uncategorized
- Environment
‘Zombie’ wildfires can reemerge after wintering underground
Climate change may make these not-quite-dead blazes more common. Scientists are learning to predict where a zombie might emerge.
- Fossils
Ancient creature revealed as lizard, not a teeny dinosaur
CT scans of 99-million-year-old fossils of hummingbird-sized specimens trapped in amber reveal a number of lizardlike features.
- Microbes
Let’s learn about microbes
There may be a billion species of microorganisms on Earth — but scientists have only discovered a small fraction of them.
- Space
Spin in this Milky Way bar may show cosmic dark matter does exist
A method akin to studying a tree’s rings reveals the timeline of a slowdown in those stars at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
- Animals
Birds could get their sense of direction from quantum physics
Songbirds could detect north and south using a protein in their eye. It works somewhat like a compass.
- Animals
A bubble of air lets some lizards breathe underwater
Anolis lizards leap into streams to escape danger. Now researchers have figured out how they can stay underwater for up to a quarter of an hour.
- Archaeology
Fossils unearthed in Israel reveal possible new human ancestor
They come from a previously unknown Stone Age group that may represent a complex mashup of early members of our genus Homo.
- Physics
Nuclear clocks are nearly here
More precise clocks could improve technologies such as GPS and help scientists test major ideas in science.
- Fossils
Sudden shark die-off 19 million years ago eliminated most species
New fossil evidence shows 90 percent of sharks died in the mysterious event.
- Climate
U.S. records reveal the last 30 years were the hottest on record
New ‘climate normals’ show that average temperatures increased notably just since 1990.
- Space
Huge arc of galaxies is surprising and puzzling cosmologists
The arc appears to violate a cosmic rule that on such large scales, matter will be evenly distributed.
- Animals
Let’s learn about dinosaurs’ fearsome neighbors
Dinosaurs may get much of our attention, but there were plenty of other interesting critters during the Age of Reptiles, including our mammal ancestors.
