Notebook
- Paleontology
‘Hidden dragon’ fossil is oldest flying reptile
Researchers have unearthed the oldest pterodactyl ever discovered: Kptodrakon progenitor soared over the Earth 163 million years ago.
- Tech
Animated movies made by computer
A 17-minute animated movie made with a computer in 1964 took 2,000 hours of film processing and cost $600 per minute. The 2013 animated film Frozen cost about $1.5 million per minute to make.
- Physics
Laser kicks molecules into fastest ever spin
The powerful kick of a laser has spun molecules faster than they’ve ever been spun before: 10 trillion rotations per second, or 600 trillion RPM.
- Microbes
One giant leap for zit-causing microbes
A bacterium that lives on humans and causes acne also hopped to domesticated grapevines and relies on the plant for crucial DNA repairs.
- Neuroscience
What’s behind rising autism rates
Better diagnosis may be driving a recent spike in autism.
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- Animals
See-through shrimp flex invisible muscle
Much of the body of a Pederson’s transparent shrimp looks like watery nothing, but it’s a superhero sort of nothing.
- Paleontology
Ancient crustacean had elaborate heart
The now-extinct Fuxianhuia protensa had a fancy cardiovascular system that sent blood to its limbs and organs, including its brain.
- Science & Society
Millions of working mamas
It has been a long time since millions of American women working outside the home was big sociological news. Women are now 47 percent of the U.S. workforce.
- Psychology
Grief takes its toll
A person’s risk of heart attack or stroke is doubled in the month following the death of a spouse or partner.
- Tech
English Channel tunnel
First proposed in 1802 as a tunnel for horse-drawn carriages, the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, was built starting in 1987 and opened in 1994.
- Paleontology
The dinosaur ‘chicken from hell’
Fossils suggest that a supersized chickenlike reptile called Anzu wyliei roamed what are now the Dakotas roughly 67 million years ago.
