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Nov 21, 2024 | 
phys.org | Douglas Fox |UC Davis
The development of maternal egg cells is pivotal for survival—but also precarious. During meiosis, the DNA-containing chromosomes can easily be broken or lost, causing infertility, miscarriage or genetic disorders like Down syndrome. Scientists have struggled to study these crucial cellular events in humans and other mammals.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
phys.org | Douglas Fox |UC Davis
A bumblebee's brain is smaller than a sesame seed. But it can still accomplish quite a bit. "You don't need a big brain to learn well," said Felicity Muth, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior and a National Geographic Explorer who studies cognition in bees and other animals.
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
ucdavis.edu | Douglas Fox
A bumblebee’s brain is smaller than a sesame seed. But it can still accomplish quite a bit. “You don’t need a big brain to learn well,” said Felicity Muth, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior and a National Geographic Explorer who studies cognition in bees and other animals. “Bumblebees are capable of many of the same cognitive feats as many vertebrates.”Previously, Muth studied the behavior of birds.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Jake Buehler |Douglas Fox |Katie Grace Carpenter
Rare deep-sea creatures drift through a garden of sponges and corals that grow alongside an undersea mountain. Oceanographers explored the ecosystems in remote seas of the southeastern Pacific Ocean. The search has just turned up a never-before-seen seamount, or underwater mountain. During their month-long expedition, researchers also discovered 20 species of sea life that appear new to science. Another 80 species were observed in this part of the ocean for the first time.
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Douglas Fox |Sid Perkins |Thomas Sumner
Yellowstone National Park is known for its bubbling hot springs and steaming geysers. These hydrothermal wonders are powered by a massive cauldron of partly melted rock deep underground. It holds enough seething magma to build several Mount Everests. Yellowstone’s volcano last erupted 70,000 years ago. If it did so again, it could bury a vast area under lava. Most scientists consider this unlikely, at least for the next several thousand years.
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Aug 29, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Carolyn Gramling |Bethany Brookshire |Stephen Ornes |Douglas Fox
This is another in our series of stories identifying new technologies and actions that can slow climate change, reduce its impacts or help communities cope with a rapidly changing world. The ocean is Earth’s climate hero. For decades, ocean waters have helped slow the rate of global warming. Indeed, over the past 250 years the seas have absorbed at least one-third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by human activities. This has kept that climate-warming gas out of the air.
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Mar 28, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Douglas Fox |Nikk Ogasa |Jude Coleman |Jonathan Lambert
Evan Gora still remembers the first time he climbed a tree that had been struck by lightning. The trunk of this strangler fig was as wide as a car. Its leaves were waxy and boat-shaped. At first glance, the tree didn’t look like it had been toasted by 300 million volts of electricity. But as Gora hefted his way up, he saw faint signs that it had been zapped 10 days before. Leaves at the tips of some branches were scorched and dead.
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Mar 26, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Aaron Tremper |Alison Pearce Stevens |Douglas Fox |Betsy Mason
agriculture: The growth of plants, animals or fungi for human needs, including food, fuel, chemicals and medicine. atmosphere: The envelope of gases surrounding Earth, another planet or a moon. basalt: A type of black volcanic rock that tends to be very dense (unless volcanic eruptions seeded it with lots of air pockets). birds: Warm-blooded animals with wings that first showed up during the time of the dinosaurs.
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Feb 15, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Douglas Fox |Carolyn Gramling
One of the least-explored places on Earth lies just off the coast of Antarctica. Some 1.5 million square kilometers (580,000 square miles) of ocean there — a vast area the size of Alaska — sits in perpetual darkness. It hides beneath 200 to 600 meters (650 to 2,000 feet) of floating ice. That makes it virtually inaccessible to humans. Still, in January 2020, a team of researchers made a rare attempt to explore it. They camped on the floating Thwaites Ice Shelf.
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Feb 12, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Meghan Rosen |Bethany Brookshire |Douglas Fox |Carolyn Gramling
aquatic: An adjective that refers to water. astronomy: The area of science that deals with celestial objects, space and the physical universe. People who work in this field are called astronomers. biologist: A scientist involved in the study of living things. data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning.
