Earth’s Largest Organism is Deteriorating
Researchers in Utah say what many consider to be the world’s largest living organism is dying but could be saved with what they call a ‘mega-conservation’ effort. The Pando aspen clone looks like a forest of trees, but since each of the trees is linked by common genetic markers and possibly one giant root system, […]
Lots of Water Detected in Exoplanet WASP 39b Atmosphere
Scientists, who studied a “hot Jupiter-like” exoplanet with NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, were able to detect signs of water in its atmosphere. And, they didn’t just find signs of a little water – but a lot of water, three times the amount of water on our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter. The exoplanet they […]
Junk Food Puts Immune System Into Overdrive
An international group of scientists has found that eating junk food could impact our immune system’s ability to fight disease. Detailing their findings in a new study published by the journal Cell, the researchers, led by the University of Bonn, found evidence that our body’s defense system, reacts the same way to high-calorie foods packed […]
Where are Ceres Large Craters?
After NASA’s Dawn spacecraft had passed by the asteroid Vesta, on its way to rendezvous with Ceres, mission scientists noticed that its surface was banged up with a lot of very large craters. Its biggest impact crater is Rheasilvia, which measures 505 km in diameter. They expected that Ceres would also be seriously pitted with giant impact basins too. […]
Antarctic Glacier Melt Could Raise Global Sea Level by Nearly 3 Meters
An international group of scientists say if climate change continues at its current rate, Antarctica’s Totten Glacier might become so unstable that it could eventually release enough water to produce an almost 3 meter rise in the global sea-level sometime in the next several hundred years. A year ago, this same group of scientists from […]
Nearby Supernovae Showered Earth and Moon With Radioactive Iron
Artist Animation of Star Explosion (NASA/JPL/Australian National University) Two new studies suggest radioactive bits of a nearby star or stars that exploded into a supernova or supernovae showered the Earth and Moon with radioactive iron a couple of million years ago. Both studies found the stellar evidence in concentrations of an isotope of iron called […]
Moon Born from a Violent Head-On Collision
It’s been theorized by a number of scientists that the moon was formed as the result of a collision between an early Earth and a protoplanet known as Theia, named after the mother of the goddess of the moon in Greek mythology, some 4.5 billion years ago (around 100 million years after Earth formed). But scientists seem […]
January 2016 Science Images
Curiosity Hits Silica Jackpot; Sleep Aid & Strokes; Freshwater Supply Threatened
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Finds Plenty of Silica As they reviewed data gathered by the Mars Rover, scientists found that some rocks in Gale Crater contained the chemical compound silica. In fact they say it’s a very high amount of the compound. According to the researchers, silica is actually a combination of silicon and oxygen. […]
New Report Predicts Possible Dip in Global CO2 Emissions
An international collaboration of scientists, in a new report, predicts the percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may actually dip slightly in 2015 compared to 2014 levels. “In 2014, global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels grew by just 0.6 percent,” said the report’s lead author Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth […]