For billions of years, the continents have moved across the Earth’s surface like tectonic vessels, but they have not survived unscathed. Waves in the lower layer known as the mantle could sweep away the keels of continents, pushing their surfaces upward to form visible landforms away from any active plate boundaries, researchers proposed on Aug. … Read more
To leave a lasting trail, meteors must aim downward. A new survey of shooting stars shows that meteors blazing 90 kilometers up in the sky leave a continuous glow, unlike those burning at higher altitudes. Meteors are normally bright events and you will miss them. A particle of space dust leaves a fiery trail of … Read more
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? These are some of the most extreme figures in a month of extremes for the land down under, which … Read more
As more and more species come close to extinction, scientists have been collecting samples of animals, plants and other creatures and storing them in biorepositories around the globe.SN: 5/8/19). But climate change, environmental disasters and wars threaten these modern Noah’s Arks (SN: 28/2/22). Now, a team of researchers is thinking of an out-of-this-world solution: building … Read more
This video was supported by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. TRANSCRIPT David Johnson: So, in 2014, we were on a mud bank in the marsh here in Massachusetts, and I saw this little crab that came crashing through the mud bank and into a hole. And so I dug up the crab and … Read more
Neanderthals traveled at least two evolutionary paths on their way to extinction around 40,000 years ago, a new study suggests. If it is classified as a separate species or a variant of Homo sapiensNeanderthals have usually been seen as a genetically stable population. But the partial skeleton of an adult male discovered in France contains … Read more
Imagine going on a week-long business trip and not coming home until next year. That may be the case for American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, whose eight-day mission to the International Space Station has already stretched to more than two months and is likely to last even longer. The pair launched to the … Read more
When strained by earthquakes, underground networks of quartz veins can generate enough tension to leach gold from passing fluids, researchers report Sept. 2. Nature Geoscience. The findings explain how fluids carrying small amounts of gold can fabricate large pieces, even in chemically inert environments. “You find a quartz vein 2 meters wide, and there’s a … Read more
citations J. O’Conner et al. Effect of ashwagandha on stress, sleep quality, and food cravings in college students: quantitative analysis of a double-blind randomized control trial. Journal of Medicinal Food. Vol. December 25, 2022, p. 1086. doi: 10.1089/jmf.2022.0040. C. Baker et al. Perceived impact of ashwagandha on stress, sleep quality, energy, and mental clarity in … Read more
One of the most distant quasars known appears to have shut down the formation of new stars in all galaxies in its vicinity. A quasar is a powerful source of light created by hot gas swirling around a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Intense radiation from a quasar, called VIK J2348-3054, … Read more