The story of Earth’s origins lies hidden in ancient stones, forged in a time of intense formation and volcanic activity. Recently, a groundbreaking discovery in northern Quebec has shed new light on the planet’s earliest days. Scientists have confirmed the presence of the oldest known rocks on Earth in a region near the village of…
Hawaii is a beautiful tropical paradise and also home to formidable creepy crawly predators. There are spiders that impale prey in midair and venomous centipedes that can stretch nearly 15 inches long. And then there are the carnivorous caterpillars, an evolutionary rarity. And now scientists have discovered one very hungry caterpillar that doesn’t just eat…
On Thursday, researchers unveiled the most precise measurement yet of a neutrino, scaling down the maximum possible mass of the ghostly specks of matter that permeate our universe. The result, published in the journal Science, does not define the exact mass of a neutrino, just its upper limit. But the finding helps bring physicists closer…
With TV cameras pointed at her, Felisa Wolfe-Simon began speaking at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 2, 2010. “I’ve discovered — I’ve led a team that has discovered — something that I’ve been thinking about for many years,” Dr. Wolfe-Simon said. She was at that time a visiting researcher with the U.S. Geological…
When Andreas Fichtner unspooled a fiber-optic cable into a deep hole in Greenland’s ice, he wasn’t expecting to discover a whole new way that glaciers move. Even when the cable started sending back data, his first reaction was skeptical. “Rubbish,” Dr. Fichtner, a professor of seismology and wave physics at the Swiss university ETH Zurich,…
The vast majority of plants are hermaphrodites, with both male and female reproductive parts. Oaks, some orchids, the potted spider plant in your office — they’re all capable of reproducing without a member of another sex nearby. “It makes sense if you are an organism that can’t run around and find mates,” said Deborah Charlesworth,…