The fishers are back, in Washington at least.
The first time I heard about fishers was when I was discussing a little-known Florida cryptid, the “cracker dog-killer,” with a friend from Vermont. They […]
Science
Legally, this Spanish lagoon is now a person, with all the rights a person has.
Science magazine reports on a bit of Indigenous philosophy that’s become a legal strategy for environmental protection. After nearly 640,000 citizens signed a petition supporting […]
In case you ever wondered, there are 20 quadrillion ants in the world. And that makes them important.
Reuters reports on a painstaking headcount that proves that for every one of the nearly 8 billion humans on Earth, there are 2.5 million ants: […]
Science Art: Pigtailed Baboon, 1811.
According to the accompanying text, this illustration depicts a baboon species “easily distinguished by its tail, which is four inches long, slender, and exactly like […]
Mammal ancestors survived a mass extinction – but got killed off by drought.
Live Science considers the fate of the shovel lizard Lystrosaurus, a plant-eating creature from 251 million years ago who survived the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, but […]
Gas flares don’t burn off as much methane as they should – to the tune of 3 million cars’ worth of pollution.
Science News looks gas flares, the open flames used to burn off leaking natural gas and to convert methane to CO2 directly at oil fields. […]
Science Art: Bunsen burner flame types, by Arthur Jan Fijałkowski (WarX).
The flame from a Bunsen burner (a standard piece of chemistry equipment; you might have used one in high school) can change color and height […]
Boys (and men) are more socially isolated than girls (and women), study finds.
PsyPost reports on a study of social isolation – “the objective state of having limited social relationships or contact with others” – that found the […]
Humans domesticated animals way earlier than we thought – about 13,000 years ago at least.
Science News reports on the discovery of charred dung in Syria that has rewritten history, pushing back the date of the oldest domesticated animals by […]
Comets from the Milky Way’s other arms helped form Earth’s continents.
Science News winds back the astronomical clock to the early days of Planet Earth, when waves of comet collisions seem to have slammed the planet’s […]
Science Art: New Zealand’s South Island, by Samantha Cristoforetti, 2022.
Here’s a picture of a distinctive bit of geography. There are hobbits down there, and members of Split Enz and The Chills, and some of […]
U.S. Senate is doing something to try to clean up space junk.
The Payload newsletter reports on a new law being debated by American legislators. The ORBITS act is intended to create new technologies for ADR – […]
Looking at the long covid “micro-clot” hypothesis.
Nature investigates the idea that the various symptoms of long covid – which can include cardiac trouble, neurological problems, muscle pain, and general fatigue – […]
Genetic finding shows how modern humans grew more brain cells than Neanderthals.
Science magazine reveals the single gene change that gave Homo sapiens sapiens the edge in brain matter over Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: [Wieland Huttner, a Max […]
Science Art: Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP): GAF’s Gift to Women, 1967.
This is an ad for a chemical that seemed like a miracle in the 60s (at least to this marketing department), but is one of […]