Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueSome of the world’s most ancient rainforests lie in the north of theAustralian state of New South Wales. Continually wet since the time of thedinosaurs, these forests once covered the supercontinent Gondwana. Today,vestiges harbor many endemic and evolutionarily unique plants and animals.“Normally vibrant, green and lustrous,” these forests “feed your soul,” saysMark Graham, an ecologist...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueSome of the world’s most ancient rainforests lie in the north of theAustralian state of New South Wales. Continually wet since the time of thedinosaurs, these forests once covered the supercontinent Gondwana. Today,vestiges harbor many endemic and evolutionarily unique plants and animals.“Normally vibrant, green and lustrous,” these forests “feed your soul,” saysMark Graham, an ecologist...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueTo heat a slice of pizza, you probably wouldn’tconsider first chilling it in the fridge. But a theoretical study suggests thatcooling, as a first step before heating, may be the fastest way to warm upcertain materials. In fact, such precooling could lead sometimes to , two physicists calculate in a study accepted in Physical Review Letters.The concept is similar to , the counterintuitive —...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueTo heat a slice of pizza, you probably wouldn’tconsider first chilling it in the fridge. But a theoretical study suggests thatcooling, as a first step before heating, may be the fastest way to warm upcertain materials. In fact, such precooling could lead sometimes to , two physicists calculate in a study accepted in Physical Review Letters.The concept is similar to , the counterintuitive —...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueAtoms ofantimatter and matter are perfect mirror images, even when weird quantum phenomenacome into play.Theenergy levels of antihydrogen atoms — the antimatter opposites of hydrogenatoms — , just as hydrogen atoms are, physicists report February19 in Nature.Hydrogenatoms can exist in several states of higher and lower energy, known as energylevels. Some subtle quantum effects slightly alter...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueAtoms ofantimatter and matter are perfect mirror images, even when weird quantum phenomenacome into play.Theenergy levels of antihydrogen atoms — the antimatter opposites of hydrogenatoms — , just as hydrogen atoms are, physicists report February19 in Nature.Hydrogenatoms can exist in several states of higher and lower energy, known as energylevels. Some subtle quantum effects slightly alter...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueClimate change is threatening to dry up the Colorado River — jeopardizinga water supply that serves some 40 million people from Denver to Phoenix to LasVegas and irrigates farmlands across the U.S. Southwest.Computer simulations of the Colorado River Basin indicate that, onaverage, a regional temperature increase of 1.4 degrees Celsius over the lastcentury reduced the annual amount of water...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueClimate change is threatening to dry up the Colorado River — jeopardizinga water supply that serves some 40 million people from Denver to Phoenix to LasVegas and irrigates farmlands across the U.S. Southwest.Computer simulations of the Colorado River Basin indicate that, onaverage, a regional temperature increase of 1.4 degrees Celsius over the lastcentury reduced the annual amount of water...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueWhen the ponds where oneAfrican fish lives dry up, its offspring put their lives on pause. And nowresearchers have a sense for how the creatures do it.  African turquoise killifish embryoscan halt their development duringa state of suspended activity called diapause. Now a study shows that the embryoseffectively don’t age while in that state. Genetic analyses reveal that, tostay frozen in...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueWhen the ponds where oneAfrican fish lives dry up, its offspring put their lives on pause. And nowresearchers have a sense for how the creatures do it.  African turquoise killifish embryoscan halt their development duringa state of suspended activity called diapause. Now a study shows that the embryoseffectively don’t age while in that state. Genetic analyses reveal that, tostay frozen in...WW…

February 18, 2020 at 7:00 amThe excavation of an in Iraqi Kurdistan has revived a decades-long debateover whether Neandertals intentionally buried their dead.Analyses of the fossils, unearthed from the region’sShanidar Cave, and the surrounding sediment indicate the individual was placedat the bottom of a shallow depression that someone had dug, scientists reportin the February Antiquity.The discovery follows excavations in Shanidar from 1951 to1960 that yielded fossils from 10 other Neandertals, including a partialskeleton known as the “flower burial” for the ancient clumps of pollen...…February 18, 2020 at 7:00 amThe excavation of an in Iraqi Kurdistan has revived a decades-long debateover whether Neandertals intentionally buried their dead.Analyses of the fossils, unearthed from the region’sShanidar Cave, and the surrounding sediment indicate the individual was placedat the bottom of a shallow depression that someone had dug, scientists reportin the February Antiquity.The discovery follows excavations in Shanidar from 1951 to1960 that yielded fossils from 10 other Neandertals, including a partialskeleton known as the “flower burial” for the ancient clumps of pollen...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueExactly how deadly COVID-19 is remains up in the air. and undetected cases — or ones so mild they don’t seek medical attention — make it hard to pin down how many are infected. And that number is crucial for calculating the ratio of people who may die from COVID-19.Enter the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Quarantined at sea off Japan after a passenger tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the ship...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueExactly how deadly COVID-19 is remains up in the air. and undetected cases — or ones so mild they don’t seek medical attention — make it hard to pin down how many are infected. And that number is crucial for calculating the ratio of people who may die from COVID-19.Enter the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Quarantined at sea off Japan after a passenger tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the ship...WW…

February 26, 2020 at 2:35 pmThe farside of the moon is alunar layer cake. New data from China’s Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 roverreveal down to a depth of 40 meters, suggesting a history ofviolent impacts, scientists report February 26 in Science Advances.“We know much of the moon’snearside” from the Soviet Lunokhod and , but little about the farside, says lunar scientist YanSu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “The Chang’e-4 missionrevealed the first ‘ground-truth’ detailed subsurface stratigraphy … on thefarside of the moon.”Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 becamethe in January 2019,...…February 26, 2020 at 2:35 pmThe farside of the moon is alunar layer cake. New data from China’s Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 roverreveal down to a depth of 40 meters, suggesting a history ofviolent impacts, scientists report February 26 in Science Advances.“We know much of the moon’snearside” from the Soviet Lunokhod and , but little about the farside, says lunar scientist YanSu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “The Chang’e-4 missionrevealed the first ‘ground-truth’ detailed subsurface stratigraphy … on thefarside of the moon.”Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 becamethe in January 2019,...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueBit by bit, physicists are winnowingdown the potential masses for hypothetical particles called axions.If they exist, the subatomic particlescould make up dark matter, a mysterious source of mass that pervades theuniverse. Axions are expected to be extremely lightweight — billionths ortrillionths the mass of an electron. But there were in a mass range between 2.81 millionths and...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinueBit by bit, physicists are winnowingdown the potential masses for hypothetical particles called axions.If they exist, the subatomic particlescould make up dark matter, a mysterious source of mass that pervades theuniverse. Axions are expected to be extremely lightweight — billionths ortrillionths the mass of an electron. But there were in a mass range between 2.81 millionths and...WW…

Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinuePhysicists’ fantasies of a futurequantum internet are a bit closer to reality.Scientists that were linked by fibers tens of kilometers long. Entanglement,a type of ethereal quantum connection, allows two particles to behave as if intertwinedeven when distantly separated. The new study entangled two devices called quantummemories using particles of light that were shuttled across a longer...…Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, .ContinuePhysicists’ fantasies of a futurequantum internet are a bit closer to reality.Scientists that were linked by fibers tens of kilometers long. Entanglement,a type of ethereal quantum connection, allows two particles to behave as if intertwinedeven when distantly separated. The new study entangled two devices called quantummemories using particles of light that were shuttled across a longer...WW…