News
- Archaeology
Stone Age people used bone scrapers to make leather and pelts
African cave finds include remains of skinned creatures and hide scrapers made from animal ribs.
- Paleontology
Fossil tracks may reveal an ancient elephant nursery
Fossilized footprints at a site in Spain include those of an extinct elephant’s newborns, suggesting the animals may have used the area as a nursery.
- Climate
Australian fires in 2019–2020 had even more global reach than previously thought
Recent devastating wildfires in Australia added vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the air and triggered blooms of marine algae in the Southern Ocean.
- Agriculture
Potty-trained cattle could help reduce pollution
About a dozen calves have been trained to pee in a stall. Toilet training cows on a large scale could cut down on pollution, researchers say.
- Earth
How AI can help forecast how much Arctic sea ice will shrink
Trained on sea ice observations and climate simulations, IceNet is 95 percent accurate in forecasting sea ice extent two months in advance.
- Astronomy
A supernova’s delayed reappearance could pin down how fast the universe expands
“SN Requiem” should reappear in the 2030s and help determine the universe’s expansion rate.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Perseverance rover snagged its first Martian rock samples
Two tubes of stone drilled from a basalt rock nicknamed Rochette are the first from Mars slated to eventually return to Earth.
- Animals
A newfound boa sports big eyes and a square nose
Among the smallest boas in the world, the Hispaniolan vineboa inhabits a small patch of dry forest along the Dominican Republic’s border with Haiti.
- Life
Infants may laugh like some apes in their first months of life
Laughter seems to change over life’s early months, perhaps influenced by the unconscious feedback parents give when they play with their little ones.
- Earth
Clouds affected by wildfire smoke may produce less rain
As wildfires become more frequent in the western United States, these low-rain clouds could exacerbate drought, fueling more fires.
- Animals
How metal-infused jaws give some ants an exceptionally sharp bite
Some small animals make cuts, tears and punctures that they couldn’t otherwise do using body parts reinforced with metals such as zinc and manganese.
- Chemistry
A pinch of saturated fat could make tempering chocolate a breeze
Adding a small amount of fatty molecules to cocoa butter could simplify the labor-intensive tempering process to create melt-in-your-mouth chocolate.
