The mysterious common ancestor of all life on Earth may have been more complex than before thought—a sophisticated organism with an intricate structure, scientists now suggest.
Spacefaring worms undergo genetic changes associated with longer lives in their Earth-bound cousins, research has shown. A number of Caenorhabditis elegans worms were carried aboard a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and brought back for study. Researchers found reduced activity of five genes in the worms that, when suppressed in the species on…
Fertilizers used in growing feed crops for cattle produce the most potent of the greenhouse gases causing climate change
Fifty-five million years ago, the world abruptly warmed by a scorching 5 degrees Celsius, the oceans turned acidic, and life ran a gantlet of extinction. Sound familiar? That was the closest nature ever came to foreshadowing the fossil-fuel-fed warming that is just getting underway now. But for 15 years, climate scientists have puzzled over how…
Previous attempts to reform our education system in America have only piled more money on the heap of a broken system. We need transformative changes, not additive ones.There are three big culprits in American education policy that are crippling the ability of our schools to respond to today’s challenges: 1. Our policy of “buying reform”…
Today’s golden age of astronomy is revealing that our universe is rich, fascinating, and meaningful, and in it we humans occupy an extraordinary place.
For the 50,000 visitors from 190 countries streaming in for the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the welcome in Rio is a rank reminder of just how hard it will be to balance economic growth and environmental protection elsewhere across the globe. Rio, the host city, suffers from devastating and daunting air and water pollution….