Keep up to date on the world of science with these selected links to online articles in a variety of disciplines, updated regularly.
***NEW FOR JANUARY***
From UChicago News:
How the Earth and Moon Formed, Explained
(Astronomy)
From Pocket:
How Dinosaurs Thrived in the Snow
(Paleontology)
From ScienceAlert:
Scientists Have Finally Discovered Why The Brain Consumes So Much Energy, Even at Rest
(Neuroscience)
From ScienceAlert:
Mysterious Vanishing of Advanced Chinese Civilization 4,000 Years Ago Finally Solved
(Archaeology)
***ARCHIVE***
Agricultural Science
From Smithsonian Magazine:
The Nation’s Corn Belt Has Lost a Third of Its Topsoil
Anthroplogy
From Pocket:
Genetics Spills Secrets From Neanderthals’ Lost History
From CNN:
Fossilized Footprints Show Humans Made It to North America Much Earlier Than First Thought
From Aeon:
Sheanderthal
From Smithsonian Magazine:
Who Invented the Alphabet?
From Smithsonian Magazine:
The Lost History of Yellowstone
(Anthropology)
From Pocket:
Did Prehistoric Women Hunt? New Research Suggests So
From Pocket:
How the Extinction of Ice Age Mammals May Have Forced Us to Invent Civilization
From Phys Org:
Scientists Present a Theory Explaining Why We’re the Only Humans on Earth
Archaeology
From Pocket:
New Evidence Supports Idea that America’s First Civilization was Made Up of ‘Sophisticated’ Engineers
From Pocket:
Archaeologists Have a Lot of Dates Wrong for North American Indigenous History
From Pocket:
The Mysterious Bronze Objects that Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries
Astronomy
From Quantamagazine:
The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works.
From Nautilus:
Where Aliens Could Be Watching Us
From LiveScience:
How Fast is Earth Moving?
From UChicago News:
The Solar Wind, Explained
From space.com:
Potentially Habitable Exoplanet Candidate Spotted Around Alpha Centauri A in Earth’s Backyard
From Pocket:
Astronomers Creep Up to the Edge of the Milky Way’s Black Hole
From space.com:
More than half of all sunlike stars in the Milky Way may have a habitable planet
From Pocket:
The Sun Is Stranger Than Astrophysicists Imagined
From CNN:
Andromeda Galaxy’s ‘Halo’ is Nudging the Milky Way
From space.com:
Satellite Megaconstellations Could Have ‘Extreme’ Impact on Astronomy, Report Finds
From Pocket:
Our Solar System Is Even Stranger Than We Thought
From MSU:
MSU Astrophysicists Study Mystery Object Through Gravitational Waves
From Sky & Telescope:
Potential Biosignature Found in Venus’s Clouds
Biology
From Quanta Magazine:
Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien
From Science:
Breeders Toughen Up Bees to Resist Deadly Mites
From CNN:
How Mosquitoes Evolved to be Attracted to Humans, and What that Means for the Future
From Science:
Pools in the Mexican Desert are a Window into Earth’s Early Life
Botany
From Science Daily:
Plants Evolved Complexity in Two Bursts — with a 250-Million-Year Hiatus
From Pocket:
A 16-Million-Year-Old Tree Tells a Deep Story of the Passage of Time
Chemistry
From Science News:
Chemists are Reimagining Recycling to Keep Plastics Out of Landfills
From Chemistry World:
The Complexity of Fire
From Scientific American:
One Mystery of Stonehenge’s Origins Has Finally Been Solved
Climate Science
From CNN:
The Arctic Ocean Began Warming Decades Earlier than Peviously Thought, New Research Shows
(Climate science)
From IPCC:
Climate change widespread, rapid, and intensifying – IPCC
From LiveScience:
10 Signs That Earth’s Climate Is Off the Rails
From space.com:
Earth is Trapping Twice as Much Heat as it did in 2005
From NASA:
Direct Observations Confirm that Humans are Throwing Earth’s Energy Budget off Balance
From space.com:
Seas Will Likely Rise Even Faster Than Worst-Case Scenarios Predicted by Climate Models
From LiveScience:
Why Do Deserts Get So Cold at Night?
From space.com:
Scientists Solve a Major Climate Mystery, Confirming Earth is Hotter than It’s Been in at Least 120 Centuries
From space.com:
We’ve Already Blown Past the Warming Targets Set by the Paris Climate Agreement, Study Finds
From Pocket:
An Icy Conquest
From Pocket:
A World Without Clouds
From The Ohio State University:
Warming Greenland Ice Sheet Passes Point of No Return
From ProPublica:
New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States
Cosmology
From space.com:
Is There Really a ‘Crisis’ in Cosmology?
From space.com:
Dark Matter Could be Made of Black Holes from the Beginning of Time
From space.com:
Mysterious ‘Kick’ Just After the Big Bang May have Created Dark Matter
From Quanta Magazine:
How to Understand the Universe When You’re Stuck Inside of It
From Pocket:
Bizarre ‘Dark Fluid’ With Negative Mass Could Dominate the Universe
From Sky & Telescope:
New 3D Map of the Universe — and a Growing Cosmological Debate
From Quantamagazine:
A New Cosmic Tension: The Universe Might Be Too Thin
Food Science
From Pocket:
The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life
Geology
From space.com:
Earth’s Crust is Way, Way Older Than We Thought
From USGS:
Just How Long has the Yellowstone Hotspot been Around?
From space.com:
Earth Spent 500 Million Years Creating and Eating Dead Continents
From Knowable Magazine:
The Origin of Mud
From Science:
Ancient Earth Rock Found on the Moon
From Space.com
How did Earth Crack? New Study May Explain Origins of Plate Tectonics on our Planet.
Geoscience
From Pocket:
Earth Has a 27.5-Million-Year ‘Heartbeat’, But We Don’t Know What Causes It
From LiveScience:
The Five Mass Extinction Events that Shaped the History of Earth — and the Sixth that’s Happening Now
From BBC:
How Cities Will Fossilize
From space.com:
Earth nearly lost all its oxygen 2.3 billion years ago
Mathematics
From Quanta Magazine:
Scientists Uncover the Universal Geometry of Geology
Medicine
From CNN:
Ancient Case of Disease Spillover Discovered in Neanderthal Man Who Got Sick Butchering Raw Meat
(Medicine)
From The Washington Post:
How the Hunt for this Deadly Virus Shaped the Search for Coronavirus’s Origins
From Interesting Engineering:
Researchers Fix Cholesterol in Monkeys Through CRISPR Gene Editing
From The New York Times:
What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?
From Duke University:
Duke Researcher Busts Metabolism Myths in New Book
From New York Times:
Opinion: The Secret Life of a Coronavirus
From The Conversation:
End of Ageing and Cancer? Scientists Unveil Structure of the ‘Immortality’ Enzyme Telomerase
From Scientific American:
Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time
From Wired:
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants from Cancer
From Scientific American:
A Visual Guide to the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus – What scientists know about the inner workings of the pathogen that has infected the world
From Gizmodo:
Bacteria Found in Nuclear Reactors Could Be the Secret to Faster, Cheaper Vaccines
From Yellowstone Public Radio:
MSU Researcher Says Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Were Tip Of Iceberg
Meteorology
From The Conversation:
What is a Derecho? An Atmospheric Scientist Explains these Rare but Dangerous Storm Systems
Neuroscience
From Pocket:
Scientists Say Your “Mind” Isn’t Confined to Your Brain, or Even Your Body
(Neuroscience)
From space.com:
Brains Might Sync As People Interact — and That Could Upend Consciousness Research
From Time Magazine:
Why Do We Dream? A New Theory on How It Protects Our Brains
Paleontology
From Pocket:
We Still Don’t Know Why the Reign of the Dinosaurs Ended
From Nautilus:
T. Rex Was a Slacker
From Science (AAAS):
How many T. rexes were there? Billions.
From Science:
Mammoth Molars Yield the Oldest DNA Ever Sequenced
From Quanta Magazine:
Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start
From Pocket:
The Brontosaurus Is Back
From Wired:
How to Outrun a Dinosaur
From Wired:
Paleontologists Are Trying to Understand Why the Fossil Record Is Mostly Males
From Pocket:
Why Does the U.S. Army Own So Many Fossils?
Physics
From space.com:
Twisted Light from the Beginning of Time Could Reveal Brand-New Physics
From Quanta Magazine:
Dark Energy May Be Incompatible With String Theory
From Quantamagazine:
Why Gravity Is Not Like the Other Forces
From Space.com:
The Universe’s Clock Might have Bigger Ticks than We Imagine
From Pocket:
What Does Quantum Theory Actually Tell Us about Reality?
Space Science
From Nautilus:
If Aliens Exist, Here’s How We’ll Find Them
Technology
From CNN:
World’s First Living Robots Can Now Reproduce, Scientists Say
(Technology)
From Quantamagazine:
The Uselessness of Useful Knowledge
From The Guardian:
Scientists May Have Solved Ancient Mystery of ‘First Computer’
From Quanta Magazine:
How Claude Shannon Invented the Future
Zoology
From Audubon:
Do Migrating Birds Take the Same Routes in Spring and Fall?
From Pocket:
Why Whales Got So Big
From The Wildlife Society:
The Synergistic Relationship Between Bats and Prairie Dogs
From Pocket:
Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles
From Pocket:
The Ocean’s Largest Mystery—Why Has No One Seen a Whale Shark Give Birth?
From Pocket:
Birds Sing to Their Eggs, and This Song Might Help Their Babies Survive Climate Change
From Science (AAAS):
Team recovers ancient genomes from dirt, revealing new history of North America’s bears
From Science:
The Legendary Dire Wolf May Not have Been a Wolf At All
From George Bumann’s Blog:
To Catch a Raven
From The Conversation/Pocket:
How Did the World’s Smallest Flightless Bird Get to Inaccessible Island?
From NPR:
The Evolutionary History of Penguins Is Far From Black And White
From Science:
Urban Foxes May be Self-domesticating in our Midst
From Pocket:
A Parliament of Owls