Pompeii Man Had a Really, Really Bad Day 2,000 Years Ago
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 424 words
| Fernande Dalal
Archaeologists in Pompeii just unearthed the headless skeleton of an unfortunate man who appears to have died in the great explosion of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The man was decapitated by a large, 1-meter-long rock, researchers found.
The man, who was at least 30 years old, was the first victim to be found in a new, unexplored excavation site called Regio V, north of the city, according to a statement from the Pompeii Archaeological Park.
[Read More]Rarest Bumblebee in US Rediscovered
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 530 words
| Arica Deslauriers
An elusive bumblebee, which was last seen in 1956, was recently found living in the White Mountains of south-central New Mexico, scientists announced Monday (Dec. 5).
Known as "Cockerell's bumblebee," the bee was first described in 1913 using six specimens collected along the Rio Ruidoso, a river located in the Sierra Blanca and Sacramento Mountains, N.M. Over the years, one more sample was found in Ruidoso, and 16 specimens were collected near the town of Cloudcroft, N.
[Read More]Real Octomom Gives Birth to Little Octopods on Video
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 214 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Here's something you don't see every day: the birth of thousands of octopi, caught on film.
These tiny octopuses are the offspring of a Caribbean Octopus vulgaris acquired by the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco in January. Soon after the octopus moved into the aquarium, biologist Richard Ross writes on his blog at Advanced Aquarist, she surprised everyone by laying eggs. Three weeks later, those eggs hatched, turning the octopus' tank into a "
[Read More]Seminal Study: Hungry Female Squid Snack on Sperm
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 703 words
| Patria Henriques
Updated at 9:21 a.m. ET.
Sometimes, gifts get put to surprising uses.
And scientists have found possibly one of the wackiest: The female southern bottletail squid will eat packages of sperm that males passed to them to fertilize eggs.
The study, published today (June 4) in the journal Biology Letters, found that during mating, a male places a sperm package into the cavity that contains the female's mouth. Most of the time, the sperm becomes a tasty snack for the female.
[Read More]Short Legs Win Evolution Battle
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 355 words
| Fernande Dalal
In a reptilian version of "Survivor," lizards with longer legs ultimately get booted from islands by their short-legged opponents.
Countering the widespread view of evolution as an eon-long process, evolutionary biologists discovered that when island lizards were exposed to a new predator, natural selection occurred in a six-month period, first favoring longer and then shorter hind legs.
The findings are detailed in the Nov. 17 issue of the journal Science.
[Read More]SpaceX is about to run its final test of Starship SN9 before 1st launch
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 321 words
| Arica Deslauriers
SpaceX is gearing up to test the ninth prototype of its big, shiny rocket, Starship SN9 Wednesday (Jan. 20), lighting up its engines for what should be the last time before its inaugural flight. The test is expected before 5 p.m. Central Time.
The rocket won't go anywhere during this "static fire" test. (Or, at least, it's not supposed to.) But if all goes according to plan, this test should clear the way for a launch in the near future, though SpaceX has not set a date.
[Read More]Weird-Looking, Meat-Eating Sponge Found In Deep Sea
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 508 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A new carnivore shaped like a candelabra has been spotted in deep ocean waters off California's Monterey Bay.
The meat-eating species was dubbed the "harp sponge," so-called because its structure resembles a harp or lyre turned on its side.
A team from the Monterey Bay Research Aquarium Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., discovered the sponge in 2000 while exploring with a remotely operated vehicle. The sponges live nearly 2 miles (3.
[Read More]Why Aren't Hunter-Gatherers Obese?
Posted on January 2, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 346 words
| Patria Henriques
The world is getting fatter, and a Western lifestyle is widely portrayed as the culprit, since it is believed to be at odds with the genetic legacy of modern humans' hunter-gatherer ancestors.
So, how does this Western lifestyle really stack up against that of hunter-gatherers? To find out, researchers turned to the Hadza, modern hunter-gatherers whose habitat is the savanna of northern Tanzania.
"While no living population is a perfect model of our species' past, the Hadza lifestyle is similar in critical ways to those of our Pleistocene ancestors,"
[Read More]60 Million American Birdwatchers Chase Ever-Shrinking Quarry (Op-Ed)
Posted on January 1, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 803 words
| Fernande Dalal
Bradnee Chambers, executive secretary of the United Nations Environment Programme Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Over this weekend, bird-watchers from all over the world will get together to celebrate birds and the amazing journeys they take every season. If you're a bird-watcher, these are among most important days in your calendar year: May 10-11, the weekend of World Migratory Bird Day.
[Read More]Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Algorithms Can Be Racist. Here's Why She's Right.
Posted on January 1, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 743 words
| Fernande Dalal
Last week, newly elected U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines when she said, as part of the fourth annual MLK Now event, that facial-recognition technologies and algorithms "always have these racial inequities that get translated, because algorithms are still made by human beings, and those algorithms are still pegged to basic human assumptions. They're just automated. And automated assumptions — if you don't fix the bias, then you're just automating the bias.
[Read More]