Aurochs were the wild ancestors of modern cattle. They once roamed Europe, Asia and North Africa. Today they are no longer there. The last one died in Poland in the 17th century, ending a decline of approximately 8,000 years. People caused most of this loss around the world. Scandinavia tells a different story, because animals … Read more
One of cancer’s most elusive and tantalizing targets is so common that scientists have given it a nickname: McGene. In 70 percent of cancers, this gene (whose proper name is MYC) is overactive, fueling the aggressive growth, spread, and survival of tumors throughout the body. A study published Friday reveals details about the control circuitry … Read more
The first animals may have appeared on Earth hundreds of millions of years earlier than their fossils suggest, a new modeling study suggests. Previously, the oldest fossil evidence of animals dated back to about 574 million years ago, during the Ediacara period (635 million to 538 million years ago). In the new paper, a research … Read more
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) just launched three rockets in less than 13 hours, a pretty incredible feat that has sent the company’s stock up 6% so far in Friday trading. The company sent four astronauts to the International Space Station, launched a batch of commercial payloads into orbit and launched a classified satellite for … Read more
Not long ago, a science teacher would have told his students that there was no evidence of planets around other star systems. Even more recently, they could have said that while we have seen evidence of extrasolar planets, we could never see them directly. But all that has changed. [Jason Wang] has several videos that … Read more
Among the many risks astronauts face during long-distance spaceflight, a prolonged stay in microgravity is one of the most important for long-term health, with effects on vision, bones, muscles and many other aspects of the body. One solution could be artificial gravity, some way to create forces similar to Earth’s gravity on a spacecraft, similar … Read more
Welcome back to the Summary! These are this week’s studies that searched for ur-animals, roamed the poles, rained on Mars, and destroyed the solar system. First, scientists present new evidence that the first animals appeared more than 800 million years ago, a truly ancient origin that suggests our metazoan ancestors survived a period known as … Read more
MEGATRON is a good guy?! Well, at least for cosmologists who are using this simulation to transform (sorry, couldn’t resist) our understanding of the universe’s first stars. Of course, in this case Megatron is not the diabolical leader of the Decepticons who killed Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise, but rather the most detailed simulation … Read more
Astronomers are always on the lookout for radio signals from outer space. Here on Earth, we rely on these signals for virtually all forms of wireless communication. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are two different forms of radio communication that you’re probably familiar with, but many planets and other celestial bodies naturally emit their own radio signals. … Read more
Sign up to see the future, today Must-see innovations from the cutting edge of science and technology By all indications, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been nothing short of a disaster. It has cost NASA a staggering amount of money, and even after more than a decade of development, the capsule has yet to complete a … Read more