Troy Oakes

Newly Discovered Deep-Sea Microbes Gobble Greenhouse Gases and Perhaps Oil Spills

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin’s Marine Science Institute have discovered nearly two dozen new types of deep-sea microbes, many of which use hydrocarbons, such as methane and butane, as energy sources to survive and grow — meaning the newly identified bacteria might be helping to limit the concentrations of greenhouse gases in ...

Troy Oakes

Lasers Could Be Used as a Porch Light to Attract Alien Astronomers

If extraterrestrial intelligence exists somewhere in our galaxy, a new MIT study proposes that lasers on Earth could, in principle, be fashioned into something of a planetary porch light — a beacon strong enough to attract attention from as far as 20,000 light-years away. The research, which author James Clark calls a “feasibility study,” appears ...

Troy Oakes

Research Questions the Rate of Climate Change

Climate change may be occurring even faster than first thought. That is according to a ground-breaking new study by Dr. Clayton Magill from the Lyell Centre at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Scientists measured the vast migration of sea bed materials, such as clay and sand, a process that occurs over thousands of years. The research ...

Troy Oakes

Half of the World’s Annual Rain Falls in Just 12 Days, Study Finds

Currently, half of the world’s measured annual rain falls in just 12 days, according to a new analysis of data collected at weather stations across the globe. By the century’s end, climate models project that this lopsided distribution of rain and snow is likely to become even more skewed, with half of the annual precipitation ...

Troy Oakes

Study Witnesses First Moments of a Star Dying in Finest Detail

An international research team, including The Australian National University (ANU), has used the Kepler space telescope in coordination with ground-based telescopes to witness the first moments of a star dying in unprecedented detail. The astronomers witnessed the star dying a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, as part of a project that ...

Troy Oakes

Human Ancestors Not to Blame for Ancient Mammal Extinctions in Africa

New research disputes a long-held view that our earliest tool-bearing ancestors contributed to ancient mammal extinctions in Africa over the last several million years. Instead, the researchers argue that long-term environmental change drove these mammal extinctions, mainly in the form of grassland expansion likely caused by falling atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. Tyler Faith, curator ...

Troy Oakes

Restoration of Lisowicia bojani.

Doomed Star in Milky Way Threatens Rare Gamma-Ray Burst

University of Sydney astronomers, working with international colleagues, have found a star system like none seen before in our galaxy. Scientists believe that one of the stars — about 8,000 light-years from Earth — is the first known candidate in the Milky Way to produce a dangerous gamma-ray burst, among the most energetic events in ...

Troy Oakes

Doomed star in the Milky Way.

Study Reveals Huge Amount of Water Dragged Into Earth’s Interior

Slow-motion collisions of tectonic plates under the ocean drag about three times more water down into the deep Earth than previously estimated, according to a first-of-its-kind seismic study that spans the Mariana Trench. The observations from the deepest ocean trench in the world have important implications for the global water cycle, according to researchers in ...

Troy Oakes

Ancient DNA Unlocks Secrets of Ice Age Tribes in the Americas

Scientists have sequenced 15 ancient DNA genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they spread across the Americas at “astonishing” speed during the last Ice Age, and also how these Ice Age tribes interacted with each other in the following millennia. The results have ...

Troy Oakes

Skulls and other human remains from Lagoa Santa, Brazil.

NASA Learns More About Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua

In November 2017, scientists pointed NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope toward the object known as ‘Oumuamua — the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system. The infrared Spitzer was one of many telescopes pointed at ‘Oumuamua in the weeks after its discovery that October. ‘Oumuamua was too faint for Spitzer to detect when it looked more ...

Troy Oakes