Science world

If the coral refuge of the Red Sea can survive local pollution, scientists think these reefs may be the last ones standing on a rapidly warming planet. But that's a giant 'if'. Right now, life during this region is moored to the fate of a 45-year-old tanker, gradually rusting away off the western coast of Yemen, with 1,000,000 barrels of oil in its hold. Neglected by its owners for over five years, this massive old ship – the FSO Safer – represents serious danger, ironically enough. Ever since war broke out on the mainland between Iran-allied Houthi rebels and Saudi-led forces, the state-owned Yemeni company has lost access to its ship, even for repairs, and rebel forces have to this point refused the international organisation an opportunity to intervene. Under the established order, environmental experts warn it's just a matter of your time before all 34 of the Safer's storage tanks sink into the ocean, causing an oil spill fourfold the scale of the Exxon Valdez d...

Thousands of individuals turned their heads to the sky to look at an eclipse that lasted around two minutes on Monday as southern Chile and Argentina were plunged into darkness. Heavy rain had threatened to stop star gazers in Chile from seeing the eclipse but at the last moment, the clouds parted merely enough for the phenomenon to be partially visible. "It was beautiful, unique. the reality is that no-one held much hope of seeing it because of the weather and clouds, but it had been unique because it cleared up just in time. it had been a miracle," an emotional Matias Tordecilla, 18, told AFP within the town of Pucon on the shores of Lake Villarrica. "It's something that you simply don't just see together {with your|along with your} eyes but also feel with your heart," added Tordecilla, who traveled 10 hours along with his family to work out the eclipse. The eclipse seen in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 14 Dec 2020. (Muhammed Emin Canik/Anadolu Agency via AFP...

Scientists may have discovered a large-toothed mammal off the western coast of Mexico that they say looks and sounds unlike anything else on Earth. Researchers collected environmental genetic samples of this strange creature that are still being analyzed, but the images and acoustic recordings have researchers "highly confident" it is a never-before-described species of toothed whale. "We saw something new. Something that was not expected in this area, something that doesn't match, either visually or acoustically, anything that is known to exist," announced Jay Barlow, a marine mammal researcher who worked with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization, during the expedition. "It just sends chills up and down my spine when I think that we might have accomplished what most people would say was truly impossible – finding a large mammal that exists on this earth that is totally unknown to science." A sn...

 Mexican archaeologists said Friday that they had found remains of 119 more people, including women and a number of other children, during a centuries-old Aztec "tower of skulls" within the heart of the capital. The new discovery was announced after an eastern section of the Huei Tzompantli was uncovered along with the outer facade, five years after the northeastern side was found. Archaeologists believe that a lot of the skulls belonged to captured enemy warriors which the tower was intended as a warning to rivals of the Aztec empire, which was overthrown by Spanish conquistadors in 1521. Some of the remains might be of individuals who were killed in ritual sacrifices to appease the gods, consistent with experts quoted during a statement released by the National Anthropology and History Institute. "Although we cannot determine how many of these individuals were warriors, perhaps some were captives set aside for sacrificial ceremonies," archaeologist Barrera Rodrigu...

 Feasts are rare on the barren landscape of the ocean depths. So researchers couldn't believe their luck after they chanced on a feeding frenzy of deep-sea sharks chowing down on a fallen swordfish off the US coast in July 2019. But they never imagined they might also capture footage of 1 of these sharks becoming the prey for an additional deep-sea creature. With their rover hovering nearby, a late arrival took advantage of the submersible's shadow. Nobody might blame a wary fish for holding back while ravenous sharks feed, but this heavyweight had plans to show one amongst the diners into its dinner. A video posted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows the aftermath of the ambush by a hungry wreckfish. you'll watch it for yourself within the clip below, with shark lunch being served at around 1:42. The action materialized at a depth of about 450 metres (roughly 1,480 ft) near an increase within the seafloor 130 kilometres (80 miles) off the...

 Three years ago, a team of archaeologists within u.  s. proposed a rare idea: the primary human settlers within the Americas received least 100,000 years previous we thought. The evidence came from a set of mastodon bones and ancient stones dating back to around 130,000 years ago, which perceived to are hammered and scraped by early humans.  The remains were found within the suburbs of the point of entry within the 1990s, and therefore the researchers think that the nearby stones may are used as hammers and anvils to figure on the bones. But outside of that, no other traces of human action were found. Today, the Cerutti Mastodon (CM) site remains one of the foremost controversial archaeological digs within the world. For years, scientists are going back and forth over the results and whether or not they indicate the presence of humans in North America 130,000 years ago, but the first authors aren't let go.  The team has now published a follow-up paper that claims to...

  For the primary time, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have formally identified a replacement species of undersea creature-based solely on high-definition video footage captured at the underside of the ocean. And what an undersea creature it's. Meet Duobrachium sparks are – a weird, gelatinous species of ctenophore, encountered by the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Deep Discoverer during a dive off the coast of Puerto Rico. That encounter befell back in 2015, but when you're acquisition to discovering an entirely new species – based solely on video evidence, for that matter, with no physical specimens to assist make your case – it helps to try and do your due diligence. Luckily, Deep Discoverer's cameras – the footage of which you'll be able to see here – were up to the work, capable of reading subtle details on D. spark she's body but a millimetre long. Duobrachium sparksae . (NOAA) Subsequent analysis of the organism – ...

 Mount Cleveland sounds like the sort of volcano you made for a grade four science project and crammed with vinegar and bicarb. More geological zit than powder keg, it pops and oozes every decade about to thicken its igneous skin. There are five more prefer it nearby, making up what's referred to as the Islands of 4 Mountains. Today, most of them are quiet. But geologists are wondering if together this innocent cluster of volcanoes off from the Alaskan mainland represents something much more Earth-shattering. Researchers from institutions across the US are set to create their case at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2020 Fall Meeting, arguing that the mountains Cleveland, Carlisle, Herbert, Kagamil, Tana, and Uliaga are all tips of 1 big magma chamber. Cone-like stratovolcanoes can blow their tops in impressive ways but tend to emerge from relatively small to modestly-sized pockets of magma. A caldera may be a collapsed chunk of crust formed by the collapse of a magma chamber b...

 A nearly 40-million-year-old skeleton belonging to what's popularly called a sabre-toothed tiger goes under the hammer next week in Geneva, a year after its discovery on a US ranch. The skeleton, some 120 centimetres (nearly four feet) long, is anticipated to fetch between 60,000 and 80,000 Swiss francs (US$66,560 to $88,750; 55,300 to 73,750 euros) at auction on the holy day of obligation within the Swiss city. "This fossil is outstanding, especially for its conservation: it's 37 million years old, and it's 90-per cent complete," Bernard Piguet, director of the Piguet firm, told AFP on Tuesday. "The few missing bones were remade with a 3D printer," he added, with the skeleton reconstructed around a black metal frame. Piguet said he was fascinated by the merger of "the extremely old with modern technologies". The original bones are those of a Hoplophoneus. Not strictly a real member of the cat family, they're an extinct genus of the Nimrav...

  Most people comprehend the vast stores of carbon in our atmosphere, and yet beneath our feet, Earth's soil contains nearly 3 times the maximum amount of CO2, absorbing roughly 1 / 4 of all human emissions annually. If the planet warms by 2 °C or more, we risk turning that vital sink into a carbon spout. An updated model on carbon soil turnover has found such warming could release 230 billion loads of greenhouse emission, give or take 50 billion tons. and that is just from the highest meter of soil, which has roughly the identical amount of carbon as our atmosphere. That number may be a little under what China has emitted since 1900 and slightly but double what u.  s. has emitted since the identical year. Restricting a model to such shallow depths might sound like an oversight initially, but by confining their measurements, scientists have made it easier to model changes in soil turnover. This has also helped halve the uncertainty produced by other similar models. "We have re...

 Thousands of years ago, ancient Egyptians were laid to rest in Saqqara, an ancient city of the dead. Priests placed them inside wooden boxes adorned with hieroglyphics, and also the sarcophagi were sealed and buried in tombs scattered above and below the sand. Archaeologists have discovered 160 human coffins at the positioning over the last three months, which they commit to disperse to museums around Egypt. They even opened some to look at the mummies inside. According to experts, a number of the Saqqara tombs have colorful curses inscribed on the walls to warn away intruders. Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo, analyzed some animal mummies discovered at Saqqara last year. She told Business Insider in an email that the inscribed warnings in human tombs mostly serve to discourage trespassers bent desecrating the mummies' resting places. A coffin found in Saqqara in September. (Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities) "They generally state that if th...

 Before we start mining for precious metals within the darkness of the deep sea, we would try switching on the sunshine first and observing our surroundings. In this seemingly isolated abyss, at deeper than 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) below water level, scientists were able to coax an enormous swarm of 115 cutthroat eels (Ilyophis arx) out of the shadows and into the sunshine, and with only a comparatively small package of bait. The footage represents the best number of deep-sea fish ever recorded at only once within the abyssal ocean, and it had been shot right near a world mining hotspot. "Our observations truly surprised us," says biological oceanographer Astrid Leitner, who worked on the research at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.  "We had never seen reports of such high numbers of fishes within the sparsely-populated, food-limited deep-sea." The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) may be a massive expanse of seafloor that runs from Hawaii nearly to Mexico, and it...

 When a dead Alopius vulpinus washed up onshore, it had been obvious what had killed it - a swordfish had stabbed it from behind and left an oversized hunk of its "sword" embedded within the beast, a brand new study finds. No one saw the particular attack, so it's unclear why the swordfish jabbed the shark. But the 2 ocean predators may are competing for prey, the researchers said. "The possible scenario is that both species were hunting on a faculty of fish or on squids within the deep," said study lead researcher Patrick Jambura, a doctoral student within the Department of Paleontology at the University of Vienna.  (The Ichthyological Society of Japan 2020) It's also possible the 2 ocean predators were fighting over territory, or that the swordfish accidentally stabbed the thrasher and left nearly 12 inches (30.1 centimeters) of its "sword" within the victim, he said. News of the fight's deadly aftermath spread when the shark's body washe...

 After months of searching, in October scientists located and destroyed the primary nest of giant 'murder hornets' ever discovered within the US, eradicating a hidden enclave of the invasive insects concealed in an exceeding tree in Washington State, near the Canadian border. While the invention and elimination of the nest is taken into account a victory by state and federal authorities – who are striving to stop the Asian hornet from establishing a grip in North America – a post-mortem of the hornets' former home provides a sobering perspective on the dimensions of the bug threat we're up against. After tracking down the nest with an inventive radio tag ploy, entomologists from the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) vacuumed dozens of hornets out of the tree within which it had been found, then cut the tree hospitable reveal the nest hidden inside, measuring about 35 centimeters long and 23 centimeters wide (14 by 9 inches). (WSDA) That might not sound o...

 The remains of a large, ancient lake are discovered under Greenland, buried deep below the ice sheet within the northwest of the country, and estimated to be many thousands of years old, if not millions, scientists say. The huge 'fossil lake bed' may be a phenomenon the likes of which scientists haven't seen before during this part of the planet, while we all know the colossal Greenland Ice Sheet (the world's second-largest, after Antarctica's) remains filled with mysteries hidden under its frozen lid while shedding mass at an alarming pace. Last year, scientists reported the invention of over 50 subglacial lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet: bodies of thawed liquid water trapped between bedrock and also the ice sheet overhead. The new find is of a unique nature: an ancient lake basin, long dry and now stuffed with eons of sedimentary infill – loose rock measuring up to 1.2 kilometers (three-quarters of a mile) thick – and so covered by another 1.8 kilometers of...

 A 2-inch-long (5 centimeters) spider thought to be extinct in Great Britain is truly alive and thriving on a British military base.  A program manager at the Surrey Wildlife Trust rediscovered the nice fox-spider (Alopecosa fabrilis) on an undeveloped portion of a facility in Surrey, England, after a two-year search. The last time the spider was seen before this in Britain was in 1993, or 27 years ago.  "It's a beautiful spider if you're into that sort of thing," the program manager Mike Waite told The Guardian. Nocturnal hunter The great fox-spider maybe a spider, a family of arachnids that hunts down its prey instead of building webs. The spider is nocturnal, which makes it an elusive quarry for spider enthusiasts. According to The Guardian, Waite used aerial photography of the facility to search out bare patches where the spiders wish to hunt. His search in these sandy spots paid off after many fruitless nights.  "As soon as my torch fell on that I knew what ...

 They may be naturally suited to swinging in rainforests, but monkeys in a very Finnish zoo have demonstrated a "significant" preference for traffic sounds rather than the noises of the jungle, researchers have found.​ As a part of an experiment to determine how technology could improve the well-being of captive animals, researchers installed a tunnel fitted with sensors within the enclosure of the monkeys at Helsinki's Korkeasaari Zoo, giving the primates the prospect to decide on to pay attention to the sounds of rain, traffic, zen sounds or popular music genre. "We thought they'd enjoy more calming sounds, like zen music, but actually they triggered the traffic sounds more," Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, a researcher at Finland's Aalto University, told AFP. The soundtrack of vehicles rumbling past proved overwhelmingly the foremost popular choice for the animals, who sometimes slept or groomed themselves and every other inside the sound tunnel – something t...

 The afterglow of the mineral hackmanite (or tenebrescent sodalite) may be a fascinating phenomenon that has long been a mystery to scientists – whether or not we're now ready to engineer synthetic materials that glow within the dark more effectively than anything in nature. Geologists first described the mineral within the 1800s, who were intrigued by its tendency to softly glow a bright pink hue when broken or placed within the dark and act within the light. Later research would cut down the chemistry behind this characteristic, but the precise nature of the reaction has proven elusive. Now a replacement study outlines exactly how certain sorts of hackmanite retain a number of their glow as they move from bright to dark settings. The secret is the fragile interplay between the mineral's natural impurities, determined by how it absolutely was formed. Getting a more robust understanding of how hackmanite can emit white luminescence in dark conditions will further help scientist...

 The world's biggest iceberg is on a collision course with an overseas South Atlantic island that's home to thousands of penguins and seals, and will impede their ability to collect food, scientists told AFP Wednesday. Icebergs naturally break removed from Antarctica into the ocean, but temperature change has accelerated the method - during this case, with potentially devastating consequences for abundant wildlife within the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia. Shaped sort of a closed hand with a pointing finger, the iceberg called A68a split off in 2017 from Larsen ice on the western peninsula, which has warmed faster than the other a part of Earth's southernmost continent. At its current rate of travel, it'll take the large cube - which is several times the world of the national capital - 20 to 30 days to run aground into the island's shallow waters. A NASA photo showing the iceberg A68a drifting in the South Atlantic between Antarctica and South Georgia (...