Milk: It Does a Population Good
Milk: It Does a Population Good For nearly all of human history -- heck, for nearly all the history of a lineage that started 85 million years ago with this shrew-like furball and ended with us -- milk...
View ArticleMore Exotic Phenomena
More Exotic Phenomena There was a very slim chance that the LHC could have completely surprised everyone and seen evidence for some extremely weird and exotic phenomena. This could have included new...
View ArticleDark Matter
Dark Matter Part of supersymmetry’s appeal is that it contains so many new particles. Perhaps one of them might have the right properties to explain dark matter – an as yet unknown substance that makes...
View ArticleLHC Repairs
After a spectacular first act, the Large Hadron Collider is taking an intermission break, shutting down on Feb. 11 for two years of construction and upgrades. The list of important things that the LHC...
View ArticleNew Forces and Generations
New Forces and Generations According to the Standard Model, subatomic particles are arranged in three groupings known as generations, with each generation heavier than the last. Electrons, for...
View ArticleSupersymmetric Superpartners
Supersymmetric Superpartners It was hoped that by now physicists would have seen the lightest sorts of particles that could confirm supersymmetry. The Standard Model already has plenty of subatomic...
View ArticleTwo Higgses
Two Higgses Back in July, the only thing that might have been better than finding one Higgs was to have seen two Higgs bosons. The two Higgses – actually the Higgs boson and its supersymmetric partner...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Salamander Gift Delivery
Salamander Gift Delivery It's not only insects that produce spermatophores. So do many salamanders. Sometimes females eat them while mating (above); at other times they're left at the bottom of vernal...
View ArticleCheap Scorpionflies
Cheap Scorpionflies To attract partners, male scorpionflies produce pheromone- and nutrient-laden spitballs on which females feed as they mate. Some males, however, run out of spit. "They actually...
View ArticleStaying Alive
Staying Alive "Pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism by females affects male and female reproductive success in profoundly different ways," write biologists from Denmark's Aarhus University in one of the...
View ArticleFeb 13, 203
Heart of the Sun Active Region 11589 wishes you a wonderful Valentine's Day! And what better way to say "I love you" than with heart-shaped, 8-million Kelvin plasma. Print this out with the tagline,...
View ArticleCheetah in Kenya
Cheetahs On a drive through Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, Morell spotted a cheetah on a small hill. He was pacing and crying out piteously. Her guide said the cheetah was probably looking for his...
View ArticleDolphins in Shark Bay
Dolphins Dolphins depend on bromances: They need other guys to help them overpower the females they intend to bed. But the scientists Morell spoke to in Australia haven’t actually observed males and...
View ArticleElephants in Kenya
Elephants If you still doubt that animals love, read Morell’s chapter on elephants. That baby calf who won’t leave his dead mother’s side? Or that family confused by the call of a dead relative? Don’t...
View ArticleTwo baby rats
Rats Play is crucial to the social development of mammals. Morell found that out when she visited the laughing rats at Jaak Panksepp’s Washington lab. If you keep a rat isolated from its friends, it...
View ArticleIt's Good to be Generous
It's Good to be Generous Spermatophores are made for female consumption by males of many cricket species, but the quality of these gifts varies widely. Some contain sperm-protecting compounds and few...
View ArticleParrotlet in Venezuela
For most of the 20th century, animals weren’t allowed to have emotions. Your dog didn’t actually love you—it (and it was an “it” back then) was just a stimulus–response machine conditioned to act a...
View ArticleSantorini, Greece
Santorini, Greece Santorini is defintely a more famous volcano that Wau-en-namus, as the caldera-forming eruption ~3600 years ago could be the source of the Atlantis legend. The center of the caldera...
View ArticleSoufriere Hills, Monserrat
Soufriere Hills, Montserrat It must be exciting to be able to catch a volcano in the act of eruption from that far above -- one of the few places that humans lives that can't be adversely effected by...
View ArticleSouth Sister, Rock Mesa and the Devil's Hills, Oregon
South Sister, Rock Mesa and the Devil's Hills, Oregon Last week we got a ground-level look at the rhyodacite flows on the flanks of South Sister, but here we can see them all at once from space. The...
View Article