One fatty meal can reduce your ability to focus.
Science Daily reports on Ohio State University research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that finds a single meal high in saturated fats, […]
Science
Music of a pulsing star reveals its inner structure.
Nature looks inside pulsing stars – not pulsars, but a group called “δ Scuti stars” – that flicker in a regular enough pattern that astronomers […]
Pluto (probably) got whacked on one side so hard it jiggled on the other, thanks to a (partially) liquid center.
Scientific American shows how the dwarf planet at the fringes of our solar system was partially shaped by a cartoonish reaction to a major collision: […]
Science Art: Albumasar De magnis coniunctionibus, 1515
Click to embiggen Ja’far ibn Muḥammad Abū Ma’shar wrote a book – and published it in Venice. It was the place to be, and to […]
A llama antibody.
I’m trying to keep COVID-19 research to a minimum here, just because there’s so much of it everywhere, but I couldn’t resist this piece from […]
How your snack bags can give you away.
Scientific American is doing a deep, multi-story dive on privacy issues, and this one’s a doozy. Researchers have used an irregularly shaped shiny object, like […]
Spinosaurs were swimmers: “the only known aquatic dinosaur.”
Nature has a video up with paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim, who discusses tailbones from the Sahara that indicate this gigantic, prehistoric bird relative swam for its […]
Science Art: Gradus Peas, Petoskey or Paul Rose Musk Melon, 1899
Click to embiggen From the D.M. Ferry & Co. Seed Annual, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Fresh vegetables, fresh muskmelon. Mmm. I do love a […]
Oldest known cave paintings show modern human thoughts – as a story.
Scientific American marvels over paintings found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi – 44,000-year-old images of fantastic beast-men that bear signs of modern human ways […]
Insects are dying off – except those living in fresh water.
The Guardian has grim news for bugs (which include critters like the bees that pollinate our crops) with a little flash of hope. Insect populations […]
Science Art: Cosmic Reef, by the Hubble Space Telescope
Click to embiggen Astronomers are marking the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope with a “ portrait of a firestorm of starbirth in a […]
Flattening the curve of misinformation.
Nature takes time out from COVID-19 news to inveigh against another kind of epidemic – of online viral content that’s, shall we say, too often […]
On behalf of America’s southeastern quadrant: Oh, GREAT! Early hurricane predictions are in. And big.
It’s going to be a rough season again, Science News lets us know. Tropical weather forecasters are predicting 18 named storms and at least four […]
Science Art: Photograph taken from a high-speed video camera during a record-setting firing of an electromagnetic railgun (EMRG)…, 2008.
Click to embiggen No gunpowder was harmed in the making of this photograph. That’s just the power of a lot of magnetism making a hunk […]
Medieval Blue is Remade
Science News opens a new book on an old pigment, reconstructing a botanical purple-blue hue that had puzzled medievalists for ages: The pigment, called folium, […]