|  Big ancient land-dwelling croc inspired 'abject terror'  | By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "Carolina butcher" has been found and is just as scary as the name suggests. Scientists on Thursday said they had unearthed fossils in North Carolina of a big land-dwelling croc that lived about 231 million years ago, walked on its hind legs and was a top land predator right before the first dinosaurs appeared. "Abject terror," said North Carolina State University paleontologist Lindsay Zanno, who led the research published in the journal Scientific Reports. It was a very early member of the croc lineage and was unlike today's crocs.
| Read More » European Satellites to Watch Total Solar Eclipse from Space  | A fleet of European satellites will chase the only total solar eclipse of 2015 from space on Friday (March 20) in a bid to capture truly out-of-this-world views of the celestial event. The European Space Agency's Proba minisatellites will observe Friday's total solar eclipse — which also coincides with the first day of northern spring — with one spacecraft watching the moon as it blocks the sun while others track the moon's shadow on the Earth's surface. The Proba-2 sun-watching satellite is high enough off the ground — 510 miles (820 kilometers) — to observe a total solar eclipse twice for a few dozen seconds each time, ESA officials said. Friday's eclipse of the sun is one of two solar eclipses in 2015, but the only one in which the moon will appear to completely block the sun.
| Read More » Eclipse sweeps across Atlantic, visible only from remote islands  | By Gerhard Mey TORSHAVN (Reuters) - A solar eclipse swept across the Atlantic Ocean on Friday with the moon set to block out the sun for a few thousand sky gazers on remote islands with millions more in Europe, Africa and Asia getting a partial celestial show. The moon's shadow fell south of Greenland at 0741 GMT (0341 ET) and sped eastwards towards the Faroe Islands and the Norwegian Arctic islands of Svalbard, where hotels have been sold out for years to fans of the rare total eclipse. "I've seen aurora, I've seen some volcano eruptions, but the total eclipse is still the most spectacular thing I've ever seen.
| Read More » Why Spring Gets About 30 Seconds Shorter Every Year  | At that exact moment, which is called the vernal equinox, the Earth's axis will reach a halfway mark, where it points neither toward the sun (as it does on the summer solstice) nor away from the sun (as it does on the winter solstice), said Gavin Schmidt, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. But for thousands of years, spring has been losing time in the Northern Hemisphere. This year, summer is the longest season, with 93.65 days, followed by spring with 92.76 days, autumn with 89.84 days and winter with 88.99 days, said Larry Gerstman, an amateur astronomer in New York. In the year 3000, the seasonal lengths will have shifted in the Northern Hemisphere: summer will be 93.92 days, while spring will be 91.97 days, autumn 90.61 days and winter 88.74 days, Gerstman said.
| Read More » Spectacular Total Solar Eclipse Kicks Off First Day of Spring (Photos, Video)  | A rare total solar eclipse dimmed the skies above a small swath of the top of the world today (March 20), creating an incredible sight on the first day of spring for skywatchers lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to see it. Photos of the total solar eclipse of 2015 show the darkened sun as the moon blocked out its light as seen from the Earth. The Friday solar eclipse took place on the March equinox, kicking off the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere and fall in the south. The eclipse also happened to occur during a supermoon (when the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit), but the moon was in its new phase and a large dark disk during the eclipse.
| Read More » 'Blood Moon' May Have Shone on Richard III's Dead Body  | In just a matter of days, Richard III will get a long-overdue royal burial in Leicester, England. Richard's two-year reign ended when he died on Aug. 22, 1485, during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the decisive fight in the Wars of the Roses, an English civil war. Rather, historical sources indicate that Richard's gravely injured body was stripped naked and carried by horseback to Leicester to be put on a humiliating display for several days under the arches of the Church of the Annunciation. When archaeologists found it in 2012, they discovered Richard's skeleton buried in a hastily dug grave under the floor of the ruins of a monastery known as Grey Friars in Leicester.
| Read More » Flat CO2 Emissions Not Enough to Curb Climate Change, Experts Say  | Global emissions of carbon dioxide — one of the leading causes of global warming — stalled in 2014, marking the first time in 40 years that there was no climb in CO2 emissions during a time of economic growth. In fact, some scientists say that the findings, announced last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA), represents only one data point and that the overall trend in carbon dioxide emissions is continuing upward. Global CO2 emissions have stalled three times in the 40 years in which the IEA has been collecting data: in the early 1980s, in 1992 and in 2009. This kind of separation between economic growth and CO2 emissions could be a hopeful sign, according to groups dedicated to combatting climate change.
| Read More » Spring Skywatching: Spot Canis Major, the Big Cosmic Dog  | Look southward just after the sky gets dark at this time of year, and you will be sure to see Sirius shining brightly. If Sirius is the Dog's eye, the constellation's nose is marked by the star Mirzam.
| Read More » Omega-3 Supplements May Help Boys with ADHD Boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may benefit slightly from omega-3 fatty acid supplements, a new study from the Netherlands suggests. The study involved 80 boys ages 8 to 14, about half of whom had been diagnosed with ADHD. The children consumed either a margarine enriched with omega-3 fatty acids, or a regular margarine, every day for 16 weeks. At the end of the study, the boys who'd consumed the omega-3 supplement saw a reduction in their attention problems — as rated by their parents — compared with those who did not consume the supplement. Read More » Rare Case: Woman Dies After Yellow-Fever Vaccine A woman in Oregon who received the yellow fever vaccine developed a rare and ultimately fatal reaction to the shot, according to a new report of the case. The woman, who was in her 60s, was previously healthy and received the yellow fever vaccine before a trip she was planning to take to South America, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also had yellow fever virus genetic material in multiple organs, and in her blood. Doctors determined that the woman died from a condition called yellow fever vaccine-associated viscerotropic disease (YEL-AVD), which is a serious reaction to the yellow fever vaccine in which the virus replicates out of control. Read More » Astronauts Snap Amazing Total Solar Eclipse Photos from Space  | Astronauts on the International Space Station caught sight of an amazing solar eclipse today (March 20), and they have the photos to prove it. European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took a break from her experiments on the station today to take some great pictures of the total solar eclipse. "Took a peek out the window between experiments," Cristoforetti said in a series of posts on Twitter. NASA's Terry Virts — Cristoforetti's fellow crewmember on the orbiting outpost — also snapped a photo of the solar eclipse just as the sun rose above Earth's horizon.
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