For billions of years, the Earth has experienced periodic glacial cycles governed by its orbit around the Sun. No force on the planet could interrupt this eon-long cycle, until we came along. A new study published in the journal Science suggests that a new glacial period began about 2,000 years ago, but by the 1960s … Read more
Follow Us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter NASA has officially ended the mission of its Swift space telescope, after a private satellite failed in its daring attempt to rescue the aging spacecraft. That rescue mission was led by Arizona company Katalyst Space Technologies, whose LINK spacecraft attempted … Read more
A newly discovered species of amphibian called Gerrothorax maritimus was about 74 centimeters long and had a flattened, armored body. Credit: Ryosuke Motani Amphibians could live in the sea 237 million years ago, according to research published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Two fossils of a type of early amphibian from a group called … Read more
On average, the Moon is about 238,855 miles from Earth. Depending on where it is in its orbit, it can be as close as 226,000 miles or as far away as 251,000 miles. With a radius of about 1,080 miles, it is the fifth largest moon in our solar system, but it is only one-third … Read more
I first read The Selfish Gene in the 1980s, when I was a graduate student in neurobiology and animal behavior. I admired the clarity with which biologist Richard Dawkins distilled mid-20th century work in evolutionary biology. The central idea of the book, published in 1976, was tremendously simple: that a living organism is just a … Read more
Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The Earth almost always has more than one moon. The others are simply very small and never stick around for long, but they could provide accessible and unique information about the solar system. Temporary satellites, or minimoons, are small asteroids … Read more
An ancient viral insertion silences LINC00662 in chimpanzee cells, while the gene is active during early human brain development. Removal of the insertion restored gene expression; Separate experiments with human organoids linked LINC00662 to features of developing nerve cell extensions. The findings reveal a mechanism of evolutionary divergence, without establishing effects on intelligence, overall brain … Read more
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commissions or revenue on some articles through the links below. Elon Musk’s ambition to establish a self-sufficient civilization of a million people on Mars faces skepticism from Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Michel Mayor, who argues that the planet’s hostile conditions make mass migration unrealistic and humanity must prioritize protecting … Read more
Paleontologists have identified an entirely new squid-like creature from the Jurassic from a pair of fossils recovered from the floor of an ancient inland sea in Wyoming. They say it is one of the “thickest known species” of its prehistoric group. Wyoteuthis linsterorum is the name of the species, in recognition of the experienced fossil … Read more
Paleontologists have identified an entirely new squid-like creature from the Jurassic from a pair of fossils recovered from the floor of an ancient inland sea in Wyoming. They say it is one of the “thickest known species” of its prehistoric group. Wyoteuthis linsterorum is the name of the species, in recognition of the experienced fossil … Read more