For as much as modern society worships chocolate, cacao — the plant chocolate comes from — was believed to be even more divine to ancient Mayas. The Maya considered cacao beans to be a gift from the gods and even used them as currency because of their value. As such, cacao bean production was carefully ...
When did the Earth reach oxygen levels sufficient to support animal life? The answer to this has implications regarding our search for life on other planets. Researchers from McGill University have discovered that a rise in oxygen levels occurred in step with the evolution and expansion of complex, eukaryotic ecosystems. Their findings represent the strongest ...
Egyptologists have recovered more than 18,000 inscribed potsherds in ancient Athribis — the remains of vessels and jars that served as writing material some 2,000 years ago. The potsherds, known as ostraca, document lists of names, purchases of food and everyday objects, and even writing from a school, including lines written by pupils as a ...
Numbers like π, e and φ often turn up in unexpected places in science and mathematics. Pascal’s triangle and the Fibonacci sequence also seem inexplicably widespread in nature. Then there’s the Riemann zeta function, a deceptively straightforward function that has perplexed mathematicians since the 19th century. The most famous quandary, the Riemann hypothesis, is perhaps ...
For the first time, scientists believe they have detected a black hole merger of two black holes with eccentric orbits. According to a paper published in Nature Astronomy by researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation and the University of Florida, this can help explain how some of the black hole mergers detected by LIGO ...
About 2.4 billion years ago, Earth’s atmosphere underwent what is called the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). Prior to the Great Oxidation Event, early Earth had far less molecular oxygen than we have today. After the Great Oxidation Event, molecular oxygen began to increase in abundance, eventually making life like ours possible. How the Great Oxidation ...
A study of a 2020 volcanic eruption conducted by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Vaisala Inc., published yesterday in the Geological Society of America’s journal Geology, discusses how advances in global lightning detection have provided novel ways to characterize explosive volcanism. Lead author Alexa Van Eaton said: “It’s ...
Australian researchers have proven that near error-free quantum computing is possible, paving the way to build silicon-based quantum devices compatible with current semiconductor manufacturing technology. Professor Andrea Morello of UNSW, who led the work with partners in the US, Japan, Egypt, and at UTS and the University of Melbourne, said: “Today’s publication shows our operations ...
The lazily winding spiral arms of the spectacular NGC 976 galaxy fill the frame of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This spiral galaxy lies around 150 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation Aries. Supernova explosion in the NGC 976 galaxy Despite its tranquil appearance, the NGC 976 galaxy has played ...
The age of the earliest human remains in East Africa widely recognized as representing our Homo sapiens species has long been uncertain. Now, the dating of a massive volcanic eruption in Ethiopia reveals they are much older than previously thought. The remains — known as Omo I — were found in Ethiopia in the late 1960s, ...
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