All Stories by Maria Temming
- Earth
Smoke from Australian fires rose higher into the ozone layer than ever before
The catastrophic wildfires in Australia around New Year’s generated a massive smoke plume that still hasn’t dissipated in the stratosphere.
- Space
A Milky Way flash implicates magnetars as a source of fast radio bursts
A bright radio burst seen from a magnetar in the Milky Way suggests that similar objects produce the mysterious fast radio bursts observed in other galaxies.
- Space
Half the universe’s ordinary matter was missing — and may have been found
Astronomers have used fast radio bursts as cosmic weigh stations to tease out where the universe’s “missing matter” resides.
- Animals
New species of scaly, deep-sea worms named after Elvis have been found
A genetic analysis sheds new light on funky scale worms with glittery, scales reminiscent of sequins on the “The King’s” iconic jumpsuits.
- Tech
A new artificial eye mimics and may outperform human eyes
A new artificial eyeball boasts a field of view and reaction time similar to that of real eyes.
- Chemistry
Moisture, not light, explains why Munch’s ‘The Scream’ is deteriorating
Edvard Munch’s 1910 “The Scream” is famous for its loud colors. New insight into paint preservation could keep those pigments from fading out.
- Tech
Wiggling wheels could keep future rovers trucking in loose lunar soil
A rover that wriggles through soil could climb hills on the moon or Mars that are too steep for a simple wheeled bot.
- Archaeology
Brewing beer may be an older craft than we realized in some places
Newly discovered microscopic signatures of malting could help archaeologists detect traces of ancient beer.
- Earth
Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice inland, but still losing it overall
Inland ice accumulation is not enough to counteract the amount of ice melting off Antarctica and Greenland into the oceans, satellite data show.
- Paleontology
A ‘crazy beast’ from the time of dinosaurs belongs to an obscure mammal group
Paleontologists have finally matched a bizarre fossil, Adalatherium hui, to an obscure group of ancient mammals called gondwanatherians.
- Planetary Science
This is the most comprehensive map of the moon’s geology yet
Cartographers merged Apollo-era maps and modern lunar observations to into a new geologic map of the moon.
- Paleontology
The first frog fossil from Antarctica has been found
An ancient amphibian from Antarctica gives new insight into when the continent got so cold.
