Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 412 words
| Trudie Dory
One idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. The theory goes that the energy released by a nuclear bomb detonated just above and ahead of the eye of a storm would heat the cooler air there, disrupting the storm's convection current.
Unfortunately, this idea, which has been around in some form since the 1960s, wouldn't work.
[50 Amazing Hurricane Facts]
[Read More]Candid Camera: Shark Gulps Another Shark Whole
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 382 words
| Arica Deslauriers
The photo says it all: an alien-looking shark, adorned with mossy hairs and a flat face, with its mouth agape and a slender bamboo shark headfirst inside. Though not unusual for a shark to snack on another shark, it's not typical behavior — and it's certainly not common for humans to catch the action firsthand.
In fact, the researchers who came upon the shark-eat-shark scene on the fringes of Great Keppel Island on the southern Great Barrier Reef didn't realize at first what they were looking at.
[Read More]Colossal Flood Created the Mediterranean Sea
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 317 words
| Trudie Dory
The Mediterranean Sea as we know it today formed about 5.3 million years ago when Atlantic Ocean waters breached the strait of Gibraltar, sending a massive flood into the basin.
Geologists have long known that the Mediterranean became isolated from the world's oceans around 5.6 million years ago, evaporating almost completely in the hundreds of thousands of years that followed.
Scientists also largely agree that the Mediterranean basin was refilled when the movements of Earth's crustal plates caused the ground around the Gibraltar Strait to subside, allowing the ocean waters of the Atlantic to cut through the rock separating the two basins and refill the sea.
[Read More]Elusive Wild Dog Species Spotted in Thailand
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 364 words
| Trudie Dory
The elusive and endangered dhole, or Asiatic wild dog, has been found roaming the forests of four nature reserves in Thailand. Working with photographs snapped by camera traps set up in 15 Thai parks, researchers have created the first map showing where dholes in this region likely live and what areas are suitable habitats for them.
The wild dogs favor areas deep within parks, far from humans. Enhanced protective programs near forest edges could help preserve dholes, which are more likely to be shot or poisoned when they come too close to civilization.
[Read More]Female moles grow testicles to fight through their brutal underground existence
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 688 words
| Arica Deslauriers
If any animal understands the horrors of trench warfare, it has to be the mole. Faced with an enemy, there's no time for pleasantries. No place to hide. Aggression is all that matters.
To help them fight in this brutal world, evolution has granted the female mole a generous dose of 'roid rage' by tacking some testicles onto her ovaries – resulting in a unique bit of anatomy called an ovotestis.
[Read More]Perfectly-preserved 'bog beetles' nearly as old as Egypt's pyramids
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 485 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Two thumb-size beetles found preserved in an English bog may look as though they died as recently as yesterday, but in reality they're nearly as ancient as Egypt's pyramids, new research finds.
The two oak capricorn beetles (that belonged to the genus Cerambyx) date back 3,785 years, according to radiocarbon dating. That means these beetles perished inside a piece of bogwood just as the last woolly mammoths were dying out on Siberia's Wrangel Island, half a world over.
[Read More]Plague: A Scourge From Ancient to Modern Times
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 9 minutes
| 1831 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Plague is often associated with the Middle Ages, but the infamous disease wreaked havoc before and after that time, and continues to infect people today. If left untreated, the bubonic plague can have a fatality rate of 50 to 60 percent, according to the World Health Organization. Antibiotics, developed in the 1940s, are effective in treating plague today.
Plague is found on every continent, but currently, plague is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar.
[Read More]Sea Slug Offers Clues to Improving Long-Term Memory
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 831 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Using sea slugs as models, scientists someday may be able to design learning protocols that improve long-term memory formation in humans, a new study suggests.
The researchers used information about biochemical pathways in the brain of the sea slug Aplysia to design a computer model that identified the times when the mollusk’s brain is primed for learning. They tested the model by submitting the animals to a series of training sessions, involving electric shocks, and found that Aplysia experienced a significant increase in memory formation when the sessions were conducted during the peak periods predicted by the model.
[Read More]Social Media Use in Teens Linked to Poor Sleep, Anxiety
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 443 words
| Patria Henriques
The pressure to be available 24/7 on social media may lead to poorer sleep quality as well as an increased risk of depression and anxiety in teens, according to a new study.
In the study, researchers asked 467 teenagers ages 11 to 17 about their use of social media during the day and at night. In other tests, they examined the teens' sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety and depression. They also looked at whether and to what extent the kids felt the pressure to be available on social media all the time.
[Read More]Surprise! Icebergs Spotted in Lake Superior
Posted on November 25, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 505 words
| Fernande Dalal
Though it's starting to feel like summer in the Great Lakes region, with temperatures soaring into the 80s (Fahrenheit), icebergs are still loitering in Lake Superior — a reminder of an especially harsh winter.
Last week, a marine warden with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was patrolling Lake Superior when she spotted seagulls resting on a huge chunk of ice near Madeline Island, off the northern coast of Wisconsin.
"Normally the ice is mostly gone by end of April with some bays having some ice chunks floating around,"
[Read More]