What we're doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66 million years, scientists say
If you dig deep enough into the Earth's climate change archives, you hear about the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. And then you get scared.This is a time period, about 56 million years ago, when something mysterious happened -- there are many ideas as to what -- that suddenly caused concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to spike, far higher than they are right now. The planet proceeded to warm rapidly, at least in geologic terms, and major die-offs of some marine organi..>> view originalScience|Beetle Moms Send a Chemical Signal: 'Not Tonight, Honey'
It’s the bane of a new mother’s life: She’s exhausted, but her male partner wants sex. And besides, she still has to get up for those middle of the night feedings.But female burying beetles have solved the problem brilliantly, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.Not only do they zap fathers with an anti-aphrodisiac, but they get them to help out with child care.“They are a very modern family,” said Sandra Steiger, an assistant professor of biology at the University o..>> view originalClimate Change Is Much Worse Than We Thought, According to the Scientist Who First Warned
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The rewards of being right about climate change are bittersweet. James Hansen should know this better than most—he warned of this whole thing before Congress in 1988, when he was director of NASA’s Institute for Space Studies. At the time, the world was experiencing its warmest five-month run since we started recording temperatures 130 years earlier. Hansen said, “It is time to stop wa..>> view originalSpace Station Cargo Launch Tonight May Be Visible Along East Coast
People in eastern North America have a chance to see a private cargo spacecraft launch toward the International Space Station tonight (March 22). Orbital ATK's robotic Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida tonight at 11:05 p.m. EDT (0305 GMT on Wednesday, March 23). You can watch the liftoff live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. The launch will take Cygnus on a path nearly parallel to th..>> view originalThis little flea -- and its huge appetite -- could ruin the Great Lakes
It's just a flea, no bigger than a speck. But it eats like a hog. That's a problem because what the invasive spiny water flea from Europe and Asia likes to eat most is one of the coolest and most beneficial life forms in the food chain of Lake Mendota, the Daphnia flea. It grazes on algae, and the more it eats, the better the lake's water quality and visibility, making recreational pastimes such as swimming and fishing more pleasurable. Since their arrival in cargo ships that sucked up fresh w..>> view originalCould scholars soon be reading from libraries destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius?
It may require a particle accelerator, X-ray vision, and a highly toxic metal, but researchers believe they could soon be reading from the libraries of Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town destroyed by a volcano to the benefit of archaeology.Scientists have discovered that ancient scholars in the town which, along with its more-famous neighbor, Pompeii, was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius used a lead-based paint, which they may be able to read using X-ray technology, Sonia van ..>> view originalFirst Supernova Shock Wave Image Snapped by Planet-Hunting Telescope
For the first time, scientists have seen the shock wave emanating from an exploding star in visible light. Using NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, researchers saw the shock wave coming from a massive star explosion (a supernova) that came into Kepler's view in 2011. The star that ended its life as a supernova is named KSN 2011d, which is nearly 500 times the diameter of the sun, and located about 1.2 billion light-years away. The shock breakout lasted only about 20 minute..>> view originalUrban birds may be smarter than their country cousins, new study suggests
Accessing human sources of food might make birds better problem solvers. (Jack Guez/AFP) A new study suggests that modern cityscapes may be turning birds into better problem solvers. The McGill University research, published recently in Behavioral Ecology, found that city birds studied were different from their rural counterparts in several ways. "We found that not only were birds from urbanized areas better at innovative problem-solving tasks than bullfinches from rural environments, but t..>> view originalIs That a Frozen Lake on Pluto?
What looks like a frozen lake suggests Pluto may occasionally have liquids flowing on its surface. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI) THE WOODLANDS, Texas—Liquids may have pooled and flowed on Pluto’s surface within the last million years – and they may do so again, scientists reported March 21 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Though not a given, the presence of liquids on Pluto at any point is puzzling, given that average temperatures on the frozen world hover around -400 Fahrenheit. B..>> view originalFrance's Top Wines Face Climate 'Tipping Point'
Climate change has pushed French wines into uncharted territory, and could force producers to relocate, or abandon the grapes that helped to make their vineyards famous, scientists said Monday. Since 1980, growing conditions in northern climes such as Champagne and Burgundy, as well as in sun-drenched Bordeaux, have fundamentally changed the “harvest equation” that defined these storied regions, they reported in NatureClimate Change. “For much of France, local climates have been relatively stab..>> view original
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
What we're doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66 million years, scientists say and other top stories.
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