The Big Picture: The History of the Universe Is Our History
The Big Picture: The History of the Universe Is Our History
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Refugees From the Ice Age: How Was Europe Repopulated?
Scientists have used DNA analysis to gain important new insights into how human beings repopulated Europe as the Ice Age relaxed its grip. Dr Maria Pala, who is based at the University of Huddersfield is the lead author of an article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics which shows how…
Earth Supports One-Third Less Life Than Thought
The total mass of life on Earth may be one-third less than thought, altering how active we think life on our planet is, researchers say. Past estimates of how much life there is on Earth suggested living organisms store about 1 trillion tons of carbon, of which about 30% dwells in single-celled microbes in the…
Religious Freedom and the Conservative Quest for Absolute Truth
When the Obama administration declared that employees of Catholic institutions must have contraception covered in their health plans (before the president’s deft backtracking compromise), one group of religious Americans stood firmly opposed to Obama’s original position. No, it wasn’t Catholics. Despite the bishops’ howls of protest, poll after poll showed Catholics supporting the administration’s new…
Source of Evolutionary Differences Among Species Uncovered
University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine researchers have uncovered a genetic basis for fundamental differences between humans and other vertebrates that could also help explain why humans are susceptible to diseases not found in other species. Scientists have wondered why vertebrate species, which look and behave very differently from one another, nevertheless share very similar…
How Big Data Is Changing Astronomy
Think of all the data humans have collected over the long history of astronomy, from the cuneiform tablets of ancient Babylon to images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. If we could express all of that data as a number of bits, our fundamental unit of information, that number would be, well, astronomical. But that’s…
Has Curiosity Rover Found Organic Molecules on Mars?
Much of the internet is buzzing over upcoming “big news” from NASA’s Curiosity rover, but the space agency’s scientists are keeping quiet about the details. The report comes by way of the rover’s principal investigator, geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, who said that Curiosity has uncovered exciting new results from a sample of Martian soil…