Astronomers may have, for the first time, directly imaged a planet still in the process of formation, gathering material from a debris disk surrounding its parent star.
A new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlights the world’s 25 most endangered primates. The report, entitled “Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, 2012–2014,” was put together by the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission and the International Primatological Society as well as the Conservation…
Joel Primack is a professor of physics and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His wife, Nancy Abrams, is a specialist in the history and philosophy of science. Together they deliver this motivational TEDx talk, which calls for a cosmological, Big History perspective as a means to solving some of our most difficult…
Until about 8500 years ago, Europe was populated by nomadic hunter-gatherers who hunted, fished, and ate wild plants. Then, the farming way of life swept into the continent from its origins in the Near East, including modern-day Turkey. Within 3000 years most of the hunter-gatherers had disappeared. Little is known about these early Europeans. But…
To explore a future in which the United States powers itself both independently and cleanly, Discover teamed up with the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to organize a series of briefings on Capitol Hill. The presentations brought lawmakers together with eight leading energy…
Diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans, such as bird flu and tuberculosis, can wreak havoc on the health of both organisms. Now researchers have found 13 so-called zoonoses are responsible for 2.2 million human deaths every year. The study, detailed in the report “Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots,” shows the…
As all the people and computers on our planet get more and more closely connected, it’s becoming increasingly useful to think of all the people and computers on the planet as a kind of global brain. It’s important to realize that intelligence is not just something that happens inside individual brains. It also arises with…