Mourning is not just a trait shared by humans, but scientists say it is also shared by the Western scrub jays. Researchers say the Western scrub jays summon others over to the body of a dead jay to screech over their dead brethren. University of California, Davis researchers said that the birds’ cacophonous “funerals” can…
Mars wasn’t always the Red Planet. Eons ago, it is possible that Mars was as lush as Earth is today. So, what happened? NASA is on the case with this enlightening video of how Mars may have lost its atmosphere. The idea behind the atmospheric “sputtering” Mars may have experienced is fairly simple to understand….
Scientists who found well preserved woolly mammoth remains in a remote part of Russia hope they might contain the necessary material to clone the long extinct beast. The Russian-led international team found the remains, including fur and bone marrow, with some cell nuclei intact, in the Ust-Yansk area of the Yakutia region on Russia’s Arctic…
It usually takes two snakes — a female and a male — to make a litter of baby copperheads. But research now shows that copperheads and their venomous cousins cottonmouths don’t always require a partner to establish the next generation. These vipers are capable of virgin births. For some vertebrates, parthenogenesis — asexual reproduction in…
Dark energy, a mysterious substance thought to be speeding up the expansion of the Universe is really there, according to a team of astronomers at the University of Portsmouth and LMU University Munich. After a two-year study led by Tommaso Giannantonio and Robert Crittenden, the scientists conclude that the likelihood of its existence stands at…
How many scientists does it take to author a study on the Higgs boson particle? Around 6,000. Two articles by the teams at CERN, about 30 pages each, include 19 pages of single-spaced text with roughly 6,000 names of researchers who peer-reviewed the results of the experiments, making the discovery of the elusive God particle…
Rocks are phenomenal time keepers. Their composition, shape, and age can make an otherwise barren environment reveal its secrets. On Mars, rocks are front and center in the ongoing quest to uncover the planet’s history and find evidence of past life. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to send men to Mars yet; men with their…
A toddler’s “slave footprint” – how much forced labor in the global human trafficking economy is used to produce all her “stuff” – can be calculated on a new human trafficking website. And the results can surprise parents. It turns out that many of the toys and baby products that fill American family homes are…
In 1967, the United States joined the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in signing the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. The agreement, more casually known as the “Outer Space Treaty,” remains the closest thing the world…
Biology is making it clearer by the day that a man’s health and well-being have a measurable impact on his future children’s health and happiness. This is not because a strong, resilient man has a greater likelihood of being a fabulous dad — or not only for that reason — or because he’s probably got…