Science Bulletins: Ancient Humans Get a Genetic 'Census'
A new analysis of the DNA of modern humans has revealed the population size of our ancestors living 1.2 million years ago: just 18500 adults. Despite the odds ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Continental Deformation: Creating the Basin and Range
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Signs of Water Detected on Distant Worlds
Since the first extrasolar planet was discovered in 1995, astronomers have gathered and analyzed telescope data revealing over 1000 worlds orbiting other ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: WISE Focus on Infinity
On September 30, 2010, a NASA space telescope called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, completed its sweeping goal: to record observations ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: MESSENGER Mission to Mercury
The MESSENGER orbiter's January 2008 flyby of the planet Mercury was historic. The last time a spacecraft visited was 1975, and it only mapped half the planet.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Quakes from Space
In recent years, scientists have begun using satellite technology to study earthquakes from space. By monitoring the tiniest movements of the Earth's crust, they ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Curiosity Rover Heads for Mars
The biggest and most technically advanced rover to date is on its way to Mars. In the latest Astro Bulletin from the Museum's Science Bulletins program, follow ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Deadly Larvae Lure Predators
Amphibians that try to feed on the larvae of the Epomis beetle will find that they've bitten off more than they can chew. Rather than avoiding its predators, the ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Brains Change with Trauma
Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of how life experiences can change both the physical structure and the function of the brain. Since a discovery in the ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Derecho
On July 4, 1999, a rare and terrifying storm swept through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. What began like a ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Stem Cells—Developing New Cures
Although stem cells hold promise as direct therapy for human diseases, many researchers are even more enthusiastic about the opportunity to use stem cells to ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Chernobyl's Birds Adapt to Radiation
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster had a high ecological cost, with local wildlife suffering from physical deformities and reduced populations. The site has since ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Rare Skull Sparks Debate About Our Ancient Relatives
An Asian dig site has yielded fossils of some of our earliest ancestors found outside of Africa. When scientists unearthed five skulls dating to the same period, ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Cassini-Huygens Explores Saturn
After a seven-year trip, the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in July 2004. Since then, Cassini has been capturing never-before-seen imagery of the ringed ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: GRAIL Spacecraft Ready to Map the Moon
NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission has put a pair of nearly identical spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. By using radio waves to ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Protecting Wildlife in a Changing Climate
As the global climate changes, wild animals are shifting where they live—even beyond the protected areas that are crucial to their survival. This visualization ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Impact! Tracking Near-Earth Asteroids
Collisions between space objects are a vital part of the evolution of our Solar System. Most of Earth's impact craters have been wiped away due to plate tectonics ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Habitat Corridors Benefit Isolated Plants
In many open habitats, more than one-third of seeds are wind-dispersed. For isolated patches of plants, the interaction of wind with the landscape can determine ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Earth's Green Carbon Machine
The seasonal growth of plants—both on land and in the ocean—is one of the most striking patterns visible on Earth from space. This green "pulse" of life is ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Diet Changes In Our Past Helped Harmful Microbes To Thrive
When humans became more dependent on carbohydrates, the diversity in our oral microbiome suffered. Farming brought significant dietary changes to human ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Thinking in Symbols
Modern human culture underwent a "creative explosion" in Ice Age Europe 40000 to 10000 years ago. The evidence, which ranges from fantastic cave paintings ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Keeling's Curve – The Story of CO2
As the leading greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is one of the atmosphere's most closely watched ingredients. The scrutiny began in 1958, when a young ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Archived in Ice—Rescuing the Climate Record
Follow scientist-adventurer Lonnie Thompson to the 5670-meter-high Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes. Thompson and his team from Ohio State ...
American Museum of Natural History
Walking with Arachnids in the Natural History Museum's Spider Pavilion
Every spring the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opens up their pavilion, letting you walk through a spectacular environment of butterflies.
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Science Bulletins: First Glimpse of a Distant Star's Polar Flip
Every 11 years our Sun's magnetic north and south reverse positions; after another 11 years they rotate back to their original places. For the first time, this "polar ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: The Cosmic Microwave Background—A New View from the South Pole
The icy South Pole desert is a harsh and desolate landscape in which few life-forms can flourish. But the extreme cold and isolation are perfect for astronomical ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Brown Dwarfs—Tail End of the Stars
Journey to the heights of Mauna Kea in Hawaii where astronomers search for brown dwarfs, cosmic bodies that are not quite stars and not quite planets.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Sunken Remains Illuminate Native American Lineage
In an underwater cave in the Yucatán, divers discovered a near-complete human skeleton dating to the first wave of migration to North America. DNA evidence ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Decoding the DNA of Extinct Species
Caves were important refuges for humans and animals that coexisted during the late Pleistocene, the epoch of ice ages that ended 10000 years ago.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Cocaine's Tug-of-War in the Brain
Scientists from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine are probing neurons in the brain's reward center to learn why cocaine can be so addictive. A recent study ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Guinea Worm—Countdown to Zero
Guinea worm, a painful parasite that once affected millions of people each year, may soon be relegated to the past. Thanks to improved health education and ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Our Ancient Relatives Born with Flexible Skulls
A new study of the skull of an early hominin child provides a better understanding of the evolutionary timeline for modern human skulls-and brains. The skulls of ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Rosetta Mission Lands Probe on Comet
On November 12, 2014, more than a decade after launching, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission was positioned to send a probe to the surface of ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Earliest Human Artifacts in Eastern Europe
Scientists have dated a set of unique artifacts found in Kostenki, Russia to 45000 years old—the earliest trace of modern humans in that region. They help clarify ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Brain Evolution—The Sweet Smell of Success
A good sense of smell may have contributed to the development of certain kinds of social functions in Homo sapiens, according to a new study. Scientists used ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Dung Beetles Mediate Methane
Agriculture produces enormous amounts of animal waste, which in turn emits great quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Deep-Sea Cephalopods Hide Using Light
Many kinds of octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are masters of disguise. They conceal themselves using chromatophores—specialized skin cells that hold pigment ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Urban Sprawl—Phoenix
Most people think of urban sprawl as the construction of roads and buildings at a rate that exceeds population growth. Phoenix, Arizona, however, offers a ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Rarest Whale on Earth Identified in New Zealand
Approximately 78 species of whales inhabit the ocean, but a number of these species remain elusive. Beaked whales are deep-sea feeders that surface briefly ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Human Ancestor Went Out On A Limb
A recent study of fossil shoulder bones from a human ancestor reveals that this ancient relative was still well adapted to living in trees, even after the evolution of ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: The Invasion: A Case Study on the Hudson River
Synopsis The zebra mussel, a notorious invasive species, has been silently infesting the rocky bottom of the Hudson River since it arrived there in 1991.
American Museum of Natural History
Behind the scenes at...Natural History Museum: See the blue whale before it goes on display
The Standard has gone behind the scenes in the conservation room, to discover how scientists are preparing the collection - including a giraffe skeleton, blue ...
Evening Standard
