|  Ancient, Shell-Less Turtle Sported Whiplike Tail  | Researchers found the first fossils of the 240-million-year-old creature in 2006, during an excavation of Vellberg Lake, an ancient lakebed in southeastern Germany, said study researcher Hans Sues, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. "We now have well over a dozen specimens, including partial skeletons but also some isolated parts of skeletons," Sues told Live Science. The researchers named the new species Pappochelys rosinae, from the Greek words "pappos" meaning grandfather — as the species is thought to be the "grandfather" of shelled turtles — and "chelys," meaning turtle.
| Read More » Destination Mars: NASA Asks Where Astronauts Should Land  | The space agency will hold a workshop in Houston this October to kick off serious discussions about possible landing sites for NASA's first manned Mars mission, which the agency aims to launch by the mid- to late 2030s. "This is going to be a hot debate," Jim Green, head of NASA's Planetary Science Division, told reporters during a teleconference today (June 25). Over the next few years, NASA plans to study the most promising exploration zones in depth using the agency's Mars Odyssey spacecraft and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which began circling the Red Planet in 2001 and 2006, respectively.
| Read More » Surreal Storm Rages Against Starry Backdrop in Winning Weather Photo  | One stormy evening in July, photographer Brad Goddard looked in his rearview mirror and noticed an ominous storm building behind him. That image was one of three that netted Goddard, an engineer and professional photographer in Orion, Illinois, a prize in the first-ever Weather in Focus photo contest by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other winners included stunning shots of tempestuous storms, as well as everyday weather like rippled clouds over the Smoky Mountains and drops of rain dotting a fallen leaf.
| Read More » Icy Earthquakes: Warming Planet Shakes Up Glaciers  | Scientists monitored the Helheim Glacier, a major outlet of the Greenland Ice Sheet, over 55 days from July to September 2013. The backward movement and the subsequent change in water pressure cause glacial earthquakes, which can trigger massive tsunami waves and thunderous rumbling. "It's like taking a really strong spring, pushing on the front of it and just making it compress," said study co-author Meredith Nettles, a professor of earth science at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City.
| Read More » How Same-Sex Marriage Became the Law of the Land  | The Supreme Court ruled today (June 26) that same-sex marriage is legal in the United States, ushering in marital rights for gays and lesbians throughout the land. "The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning," Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
| Read More » F-35 Fighter Jet Nails Olympic-Worthy 'Ski Jump' Takeoff  | When a fighter jet takes off from a runway the same way that a skier launches gracefully off a jump, the result can be surprisingly beautiful. Last week, an F-35B Lightning II fighter jet performed one of these Olympic-worthy launches at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. Known as the vertical and/or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) variant, the F-35B is designed to operate on aircraft carriers, which don't have space for long runways.
| Read More » Watch an Alien Planet Cross Its Host Star's Face Saturday  | TrES-2b, a planet nicknamed "Dark Knight" because it reflects so little light, will cross the face of its host star Saturday (June 27) in a "transit" captured by the online Slooh Community Observatory. You can watch the free event — the first-ever live public observation of an exoplanet, according to Slooh representatives — live at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday) at the Slooh website: www.slooh.com. You can also watch the exoplanet webcast on Space.com, courtesy of Slooh.
| Read More » SpaceX to Try Bold Rocket Landing Again Sunday: Watch Live  | SpaceX will try once again, on Sunday, to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a boat, and you can watch all the dramatic spaceflight action live. The daring maneuver will take place during the launch of the company's robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station for NASA. Shortly after launch, the Falcon 9's first stage will separate and perform several engine burns, in an attempt to touch down softly on a SpaceX "autonomous spaceport drone ship," which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
| Read More » Breast Milk Studies May Lead to Better Probiotics, Baby Formula Discovering how breast milk influences a baby's gut bacteria could help scientists figure out the best way to feed premature babies, design better infant formulas and develop pre- and probiotics to promote lifelong health, researchers argue in a new article. Beneficial bacteria in a baby's gut are "absolutely critical for healthy infants," said Katie Hinde, a co-author of the new article and an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who studies lactation. Relatively little research has been conducted regarding what breast milk is actually made of and how its components work in the body, the researchers said. Read More » Here's What Went Wrong with Last Year's Flu Vaccine Americans got little benefit from last season's flu shot — the vaccine was only about 19 percent effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Protection against H1N1 is also included in the seasonal flu vaccine. Read More » Too Much Vitamin B12 Linked to Acne Too much vitamin B12 may promote acne, according to a new study. The study found that, in the presence of vitamin B12, the skin bacteria that are commonly linked to acne start pumping out inflammatory molecules known to promote pimples. In the study, scientists investigated the differences between skin bacteria from people prone to acne and bacteria from people with clear-skinned faces. Read More » Ahead of pope's climate message, U.S. Catholics split on cause of global warming Ahead of Pope Francis' much-anticipated encyclical on the environment, a poll released on Tuesday found that U.S. Catholics are divided on the causes of global warming, mirroring the views of the general public. The survey by the Pew Research Center found 71 percent of U.S. Catholics believed the planet was getting warmer, but less than half, or 47 percent, attributed global warming to human causes. Francis, who took his name from the patron saint of ecology, Francis of Assisi, is expected to release a "teaching document" on Thursday. Read More » How Contagious Is Measles? Man Catches Virus at Airport Gate It's no secret that airports are hubs for germs, but one Minnesota man was particularly unlucky during his travels — he appears to have caught measles simply by passing a sick child while exiting his plane. The 46-year-old man was traveling from Minnesota to Massachusetts on a business trip in April 2014, with a connection in Chicago, according to a new report of the case. After he arrived in Massachusetts, the man developed a rash characteristic of measles, and his diagnosis was confirmed with a lab test. Read More » | |
