Researchers Examine “Godzilla” – The Record-Shattering 2020 Trans-Atlantic Dust Storm
For two weeks in June 2020, a massive dust plume from Saharan Africa crept westward across the Atlantic, blanketing the Caribbean and Gulf Coast states…
University of Kansas
Remarkable New Species of Snake Found Hidden in a Biodiversity Collection – Occupies Its Own Branch on Snake Tree of Life
Waray Dwarf Burrowing Snake occupies its own branch on snake tree of life. To be fair, the newly described Waray Dwarf Burrowing Snake (Levitonius mirus)…
“Cold Quasar” Forming New Stars in Spite of Active Galactic Nucleus Puzzles Astronomers
Researchers from the University of Kansas have described a galaxy more than 5.25 billion light-years away undergoing a rarely seen stage in its galactic life…
Highly Unusual “Hot Neptune” Exoplanet 260 Light Years Away That “Shouldn’t Exist”
A team led by an astronomer from the University of Kansas has crunched data from NASA’s TESS and Spitzer space telescopes to portray for the…
Stellar Explosion Blamed for Mass Extinction Event on Earth 360 Million Years Ago
Between a decline in biodiversity and a series of extinction events, the Late Devonian period was not the most hospitable time on Earth. And then…
18 New Species of Aquatic Beetle in South America Discovered by Undergraduate Student
It would be striking for a seasoned entomologist with decades of fieldwork to discover such a large number of species unknown to science. But for…
Ancient Sea-Worm Mystery Solved by Student After 50 Years in “Wastebasket”
When a partial fossil specimen of a primordial marine worm was unearthed in Utah in 1969, scientists had a tough go identifying it. Usually, such…
This Ancient “Giant Spider” Fossil Surprised Paleontologists – Detective Work Revealed a Hoax
A ‘Jackalope’ of an Ancient Spider Fossil Deemed a Hoax Earlier this year, a remarkable new fossil specimen was unearthed in the Lower Cretaceous Yixian…
Skipping the Sweet Treats Helps You Avoid the Holiday Blues
If you’re prone to depression, this holiday season you might want to say “bah humbug” to offers of sugar plum pudding, caramel corn, and chocolate…
Deeper Insight Into 2019 Fires From Satellite Study of Amazon Rainforest
Throughout August and early September 2019, media around the world have reported on the extensive forest fires ravaging Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Much of the concern…
Near Misses at Large Hadron Collider Shed Light on the Behavior of Gluons
New findings from University of Kansas experimental nuclear physicists Daniel Tapia Takaki and Aleksandr (Sasha) Bylinkin were just published in the European Physical Journal C….
Ancient Supernovae Prompted Human Ancestors to Walk Upright
Did ancient supernovae induce proto-humans to walk on two legs, eventually resulting in homo sapiens with hands free to build cathedrals, design rockets and snap…
First Detailed Snapshot of Moments Following ‘Dinosaur-Killer’ Impact
A study to be published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers a scientific first: a detailed snapshot of the terrible…
Researchers Discover Switchblade-Like Defensive System in Stonefish
In dark alleys of the Pacific and Indian oceans, new research shows some of the deadliest, armored fishes on the planet are packing switchblades in…
Machine Learning Helps Predict the Geothermal Heat Flux in Greenland
A paper appearing in Geophysical Research Letters uses machine learning to craft an improved model for understanding geothermal heat flux — heat emanating from the…
New Research Explores Cosmological Simulations of Multicomponent Cold Dark Matter
New breakthrough research on dark matter explores dark matter candidates as quantum flavor-mixed particles and demonstrates that the two-component dark matter model agrees with observational…
Researchers Recreate the Song of 165 Million Year Old Katydid
At dusk, A. musicus sings in a Jurassic forest of Northwest China. By reconstructing the microscopic wing features found on a fossil discovered in North…