Tag Archives: ScienceAlert

Ever since its formation around 4.5 billion years ago, Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing down, and its days have gotten progressively longer as a result. While Earth’s slowdown is not noticeable on human timescales, it’s enough to work significant changes over eons. One of those changes is perhaps the most significant of all, at least to us: lengthening days …

A common way to manage coronary heart disease is coming under question. To prevent a repeat heart attack or stroke, many patients of a certain age are currently advised to take low-dose aspirin each day, indefinitely. Emerging evidence suggests a better option already exists. A recent meta-analysis by an international team of cardiologists finds that clopidogrel – which stops blood …

The spontaneous coalescence of the molecules that led to life on primordial Earth, some 4 billion years ago, may have finally been observed in a laboratory. Replicating the likely conditions of our newborn planet, chemists have joined together RNA and amino acids – the crucial first step that would eventually lead to the proliferation of living organisms that crawl all …

According to a recent study, events geologists use to distinguish transitions between geological chapters in Earth’s story follow a hidden hierarchical pattern, one that could shed light on both past and future tumult. “Geological time scales may look like tidy timelines in textbooks, but their boundaries tell a much more chaotic story,” says study co-author Andrej Spiridonov, a geologist and …

The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals – including us. Now, a …

The appearance of strange ‘islands’ bristling with reeds on the drying playa of Utah’s Great Salt Lake may finally have an explanation. A vast, natural network of underground plumbing emerges from the depths, piping in fresh water that feeds mounds where plant life can thrive, according to extensive surveys conducted by scientists over several years. This opens a new window …

Severed arms and brutalized skeletal remains recovered from pits at two 6,000-year-old archaeological sites in northeastern France suggest the region’s inhabitants turned torture into a public spectacle to celebrate their victories. A study on the remains offers evidence that the severed upper arms may have been taken as war trophies, while the excessively mutilated bodies were savagely slaughtered in a …

The annual clock of the seasons – winter, spring, summer, autumn – is often taken as a given. But our new study in Nature, using a new approach for observing seasonal growth cycles from satellites, shows that this notion is far too simple. We present an unprecedented and intimate portrait of the seasonal cycles of Earth’s land-based ecosystems. This reveals …

Our bodies are colonized by a teeming, ever-changing mass of microbes that help power countless biological processes. Now, a new study has identified how these microorganisms get to work shaping the brain before birth. Researchers at Georgia State University studied newborn mice specifically bred in a germ-free environment to prevent any microbe colonization. Some of these mice were immediately placed …

An international team of researchers has discovered a new configuration of nuclear particles that decays by kicking out individual protons. With 85 protons and just 103 neutrons, the atomic nucleus is both the heaviest known to break down this way and the lightest known isotope of the element astatine (At). Astatine itself only occurs on Earth as a decay product …