X-43A research vehicle screamed into the record books again Tuesday, demonstrating an air-breathing engine can fly at nearly 10 times the speed of sound. Preliminary data from the scramjet-powered research vehicle show its revolutionary engine worked successfully at nearly Mach 9.8, or 7,000 mph, as it flew at about 110,000 feet.
The high-risk, high-payoff flight, originally scheduled for Nov. 15, took place in restricted airspace over the Pacific Ocean northwest of Los Angeles. T
A prehistoric fish that until 1938 was thought to be extinct has caught the eye of geneticists at the Stanford University School of Medicine who hope to sequence the ancient genome to learn how animals evolved to live on land.
The 5-foot, 130-pound fish in question, called the coelacanth, ekes out an existence in cool, deep-water caves off the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean and northern Indonesia. Its lobed fins, skeleton structure and large, round scales are practically un
The loss of seemingly inconsequential animal species in the marine benthos – the top 6 inches or so of mud and sediment on the floors of the worlds oceans – is giving scientists a new look ahead at the consequences of the steady decline of the worlds biological diversity.
In new work published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Science, an international team of scientists describe work in which the ocean mud and the many animals that live there are used to forecast how the
Malnutrition in the first few years of life leads to antisocial and aggressive behavior throughout childhood and late adolescence, according to a new University of Southern California study.
“These are the first findings to show that malnutrition in the early postnatal years is associated with behavior problems through age 17,” said Jianghong Liu, a postdoctoral fellow with USCs Social Science Research Institute and the lead author of the study published in the American Jou
High in the mountains of Antarctica, Ohio State University geologists unearthed the fossil remains of a 180-million-year-old clam-like creature that was preserved in a very unusual way: by the ancient bacteria that devoured it.
And only yards away, they found the first fossil evidence of a completely different kind of bacteria that scientists were unsure even existed as fossils that long ago.
The first find answers one of the most fundamental questions in paleontology —
Global research highlighting the most important areas for albatross migration and breeding may yet help save these magical birds from extinction.
Satellite tracking data for 16 species of albatross and three petrel species, all of them threatened by commercial and pirate longline fishing, have been collated by BirdLife International, an alliance of conservation groups. Its report, Tracking Ocean Wanderers, highlights areas where longline fleets are putting seabirds at most risk. T