Better bottles.
The Guardian looks forward to a time when our plastic bottles will be replaced with plant-based containers that turn into, essentially, mulch in a year: […]
Science
Science Art: Devonian Marine Organisms, by Aleksandra Arkhipova, 2015
Click to embiggen vastly From the “Scientific Illustration” collection on Wikimedia Commons, where this image of trilobites and prehistoric shellfish has the following in-depth description: […]
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, […]
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 […]