Scientists in Siberia have discovered and grown ancient fruit — thanks to some Arctic ground squirrels that lived thousands of years before the end of the last Ice Age. The squirrels had stashed the fruit in their burrows dug deep into the permafrost. The fruit quickly froze and has remained frozen for 30,000 years. The [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Science’
Growing Ancient Fruit, Thanks To Our Friends The Squirrels
Posted in Humor, Science, tagged Arctic, fruit, Humor, Ice Age, Mammoths, Science, Siberia, Squirrels on February 21, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Why Did Zebras Get Their Stripes?
Posted in Humor, Science, tagged Animals, evolution, flies, Humor, Natural Selection, Nature, Science, zebras on February 12, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Why do zebras have stripes? It’s a question many kids have asked their parents, and one that many scientists have tried to answer. Now researchers say they’ve solved the puzzle, and it has to do with . . . flies. Awful, blood-sucking horseflies, to be precise. The researchers contend that the patterns of stripes reflect [...]
Supergiants Of The Briny Deep
Posted in Science, World, tagged Amphipods, Extraterrestrial Life, Kermadec Trench, Life, New Zealand, Oceans, Science, World on February 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
It’s hard to believe, but a lot of our world remains unexplored. The oceans which cover most of the Earth’s surface, for example, remain fertile ground for scientific examination. At various locations in the Earth’s oceans are superdeep trenches that plunge downward for miles. For years scientists believed that the super-dark, super-cold trenches must be [...]
The UFO At The Bottom Of The Sea
Posted in Science, Technology, World, tagged Baltic Sea, Finland, Geraldo Rivera, Science, Science Fiction, Sweden, Technology, UFOs, World on February 2, 2012 | 1 Comment »
There is a UFO at the bottom of the Baltic Sea — maybe. Sonar has located a curious disk-shaped object on the floor of the Baltic Sea, between Sweden and Finland. Enthusiastic treasure hunters and UFO buffs say it looks like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. (I think it looks more like Pac Man.) [...]
Looking At The Leap Second
Posted in Science, tagged clocks, Leap Seconds, Leap Years, Science, Time on January 29, 2012 | 1 Comment »
We all know about leap years, but did you know that there are “leap seconds” — and that scientists are arguing about whether to keep them? Leap seconds exist because the Earth doesn’t rotate with absolute precision. It speeds up and slows down as it spins, making some days a few milliseconds faster or slower [...]
Submarine, Casket, And Time Capsule
Posted in America, Science, Technology, tagged America, American Civil War, Charleston, Civil War, Confederacy, H.L. Hunley, Science, Submarines, Technology, Union on January 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The American Civil War was a time of great advances in warfare and technology — sometimes both at the same time. Most people know that the first “ironclads,” the Union’s Monitor and the Confederacy’s Merrimac, appeared during the Civil War, fought to a draw, and foretold the end of the era of wooden warships. Fewer [...]
Utter Failure And Ignominious End
Posted in Humor, Science, tagged Humor, Mount Rushmore, Phobos-Grunt, Science, Space, space exploration on January 12, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Poor Phobos-Grunt! Saddled with the worst space mission name ever — one that evokes images of sweaty, cursing, truss-wearing longshoremen, rather than the lofty aspirations of space exploration — it soon will cease to be. Scientists say Phobos-Grunt will hit Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday. The star-crossed probe is expected to explode and break into little [...]
Unlocking The Aging Secrets Of Lazarus Long
Posted in Family, Science, tagged Aging, Extreme Old Age, Family, Genetics, Human Genomes, Lazarus Long, Long Life, Robert A. Heinlein, Science on January 9, 2012 | 1 Comment »
What makes some people so long-lived? In the classic science fiction story Methuselah’s Children, Robert A. Heinlein postulated that extreme longevity could be achieved by genetics. Encourage long-lived families to mate with each other, and in a few generations you would produce the ageless Lazarus Long, who lived well past the age of 200. Now [...]
Elemental
Posted in Humor, Science, tagged Chemistry, Flerovium, High School Chemistry, Humor, Livermorium, Periodic Table of Elements, Science, Scientists on December 30, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Every now and then, scientists smash atoms together and discover a new element. The new elements then go through an accreditation process before they become part of the periodic table that is grimly familiar to everyone who hated having to memorize the elements in their high school chemistry class. The problems really arise, however, when [...]
Voyager 1, In “Cosmic Purgatory”
Posted in America, Science, Technology, tagged America, Science, Solar System, Space, space exploration, Technology, Voyager on December 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Someday soon, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft will reach a milestone. Somewhere out beyond the orbits of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, 11 billion miles from the Sun, Voyager 1 is getting ready to pass the outer boundaries of our solar system and enter into a region of interstellar space that scientists have dubbed “cosmic purgatory.” Consider [...]
Welcome, Alien Overlords!
Posted in Humor, Science, Technology, tagged Aliens, Humor, Mercury, NASA, Science, Technology, UFOs on December 10, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Don’t look now, but aliens are circling Mercury in an enormous, cloaked spaceship. At least, that’s what some people believe. They point to an image recorded by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft, which shows a coronal mass ejection from the Sun flowing over Mercury and, apparently, another object of comparable size. UFO enthusiasts contend that the image [...]
A Contagion Of Yawns
Posted in Humor, Science, tagged Empathy, Humor, Science, Yawning, Yawns on December 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We’ve all seen somebody yawn, and then yawned in response. We can’t help it. Why are yawns so darned contagious? No one knows for sure. A recent Italian study, however, provides support for the theory that contagious yawning is connected to the yawnee’s empathy for the yawner. The study determined that you are more likely [...]
Worst Space Mission Name Ever (II)
Posted in Humor, Science, Technology, tagged Humor, Mars, Phobos-Grunt, Science, Technology on December 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The travails of the hapless Russian space probe Phobos-Grunt continue. In addition to being saddled with the worst space mission name ever, its mission has been beset by bugs and failures. Since its launch last month, Phobos-Grunt has been circling the globe, largely incommunicado. With two brief exceptions, stations on Earth have been unable to [...]
Marsbound
Posted in America, Science, Technology, tagged America, Curiosity, Mars, NASA, Science, Technology on November 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We Earthlings have always been curious about our neighbor, Mars. It’s appropriate, therefore, that the latest robot sent to explore the Red Planet is called Curiosity. Curiosity, which blasted off from Cape Canaveral yesterday, is the largest, best-equipped robot ever to be sent to another planet. Its mission will feature a number of significant advances [...]
Our Awesome Earth
Posted in Science, World, tagged Earth, International Space Station, Science, Space, World on November 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The crew of the International Space Station recently took a series of time-lapse photographs of the Earth using a special camera. The results, when strung together, are stunning. (Pay no attention, incidentally, to the uninspired music accompanying the photos — these pictures are worthy of accompaniment by the finest Bach cantata, or a Mozart symphony, [...]
