Science

[:es]Paleobotanists exploring a site near the Dead Sea have unearthed a startling connection between today’s conifer forests in the Southern Hemisphere and an unimaginably distant time torn apart by a global cataclysm. Exquisitely preserved plant fossils show the podocarps, a group of ancient evergreens that includes the massive yellowwood of South Africa and the red…

[:es]Some 125,000 years ago, during the last brief warm period between ice ages, Earth was awash. Temperatures during this time, called the Eemian, were barely higher than in today’s greenhouse-warmed world. Yet proxy records show sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher than they are today, drowning huge swaths of what is now dry…

[:es]Mars’s methane has gone missing. Scientists first detected traces of the gas—a critical indicator of life on Earth—in the planet’s atmosphere decades ago. But today, researchers reported that a European satellite hasn’t spotted a single trace of methane. The finding, if it holds up, could complicate scientific dreams that martian microbes might be spewing the…

[:es]Australia’s splendid assassin fly (Blepharotes splendidissimus) earns its fearsome moniker. About the size of a bottle cap and sporting a similar metallic luster, they ambush butterflies and dragonflies in midair, killing them with a venomous bite. Now, scientists have discovered that even the larvae of these flies are vicious.[:]

[:es]Growing up in South Texas, David Pfennig was fascinated by cannibalistic tadpoles. When summer storms soak the normally dry plains, spadefoot toads emerge from their burrows to lay eggs in short-lived pools. The tadpoles normally dine demurely on algae, tiny crustaceans, and detritus. But even as a boy, Pfennig could tell that the same toads…

[:es]Growing up in South Texas, David Pfennig was fascinated by cannibalistic tadpoles. When summer storms soak the normally dry plains, spadefoot toads emerge from their burrows to lay eggs in short-lived pools. The tadpoles normally dine demurely on algae, tiny crustaceans, and detritus. But even as a boy, Pfennig could tell that the same toads…

[:es]Unlike most cells in our bodies, the neurons in our brain can scramble their genes, scientists have discovered. This genome tampering may expand the brain’s protein repertoire, but it may also promote Alzheimer’s disease, their study suggests.[:]

[:es]During the Cambrian, which began about 540 million years ago, nearly all modern animal groups—as diverse as mollusks and chordates—leapt into the fossil record. Those early marine animals exhibited a dazzling array of body plans, as though evolution needed to indulge a creative streak before buckling down. For more than a century, scientists have struggled…

[:es]Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he’s got an answer: “536.” Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, “It was the beginning of one…