Category Archives: news briefs

Unexpectedly, one of the windiest planets in our solar system has become dramatically less windy, but you’ll still need your windbreaker. Gusts near Saturn’s equator are currently blowing at speeds just over 600 miles per hour, but 20 years ago … Continue reading →

Monarch butterflies are famous for their thousands-mile-long fall migration from eastern North America to central Mexico. But how do they know how to get there? Scientists knew that the butterflies used the sun to navigate, but they weren’t sure how … Continue reading →

Those wasted hours, days, weeks playing Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto may not be wasted after all. Sure, video games may make you more sedentary and perhaps even more violent, but at least they’ve improved your visual skills. C. … Continue reading →

Forget outer space: Let’s journey to the center of the Earth, where “fascinating scientific issues are waiting to be investigated,” says Cal Tech geophysicist David Stevenson. In the May 15 Nature, he proposes a radical scheme to blast a crack … Continue reading →

Neptune may have seasons, say astronomers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, after studying images of the icy, far-off planet taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The images — taken over a six-year period … Continue reading →

When times are tough, the strongest women bear more sons, reported British researchers in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society last week. University of London evolutionary anthropologists Mhairi Gibson and Ruth Mace studied mothers in a rural Ethiopian community … Continue reading →

Eminem may be more dangerous than you know. Songs with violent lyrics increase violent thoughts and feelings, according to a study published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The findings contradict the notion that … Continue reading →

Perhaps it’s not the fountain of youth just yet, but a team of neuroscientists has found a way to reverse an age-related change in really old monkeys. Visual function is known to decline with age: the elderly just don’t do … Continue reading →

It‘s said that if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, they’ll eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. Six monkeys, one computer, and one month will give you rather … Continue reading →

A mysterious new species of jellyfish has been found in the cold, deep, dark water of the Pacific Ocean. Marine biologists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California have discovered a jellyfish species they call granrojo (Spanish for … Continue reading →