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ScienceSpace
NASA Spacecraft Has a Close Encounter with Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede
NASA’s Juno spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter since 2016, made a close flyby of the planet’s moon Ganymede at 1:35 p.m. ET on Monday. Its goal: to take stock of the icy orb’s composition and magnetic field, among other measurements. “Juno carries a suite of sensitive instruments capable of seeing Ganymede in ways never before … Continued
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Science
The American Museum of Natural History’s Gems and Minerals Halls Get a Dazzling Upgrade
If you love things that sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow, glow in the dark, and seem to defy any definition of the term rock, you’ve got to visit the new Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I recently got a preview of … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Paleontologists Study 9,000-Year-Old Aurochs Bones and Wonder if the Beasts Were Tamed
For some 9,000 years, the bones of three aurochs—huge, extinct ancestors of modern cattle—languished at the bottom of a cave in northwestern Spain. A team of paleontologists have now genetically sampled the Mesolithic remains, which were found in the 1990s near a human skeleton, and they believe that the DNA could help decipher the mystery of … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Covered in Martian Muck, NASA’s InSight Lander Tries to Tidy Itself Up
The dust piled up everywhere. Pushed around by the Martian winds, it stifled the InSight lander, whose solar panels—the source of its power—have been coated in red grime. Now, NASA has announced a step in the right direction for the sedentary probe: By commanding it to drop dirt on top of the dust, they managed … Continued
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ScienceArchaeology
An Ancient Supervolcano May Have Zapped the Ozone Layer, Exposing Early Humans to Intense Sunburns
The Toba super-eruption of some 74,000 years ago has long intrigued scientists, who remain uncertain about how the event affected humans living at the time. Now, a team of researchers suggest that the real damage from Toba came from on high, in the form of a depleted ozone layer induced by a massive release of … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Hell Yes, We’re Going to Venus
NASA announced Wednesday that two missions will visit Venus by the end of this decade, the first direct exploration of the hot planet since 1994. One spacecraft is set to orbit Venus, mapping it and studying it from above, while the other will attempt to land on the surface, sampling the planet’s atmosphere as it … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Hear the Table Manners of Canada Lynx in Gruesome Detail
For the past five years, researchers in Canada have been spying on their local wild cats, the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), using accelerometers and audio recorders. The instruments have given the researchers an intimate look at how the animals engage with their environments, from how they hunt down food to how they communicate with other … Continued
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ScienceSpace
No, an Asteroid the Size of a Skyscraper Isn’t Going to Hit Earth, Sorry
Earthlings often get nervous (or get their hopes up) about asteroids careening towards Earth. Such is the case this week, as headlines trumpet the danger of a “potentially hazardous” asteroid the size of the Space Needle along with four other space rocks. Fortunately for the worry-warts and unfortunately for nihilists around the world, the latest … Continued
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SciencePhysics
Physicists Caught Two Atoms ‘Talking’ to Each Other
A team of physicists in the Netherlands and Germany recently placed a bunch of titanium atoms under a scanning tunneling microscope. Those atoms were in constant, quiet interaction with each other through the directions of their spins. In a clever feat, the researchers were able to home in on a single pair of atoms, zapping … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Giant Camels and More Treasures Discovered in Fossilized California Forest
First, the trees came out of the ground. A few weeks later, the bones emerged. Bit by bit over the past year, a team of paleontologists and geologists, among others, have uncovered the fossilized remains of a Miocene forest, from its gomphotheres and mastodons to the trees themselves. A park ranger, Greg Francek, stumbled upon the … Continued
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ScienceGenetics
The Mystery of the Watermelon’s Origins May Have Been Solved
Researchers have identified the likely origins of Citrinus lanatus vulgaris, commonly known as the watermelon, according to a new study. Their work pegs a Sudanese melon as the progenitor of the iconic green-striped fruit. Watermelons are native to Africa, but exactly when, where, and how a watermelon predecessor was domesticated and turned into the fruit … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
World’s Worst Flower Looks Like a Butt, Smells Like Dead Bugs
Nondescript on the forest floor, the flowering plant Aristolochia microstoma has developed an arresting means of self-preservation: It smells like dead bugs, which attracts the living bugs that act as the plant’s pollinators. Research describing the plant’s strategy was published this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Like the more famous and … Continued