Like a tourist waiting for just the right lighting to snap a favorite shot during a stay at the Grand Canyon, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has used a low sun angle for a memorable view of a large Martian crater. (more…)
Annika Finne, senior and aspiring conservator, jumped at the chance to investigate the authenticity of a Modigliani painting stored in the archives of the RISD Museum of Art. What followed was a year-long journey of research and discovery and a senior thesis that, Finne hopes, will secure the painting’s place in art history.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — To the causal observer, the painting is most striking in its simplicity: a two-dimensional image of a woman, her face elongated, head slightly tilted, the background giving away little of her surroundings, the parameters devoid of a signature identifiying the artist. (more…)
With LUX ZEPLIN Berkeley Lab researchers seek to increase the sensitivity of LUX, the most sensitive search for dark matter yet, by orders of magnitude
Although it’s invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe. No one knows what it is, but most scientists would bet on weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. (more…)
MENLO PARK, Calif. – 100 years ago, in June 1912, the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century took place in what is now Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. This massive volcanic event once again comes alive for scholars and enthusiasts in a new centennial volume by two U.S. Geological Survey scientists whose work has made major contributions to volcano science. (more…)
Scientists believe they’ve pinpointed the last crucial piece of the 80-year-old puzzle of how plants “know” when to flower. (more…)
Our ‘gut feelings’ influence our decisions, overriding ‘rational’ thought, when we are faced with financial offers that we deem to be unfair, according to a new study. Even when we are set to benefit, our physical response can make us more likely to reject a financial proposition we consider to be unjust.
Conducted by a team from the University of Exeter, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and University of Cambridge, the research is published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioural Neuroscience.
The research adds to growing evidence that our bodies can sometimes govern how we think and feel, rather than the other way round. It also reveals that those people who are more in tune with their bodies are more likely to be led by their ‘gut feelings’. (more…)
UCLA life scientists have discovered new laws that determine the construction of leaf vein systems as leaves grow and evolve. These easy-to-apply mathematical rules can now be used to better predict the climates of the past using the fossil record.
The research, published May 15 in the journal Nature Communications, has a range of fundamental implications for global ecology and allows researchers to estimate original leaf sizes from just a fragment of a leaf. This will improve scientists’ prediction and interpretation of climate in the deep past from leaf fossils.
Leaf veins are of tremendous importance in a plant’s life, providing the nutrients and water that leaves need to conduct photosynthesis and supporting them in capturing sunlight. Leaf size is also of great importance for plants’ adaptation to their environment, with smaller leaves being found in drier, sunnier places. (more…)
Findings show it’s best to be “top baboon”
Turns out it’s not bad being top dog, or in this case, top baboon. (more…)
