“The Galaxy Report” provides paragraph-length summaries of headline news by leading science journalists about the amazing discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the Cosmos beyond. Our caffine-inspired curation team scours the world, doing your work for you –all in one place, with “Deep Dive” links.
Are we entering a new evolutionary epoch? “A book is made of wood. But it is not a tree. The dead cells have been repurposed to serve another need,” say researchers at the University of Vermont who have repurposed living cells—scraped from frog embryos—and assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These millimeter-wide “xenobots”, a 21st-century echo of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient)—and heal themselves after being cut.
“Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
“Thanks to our findings we now have a very clear picture of what was going on over 14 million years ago and this will change the way that scientists look at this period of global warming,” said Sindia Sosdian of Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences about as the middle Miocene Climate Optimum, global temperatures were as much as three to four degrees warmer than today’s average temperatures, similar to estimates for 2100. The position of the continents were similar to today and the seas were flourishing with life.
“Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our planet and the future of the human species. (more…)
“Most people think the rise of oxygen was linked to cyanobacteria, and they are not wrong,” said James Eguchi, a NASA postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Riverside who led a new study suggesting that the first burst of oxygen was added by a spate of volcanic eruptions brought about by tectonics. “The emergence of photosynthetic organisms could release oxygen. But the most important question is whether the timing of that emergence lines up with the timing of the Great Oxidation Event. As it turns out, they do not.”