Science

Science

[:es]How voracious antlions engineer deadly sand traps[:]

[:es]You’d never know it by looking at the dragonflylike adult antlion, but its wingless larvae—fingernail-size eating machines with huge, poison-filled jaws—build deadly sand traps to capture tiny insects, including ants. Now, scientists know precisely how they do it: As the hapless prey falls into its pit, an antlion at the bottom uses its head to…
Science

[:es]Slowdown in plate tectonics may have led to Earth’s ice sheets[:]

[:es]In seafloor trenches around the world, slabs of old ocean crust fall in slow motion into the mantle, while fresh slabs are built at midocean ridges, where magma emerges at the seams between separating tectonic plates. The engine is relentless—but maybe not so steady: Beginning about 15 million years ago, in the late Miocene epoch,…
Science

[:es]Watch an AI robot walk with a broken leg, thanks to a brain that never stops learning[:]

[:es]Watch the two simulated robots above, and you’ll notice a big difference. Even though both of their “brains” have evolved over 300 generations to allow them to walk, only one succeeds; the other falls flat on its back.[:]
Science

[:es]Shrine of decapitated heads suggests violence against foreigners in ancient Mexico[:]

[:es]Fifteen hundred years ago, Mexico’s Teotihuacan was a multicultural metropolis, enlivened by the diverse dress, foods, and dialects of its immigrant groups. Artifacts show the city of more than 100,000 depended on a steady stream of foreigners, who brought skilled labor and exotic goods from across Mesoamerica. But after Teotihuacan faded, during a period of…
Science

[:es]Geoengineers inch closer to Sun-dimming balloon test[:]

[:es]For years, the controversial idea of solar geoengineering—lofting long-lived reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and diminish global warming—has been theoretical. It’s starting to get real: Today, after much technical and regulatory wrangling, Harvard University scientists are proposing a June 2021 test flight of a research balloon designed to drop small amounts…
Science

[:es]Protein found in fingertip ‘capsules’ may be critical to our sense of touch[:]

[:es]Can you tell the difference between high – and low –thread-count sheets just by touching them? Thank usherin, a protein found in a mysterious structure in your fingertips. Usherin also helps us see and hear, suggesting a deep molecular connection among our most important senses.[:]
Science

[:es]Psychology’s replication crisis inspires ecologists to push for more reliable research[:]

[:es]Ecologists love to study blue tits. The birds readily nest in boxes in the wild and have striking plumage that seems ideal for testing ideas about the evolutionary point of the ornamentation. Dozens of studies have reported that male coloring is substantially different from that of females, that females choose mates based on differences in…
Science

[:es]Rocket-launching drone ready to take satellites into orbit[:]

[:es]It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the RAVN-X—a rocket-launching drone designed to send small satellites to orbit without a pilot or a launchpad. Aerospace startup Aevum unveiled the first flight-ready model today, in advance of the system’s first mission: a 2021 launch for the U.S. Space Force, to take place after flight testing.[:]
Science

[:es]Researchers restore lost sight in mice, offering clues to reversing aging[:]

[:es]Do old and damaged cells remember what it was like to be young? That’s the suggestion of new study, in which scientists reprogrammed neurons in mouse eyes to make them more resistant to damage and able to regrow after injury—like the cells of younger mice. The study suggests that hallmarks of aging, and possibly the…