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Science

SPACE: Scientists Propose Tunnelbot to Explore Europa

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tunnelbot

A group of scientists wants to send a nuclear-powered “tunnelbot” to Europa to blaze a path through the Jovian moon’s thick shell of ice and search for life. Europa, the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 53 moons, is one of the best candidates in our solar system for hosting alien life. Researchers believe that its icy crust hides a liquid water ocean and that vents through that crust might deliver the necessary heat and chemical ingredients for life into that ocean.To peek beneath that thick veil of ice, researchers on the NASA Glenn Research COMPASS team (a group of scientists and … Read more

First There Was Dark Matter. Now We Have Dark Fluid – Live Science

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dark fluid - pixabay

d It’s embarrassing, but astrophysicists are the first to admit it. Our best theoretical model can only explain 5 percent of the universe. The remaining 95 percent is famously made up almost entirely of invisible, unknown material dubbed dark energy and dark matter. So even though there are a billion trillion stars in the observable universe, they are actually extremely rare. The two mysterious dark substances can only be inferred from gravitational effects. Dark matter may be an invisible material, but it exerts a gravitational force on surrounding matter that we can measure. Dark energy is a repulsive force that … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Dust

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Sometimes the most insane acts of destruction render a beautiful rebirth in its place. Not often, but every once in a while. In the great whirling dance of the cosmos, we find that beauty the most. R Aquarii just showed us a magnificent one. This binary system has been documented as far back as 1073 CE by Korean astronomers, when the pair lit up with a massive solar jet arced out into its surrounding hourglass nebula. This duo has an extremely complex relationship, the white dwarf stealing mass from the red giant, a greedy cannibalism accompanied by a spectacular light … Read more

Time Travel Might Be Possible, But Probably Not – Live Science

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Time Travel - Pixabay

The concept of time travel has always captured the imagination of physicists and laypersons alike. But is it really possible? Of course it is. We’re doing it right now, aren’t we? We are all traveling into the future one second at a time. But that was not what you were thinking. Can we travel much further into the future? Absolutely. If we could travel close to the speed of light, or in the proximity of a black hole, time would slow down enabling us to travel arbitrarily far into the future. The really interesting question is whether we can travel … Read more

Have Aliens Already Visited Earth? – Live Science

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ufo - pixabay

Fox News published a startling article Monday (Dec. 3) with the headline “NASA scientist says Earth may have been visited by aliens.” Unsurprisingly, that news rocketed around the web, with similar articles soon turning up in the New York Post, Russia Today and The Daily Wire. (Fox appears to have been the first major U.S. news source to run with the story.) These articles are based on a document on NASA’s website by Silvano Colombano, a researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. It really does argue that scientists should at least take seriously the notion that … Read more

What’s Beneath the Transylvanian Castle That Imprisoned ‘Dracula’? – Live Science

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Corvin Castle - Pixabay

A historic Transylvanian castle that may have once imprisoned Vlad the Impaler — likely inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula — still stands today. But what lies beneath it? Because of centuries of rebuilding and additions, archaeologists weren’t sure where the castle’s original foundation lay. [24 Amazing Archaeological Discoveries] However, new research using radar scans of the ground beneath the structure is revealing what’s going on below the building’s imposing facade. The findings were presented on Wednesday (Dec. 12) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Castelul Corvinilor — also known as Corvin Castle, Hunedoara Castle or Hunyadi … Read more

First They Found Hobbits. Now… Elves? – Live Science

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Little Foot

Following an epic 20-year-long excavation in South Africa, researchers have finally recovered and cleaned the nearly complete skeleton of an ancient human relative: an approximately 3.67-million-year-old hominin nicknamed Little Foot. Little Foot is likely a previously unknown species, the researchers said. In four newly posted studies — all available on bioRxiv, meaning they are not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal — the researchers delved into Little Foot’s anatomy. Their findings reveal that Little Foot likely walked upright on two feet and probably had a nearly lifelong injury on her left arm. The successful two-decade-long excavation of Little Foot was … Read more

SCIENCE: Climate Change Killed Off Most Life on Earth Before

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Ammonite

The end of the Permian period, around 252 million years ago, was a dire time for life on Earth. Scientists believe a series of violent volcanic eruptions occurred in what is today Siberia, pumping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which warmed the planet. Then came the “Great Dying.” About 96 percent of creatures in the ocean and 70 percent of terrestrial species living on the supercontinent Pangaea went extinct in a matter of several thousand years (not a very long time in geological terms). The so-called Permian-Triassic mass extinction event was the worst in Earth’s … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Awesome

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I have a personal opinion about Hell, if Hell exists, and it’s a floor stretching out for eternity. Covered in Lego. Yeah. That’s my definite version of Hell. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Lego. Those little blocks make for hours of a frustrating good time and these days come in some wild builds. The Space Shuttle build is my kidlet’s favorite. And that brings me to the point of this whole little ramble: kidlets and Lego. Every parent’s worst child-related fears come with some version of them swallowing a foreign object. How long until it passes? Will it … Read more

SCIENCE: Game of Thrones Hits the Deep Seas

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Hodor Hodor

Marine worms that dwell in the numbing cold of the deep ocean don’t care if winter is coming. Be that as it may, several newly described species of these worms now owe their names to “Game of Thrones,” inspired by the remorseless Arya Stark (Abyssarya acus) and everyone’s favorite man of few words, Hodor (Hodor hodor and Hodor anduril). The deep-sea worms are part of a family called Polynoidae, which includes about 900 species. These newfound creatures were collected during an expedition to the equatorial Pacific Ocean, at depths of between 13,000 and 16,000 feet (4,000 and 5,000 meters), scientists … Read more