Our relatively stable global climate is governed by an incredibly complex set of factors, all interacting with each other in dynamic and changing ways, but there are a couple of really big key players in that system. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of them. This system of ocean currents redistributes heat from … Read more
Paleontology has thousands of Tyrannosaurus rex bones, dozens of skeletons, and exactly one thing it had never had until this week: a recorded walk. In a study just published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, researchers from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Liverpool John Moores University describe the first footprint attributed to … Read more
Every year, millions of people visit the Statue of Liberty, and a lucky fraction, with advance reservation, climb the 162 steps to its crown. What no one can do (what no one has done as a member of the public for 110 years) is to continue up, through the raised right arm, up the narrow … Read more
It’s sci-fi Friday, as Google’s fully mapped fly brain, which was revealed last week, has been designed to play Doom and the rhythm action game Beat Sabre. Google’s brain mapping is a historic first and the fly brain model, which required years of work and AI help to compile, was released by the company’s research … Read more
An international team of scientists, led by paleontologist Andrea Baucon of the University of Cagliari, Italy, has partly solved the mystery of a strange natural pattern called Paleodictyon found around the world. The mystery at hand: what animal made (and continues to make) these unusual markings? The findings are published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews. … Read more
Rocket Lab is still hoping to build NASA’s next Mars orbiter. The agency tapped Blue Origin for that job earlier this month, giving Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company $700 million to develop, launch and operate the Mars Telecommunications Network (MTN). However, today (September 11), Rocket Lab announced that it challenged that decision and filed a formal … Read more
An extraordinary star explosion has been detected in a distant galaxy, and astrophotographers are racing to capture it before it fades from view. The supernova, called SN 2026aaiv, was first seen by the ATLAS survey on September 1 in NGC 7331 (also known as Caldwell 30), a spiral galaxy about 45 million light-years away in … Read more
The first known set of footprints from an adult Tyrannosaurus rex has been found in North Dakota by a team of scientists. The 23-foot-long footprint, which consists of four three-toed prints, two on the left and two on the right, was first identified in the southwest of the state, in the area of dinosaur fossils … Read more
The Moon appears to offer Earth’s microbes nowhere to hide. It has almost no atmosphere, no stable liquid water on its surface, and no protection from ultraviolet light or energetic radiation. NASA’s standard lunar figures put one surface in bright sunlight at about 127 degrees Celsius and another in darkness at about -173 degrees. Now, … Read more
5 moves that physical therapists say every adult over 50 should do daily The Washington Post