After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and new findings raise concerns the fires could accelerate the release of carbon into the atmosphere. Scientists quantified the amount of soil-bound carbon released into the atmosphere in the 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire, which covered more than 400 square miles on the North Slope of Alaska’s Brooks Range. [Read more...]
Interface technology that connects mind to machine could soon be used to control computers, robotic prosthetic limbs, motorized wheelchairs, and even digital avatars. A non-invasive sensor-lined cap with neural interface allows users to turn thoughts into movement. [Read more...]
Scientists at Rice University have defined the structure, down to the atomic level, of a virus that is the second-leading cause of juvenile diarrhea. The findings could lead to the development of medications to block it before it becomes infectious. [Read more...]
A newly identified crocodile species that lived 70 million years ago had very big teeth and a dog-shaped head—and used its long limbs to chase down prey. Named Pissarrachampsa sera, the fossil was discovered by a municipal worker in Cretaceous sediments in a small town in Minas Gerais, Brazil. [Read more...]
The youngest dinosaur preserved in the fossil record before the catastrophic meteor impact 65 million years ago has been discovered in Montana. [Read more...]
Don’t let their size fool you. At only two feet, cookiecutter sharks can do serious damage by scooping out flesh with their unique jaws, leaving crater-like wounds. Unlike other sharks, a cookiecutter’s teeth are connected at the bottom in the lower jaw. When feeding, the shark bites its victim and then rotates to remove a plug of flesh, “kind of like using a melon baller,” says George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida. [Read more...]
New research suggests the shape of the Big Bang might be more complicated than previously thought. Physicists and astronomers have long believed that the universe has mirror symmetry, like a basketball. [Read more...]
Astronomers have discovered the most distant quasar to date—around 100 million years younger than the previous title holder. This brilliant and rare beacon, powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, is by far the brightest object yet found from a time when the Universe was less than 800 million years old—just a fraction of its current age. [Read more...]
A robot built with a series of springs along the length of its body has the flexibility to move like a worm around obstacles. The super-sized “worm-bot” is modeled on the C. elegans nematode, a tiny free-living worm that uses an ultra-simple nervous system to control the way that it moves. [Read more...]
By studying fossilized grains of pollen, researchers have reconstructed the climate history of the Antarctic Peninsula, which gave up its vegetation about 12 million years ago. Scientists are studying the region because it has warmed significantly in recent decades. [Read more...]
