Mysterious Black Mats on Earth Not From Outer Space

 Posted on November 1, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  561 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

What seemed like evidence of prehistoric cosmic impacts might just be clumps of earthly dust, findings that shed light on the heated debate over whether these impacts triggered recent mass extinctions, researchers say. A giant cosmic collision with Earth and an asteroid or comet is now the leading culprit behind the mass extinction that ended the Age of Dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. However, there is much controversy regarding whether a cosmic explosion, or something else, caused a more recent mass extinction — the one that wiped out most of the large mammals in North America as well as the so-called Clovis people about 12,900 years ago. [Read More]

Pig virus may have contributed to death of man with 1st porcine heart transplant

 Posted on November 1, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  385 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

A pig virus may have contributed to the death of a man who received a groundbreaking transplant using a pig heart, according to news reports. The man, 57-year-old David Bennett Sr., died on March 8, two months after his pig-heart transplant surgery. The heart used in the transplant was from a pig that had been genetically modified to make its heart more acceptable to a human immune system. Now, Dr. Bartley Griffith, director of the Cardiac Transplant Program at University of Maryland Medical Center who performed the transplant, has revealed that DNA from porcine cytomegalovirus, a virus that infects pigs, was detected in the patient prior to his death, according to MIT Technology Review. [Read More]

Rusty saber, possibly wielded by medieval Turkish pirates, unearthed in Greece

 Posted on November 1, 2022  |  6 minutes  |  1109 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

A rusty medieval saber, or one-edged sword, unearthed at a fortified Christian monastery in northern Greece might be a deadly weapon that either raiding Turkish pirates or the monastery's defenders wielded hundreds of years ago.  The discovery of the saber is unusual, as iron weapons from this period usually quickly rust away. The style of this weapon, too, is unusual — but it turns out that such curved, one-edged swords were used both by Turks and Byzantines at around the time of the attack in the 14th century, said archaeologist Errikos Maniotis, a doctoral candidate at Masaryk University in Brno in the Czech Republic, who studied the sword. [Read More]

Stacked 'Mega Moon rocket' is ready to roll, NASA says

 Posted on November 1, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  655 words  |  Fernande Dalal

NASA's upcoming lunar mission Artemis I is about to roll a little closer to getting an official launch date. The stacked spacecraft and rocket have been cleared to trundle out to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday (March 17) for prelaunch tests, NASA representatives announced on Monday (March 14) at a press briefing(opens in new tab).  The Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket — also known by NASA(opens in new tab) as the " [Read More]

Watch amazing video of cockatoos that learn to play 'golf'

 Posted on November 1, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  864 words  |  Patria Henriques

In an incredible (and perhaps disconcerting) video, a Goffin's cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana) named Figaro plays a game of putt-putt golf. With seeming ease, the bird places a ball on a platform before using a stick to sweep it into a hole. Researchers say that studying such behaviors in birds may shed some light on how humans learned to use our own tools.  Among animals, tool use is quite rare. Within that elite group of tool users, a select few are able to use compound tools, which are two or more objects used together for a common goal. [Read More]

Why Is a Train Filled with Human Poop Stuck Outside This Alabama Town?

 Posted on November 1, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  545 words  |  Fernande Dalal

A train filled with smelly human excrement from New York City has been stranded in a small Alabama town for two months, according to news sources. This situation is definitely strange, and it begs at least two questions: What exactly is on this train, and why the heck is it in Alabama? First off, officials are using the term "biosolid" to describe the train's contents. Biosolids are "nutrient-rich organic materials resulting from the treatment of domestic sewage in a treatment facility," [Read More]

Ancient Human Ancestor 'Ida' Discovered

 Posted on October 31, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  745 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

A discovery of a 47-million-year-old fossil primate that is said to be a human ancestor was announced and unveiled today at a press conference in New York City. Known as "Ida," the nearly complete transitional fossil is 20 times older than most fossils that provide evidence for human evolution. It shows characteristics from the very primitive non-human evolutionary line (prosimians, such as lemurs), but is more related to the human evolutionary line (anthropoids, such as monkeys, apes and humans), said Norwegian paleontologist Jørn Hurum of University of Oslo Natural History Museum. [Read More]

California's Long Drought Has Killed 100 Million Trees

 Posted on October 31, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  469 words  |  Patria Henriques

The lingering drought in California has killed more than 100 million trees, according to the U.S. Forest Service's latest aerial survey. The recent death count found that 62 million trees have died just this year in California, bringing the six-year total to more than 102 million. More than five years of drought are to blame for the tree deaths, scientists said, adding that tree "fatalities" increased by 100 percent in 2016. [Read More]

Facts About Rare Earth Elements (Infographic)

 Posted on October 31, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  218 words  |  Patria Henriques

In technologies including smartphones, flat-panel TVs, hybrid cars and wind turbines, a number of elements with exotic names represent crucial components. But the elements’ rapid rise from lab curiosities to helping supply the hearts of modern electronics has put strain upon existing supply chains, and experts worry that any supply disruptions could slow the pace of innovation. Now countries all over the world have begun racing to secure new reserves, boost recycling and find material substitutes for these energy-critical materials. [Read More]

Gigantic Lightning Jets Shoot from Clouds to Space

 Posted on October 31, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  689 words  |  Trudie Dory

Strokes of lightning flashing down towards the ground are a familiar sight during summer thunderstorms, but scientists have capture an image of a rare lightning bolt shooting out upwards from a cloud, almost to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere. These bolts of upwards lightning, one type among a variety of electrical discharges now known to occur above thunderstaorms, are called gigantic jets, and were only first discovered in 2001. [Read More]