Enalioetes life reconstruction by Joschua Knüppe. Credit: Joschua Knüppe An international team of scientists, including researchers from Germany and the UK, have described a new species of ancient marine crocodile, Enalioetes schroederi. Enalioetes lived in the shallow seas that covered much of Germany during the Cretaceous Period, approximately 135 million years ago. This ancient crocodile … Read more
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A tiny seed is stuck between loose gravel and coarse sand. There is nothing else alive around it. All it can see is a wall of ice reaching 20 meters up into the sky. It is cold. Survival is hard around here. In winter, it is dark even during the day. … Read more
Caterpillars spin silky carpets and seatbelt-like structures to protect themselves during metamorphosis. Credit: ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.4c00237 Most of us learned about butterfly metamorphosis as a kid—a wriggly caterpillar molts its skin to form a tough chrysalis and emerges as a beautiful butterfly. But how exactly do chrysalises stay anchored as … Read more
Credit: University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Researchers at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague have published the study of Tröger’s base (TB) and spiro-Tröger’s base (spiroTB) derivatives. Utilizing high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on an analytical ReproSil Chiral-NR column, researchers successfully enantioseparated racemic mixtures of nickel(II) complexes with phenyl or 3-methoxyphenyl substitutions. They … Read more
Credit: Uriel Mont from Pexels Summer is a popular season to get a pair of binoculars and go out looking for the birds, bears, and bobcats, a pastime that is significantly on the rise for members of Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. A study published in the journal People and Nature provides new … Read more
To be an Olympic champion, athletes spend years perfecting every aspect of their performance. That same attention to detail goes into the sleek, lightweight uniforms they wear, because at this level the tiniest of advantages can affect the outcome. So what’s up with all the high-fashion hair and flashy accessories at the Paris Olympics? In … Read more
A glossy black-cockatoo feeding in a sheoak tree. Credit: Ian Buick Glossy black-cockatoos are seed-eating birds that feed almost exclusively on the cones of drooping sheoak trees. However, counter-intuitively, they select trees that grow on the poorest soils found on ancient sedimentary rocks. “Sheoak trees are three times more likely to be used as feeding … Read more
Overview of seismic stations on Greenland (black triangles), the location of the tsunami (red circle) and the nearest seismic station (red triangle), whose filtered signals are shown. Credit: adapted from The Seismic Record (2024). DOI: 10.1785/0320240013 It was a monster wave that hit a fjord on Greenland’s east coast on 16 September 2023. In certain … Read more
Credit: Karolina Grabowska from Pexels This sweltering summer has brought record-breaking high temperatures to 63 countries, all but cementing 2024’s status as the world’s hottest year on record (even though we’re barely past the halfway point). Such extreme weather trends are bound to have serious implications for the environment, public health, and the economy. Why, … Read more
Researchers constructed this image of a copper nanofoam with help from SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source. Credit: Adra Carr/Los Alamos National Laboratory The sun’s fusion reactions drive its temperatures to thousands of degrees, and today scientists are seeking to recreate these star-powering processes in the lab as a means of an alternative clean energy. One … Read more
