It’s imperative that human societies factor a strategic ‘managed retreat’ into the ways they respond and adapt to climate change, researchers say, and figuring out how is a conversation that needs to be happening now. Managed retreat is the coordinated movement of people and buildings away from risks, which, in the context of climate
They say death and taxes are the only sure things in life, but is the former really so absolute and inescapable? After all, with considerable gains in human life expectancy, and scientists discovering new ways to reverse aging and potentially extend human lifespans, one could be forgiven for thinking that the legendary elixir of immortality
In the last 260 million years, dinosaurs came and went, Pangea split into the continents and islands we see today, and humans have quickly and irreversibly changed the world we live in. But through all of that, it seems Earth has been keeping time. A new study of ancient geological events suggests that our
Have you ever chatted with a friend about buying a certain item and been targeted with an ad for that same item the next day? If so, you may have wondered whether your smartphone was “listening” to you. But is it really? Well, it’s no coincidence the item you’d been interested in was the
Drone footage has captured the social lives of southern resident killer whales like never before, and their friendships look surprisingly similar to our own. Tracking a single pod of 22 killer whales for 10 days, researchers observed a complex web of relationships, including close friendships. Resident killer whales live their whole lives in the
Fear is a common response to darkness, especially in children, and now scientists think they might have figured out the brain mechanisms behind it, mechanisms that work in a couple of areas of the brain in particular. The amygdala section of the brain is responsible for processing emotion and regulating our fear response, and
When heat waves hit, people start looking for anything that might lower the temperature. One solution is right beneath our feet: pavement. Think about how hot the soles of your shoes can get when you’re walking on dark pavement or asphalt. A hot street isn’t just hot to touch – it also raises the surrounding
Our traditional idea of a river, an endlessly flowing stream of water, needs a rethink, scientists argue in a new study. Even when a river runs dry, they say, it’s still a river. These winding watercourses shouldn’t have to flow all year round to receive our attention and protection. In fact, most of them don’t.
When the Black Death ravaged Europe midway through the 14th century, it wiped out around half of the population with deaths so swift, people had to bury countless victims in mass graves. At least that’s the story archaeological remains have told us until now. Researchers have just unearthed new evidence suggesting mass burials are
Deep below the ocean’s waves, ancient tracks left by a long-hidden migration are etched into the submerged landscape of the seafloor. These mysterious imprints were not made by deep-sea creatures moving from one place to the next, but rather by a flotilla of ancient icebergs drifting aimlessly for thousands of miles across the ocean.
One of the key steps to mitigating climate change is to better understand the multitude of factors that affect our planet’s temperature – and a new study reveals the important role that ocean microbes play in the process. Microbes are responsible for most of Earth’s naturally produced methane, a key greenhouse gas that contributes
MacArthur Genius and MIT professor Linda Griffith has built an epic career as a scientist and inventor, including growing a human ear on a mouse. She now spends her days unpacking the biological mechanisms underlying endometriosis, a condition in which uterus-like tissue grows outside of the uterus. Endometriosis can be brutally painful, is regularly misdiagnosed
Even predators can’t stay awake all the time. But sharks, those sleek hunters of the deep, don’t exactly advertise when they’re taking a power nap. A strange behavior has given them up, though. Marine biologists have discovered that sharks ‘surf’ ocean currents in a conveyor belt configuration, allowing them to take turns resting. The
Thousands of years of history tell us drought is nothing new. Sometimes we prevail. Often we don’t. A bleak look into the future tells us we’ve seen nothing yet, with a mix of shifting climates, poor water management practices, and growing population densities promising a ‘pandemic‘ of catastrophic droughts awaits. The UN’s Special Report on
Getting rid of hiccups is no easy feat. Once your diaphragm starts involuntarily spasming, there’s little you can do to stop the ensuing “hupps” and “hics” other than wait it out. If you want to speed up the process, you can always try holding your breath, drinking upside down, sucking on a lemon, or
Insects are the most numerous group of animals on the planet. There are an estimated 5.5 million species, 80 percent of which remain to be discovered. Yet insects are experiencing steep, widespread declines across the world: a “death by a thousand cuts” because of human activity. Insects perform almost every role imaginable in an
Charles Darwin was a careful scientist. In the middle of the 19th century, while he was collecting evidence for his theory that species evolve by natural selection, he noticed it didn’t explain the fancy tails of male peacocks, the antlers paraded by male deer, or why some the males of some species are far larger
A giant ‘murder hornet’ has just been found in a new part of the United States. The dead insect was discovered in a county of Washington state just north of Seattle by a member of the public in early June. DNA testing has since confirmed it is an Asian giant hornet, or Vespa mandarinia.
Very rarely is anything completely still. All normal matter in the Universe is made of humming particles, minding their own business and vibrating at their own frequencies. If we can get them to slow down as much as possible, the material enters what is known as the motional ground state. In this state, physicists can
Once thought extinct, giant coelacanths have been lurking in the ocean for hundreds of millions of years. The rarity and deep habitat of these fish has made them difficult to study, but a new look at one of the species has now revealed it might live much longer than we thought. How long? Well, these
A 26.5 million-year-old skull found in northwest China has been identified as another extinct species of giant rhino, one of the largest mammals to ever roam the land. The fossil is remarkably well-preserved, and after close analysis, scientists have named it Paraceratherium linxiaense, the sixth species of this hornless rhino genus to be uncovered in
Let me introduce you to Ophiojura, a bizarre deep-sea animal found in 2011 by scientists from the French Natural History Museum, while trawling the summit of a secluded seamount called Banc Durand, 500 metres below the waves and 200 kilometres east of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Ophiojura is a type of
Stunning photographs of vast, ghostly spider webs blanketing the flood-affected region of Gippsland in Victoria have gone viral online, prompting many to muse on the wonder of nature. But what’s going on here? Why do spiders do this after floods and does it happen everywhere? The answer is: these webs have nothing to do
It’s not just seeds that are being stashed away at the poles – scientists are also preserving stacks of ancient ice for future research, and the oldest ice in the Alps region has now been successfully extracted, ready for storage in Antarctica. What makes saving and storing this ice so important is the climate
Despite us having mapped and categorized so much of mammal biology already, there are still new surprises lying in wait. Now, scientists have found two new types of glia – a type of support cell – in mouse brains. Glial cells are usually thought of as the support act in the brain and the spinal cord,
The tipping point for irreversible global warming may have already been triggered, the scientist who led the biggest-ever expedition to the Arctic warned on Tuesday. “The disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic is one of the first landmines in this minefield, one of the tipping points that we set off first when we
One of the best studied plants in science is a small, unassuming weed. Thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, is a model organism, which basically makes it the lab rat of the plant world. Therefore, it’s quite surprising that researchers have found a whole new part of the Arabidopsis plant which we’d somehow missed for over 100
Say hello to Gunggamarandu maunala, or the “hole-headed river boss” – the biggest extinct croc yet found in Australia, and an important addition to the jigsaw of crocodylian evolution. The newly named species, known from a partial skull that was unearthed in Queensland’s Darling Downs region, belongs to a group called the tomistomines. Before
The novel coronavirus may have already arrived in the US by late December 2019, adding to the evidence that the virus was already lurking here at least a month before the country’s first reported case, according to a new study. The study researchers analyzed more than 24,000 blood samples collected in the US from January 2
The main signs of COVID-19 are fever, a cough, fatigue and a loss of your sense of taste and smell. Signs of COVID-19 in the skin have been noted too. But there’s another part of the body where the virus appears to have an impact: the fingernails. Following a COVID-19 infection, for a small
We’re all familiar with songs getting stuck in our head while we’re awake, but it turns out this can happen during sleep as well. A new study investigating the phenomenon indicates that earworms invading our brains at night could cause problems in getting to sleep and staying asleep. “Our brains continue to process music
Earth has finally attained popular recognition for its fifth ocean, with a decision by the National Geographic Society to add the Southern Ocean around Antarctica to the four it recognizes already: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans. Although the designation of the frigid waters around the icy southern continent as a separate ocean has kicked
Last year, a tiny fossil became big news. Trapped inside ancient amber, scientists thought they’d found the skull of a minuscule, hummingbird-like dinosaur with pointy teeth, bulging eyes, and surprisingly robust bones. It was like no ancient bird or dinosaur ever discovered before. That’s because it was actually neither. A similar skeleton found in the
At the mercy of natural selection since the dawn of life, our ancestors adapted, mated and died, passing on tiny genetic mutations that eventually made humans what we are today. But evolution isn’t bound strictly to genes anymore, a new study suggests. Instead, human culture may be driving evolution faster than genetic mutations can work. In
New insights into the peopling of Siberia and human migration into the Americas have been found in what might seem like an unlikely place: gut bugs. Helicobacter pylori is a type of bacterium that lives in people’s digestive tracts and can cause stomach ulcers. It has evolved alongside (and inside) humans for at least the
If we’re going to tackle our microplastic pollution problem, then we need a better understanding of where these fragments and particles are – and a new study suggests that adapting satellite measurements could be one way of doing just that. At the moment, estimates of microplastics in the ocean rely on trawling specific areas
Height varies dramatically between individuals. The tallest person ever measured was 2.72 meters (6.9 feet) tall, whilst the shortest person stood at just 67 centimeters (26 inches). We often consider our height as being unchangeable, determined by our genetic make-up from when we were conceived. After all, tall parents usually have tall children and
As human languages are driven to extinction around the world, a verbal encyclopedia of medical knowledge is on the brink of being forgotten. Among 12,495 medicinal uses for plants in indigenous communities, new research has found over 75 percent of those plants are each tied to just one local language. If these unique words trickle out
Camouflage techniques can usually be relied upon to conceal humans and animals alike, but expertly trained individuals can see through these visual tricks – and scientists have now learned more about how this works. Not only are trained camouflage breakers able to detect that something is hidden in a scene, they’re able to correctly
Humans are driving the extinction of our closest relatives on planet Earth, and if we don’t change our behavior, we may be the last great ape standing. In the worst-case scenario, where human emissions and land use continue as usual, researchers predict a 94 percent loss of great ape habitat in Africa by 2050.
Imagine you’re walking into a forest, and you roll over a fallen log with your foot. Fanning out on the underside, there is something moist and yellow – a bit like something you may have sneezed out, if that something was banana-yellow and spread itself out into elegant fractal branches. What you’re looking at
Your friends are on average more popular than you are, according to a phenomenon known as the “friendship paradox.” Now, a group of mathematicians has come up with a new theory that takes the friendship paradox beyond averages, and they found that their equations describe real-world popularity differences among friends. Sociologist Scott Feld first
A thousand years ago, two Vikings died violently. One, on the Danish island of Funen, died in his 50s, likely from a stab wound to his hip. The other died in his 20s a world away in Oxford, England, his body riddled with wounds and thrown in a mass grave. It would not be
People have reported these experiences for years. Source link
COVID-19 put a spotlight on personal health and safety like perhaps only a pandemic can, but there was one place at least where people didn’t get the memo: American roads. Despite Americans driving hundreds of billions of miles less in 2020 than they did in 2019, deadly traffic accidents actually surged in the year of
As if Australia’s wonderful menagerie of strange beasties wasn’t already unique enough – with biofluorescing mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk – the delightful weirdness extends even to their nether regions. Take an echidna’s junk, for instance. I mean, just look at that magnificent four-tipped monstrosity! “They have to be quite well endowed to get
You’ve probably seen images of scientists peering down a microscope, looking at objects invisible to the naked eye. Indeed, microscopes are indispensable to our understanding of life. They are just as indispensable to biotechnology and medicine, for instance in our response to diseases such as COVID-19. However, the best light microscopes have hit a
Our incredible powers of learning are such a defining part of being human, yet we still don’t fully understand how our brains absorb new skills. Powerful modern imaging techniques, allowing us to look more closely at how memory consolidation works, have just highlighted the importance of wakeful rest in the learning process. Researchers have
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