World's Smallest Snake Found in Barbados
The snake named Leptotyphlops carlae, as thin as a spaghetti noodle, is resting on a U. S. quarter. Credit: Blair Hedges, Penn State
Eight-Day Undersea Mission Begins Experiment to Improve Coral Reef Restoration
Scientists are conducting an experiment to determine why some species of coral survive transplanting after a disturbance, such as a storm, while other species die.
Study Finds New Properties in "Non-Magnetic Materials"
Figure A ("non-magnetic" material): The "non-magnetic" crystal structure of strontium titanate, SrTiO 3 , is composed of strontium (blue balls), titanium (red balls), and oxygen (yellow balls). Credit: Sava Denev, Penn State
New Map Locates Metals in Millions of Milky Way Stars
The new metallicity map, shown as the colored inset, indicates that the disk is composed of high-metallicity stars that typically are just a few billion years old (red and yellow shades). Credit: Zeljko Ivezic, University of Washington, SDSS-II Collaboration
Woolly-Mammoth Gene Study Changes Extinction Theory
Penn State University genomicists Webb Miller and Stephan C. Schuster, in front of the Roche / 454 Life Sciences' Genome Sequencer 20 System that was used to sequence mammoth mitochondrial DNA from the hair of 10 woolly mammoths. Credit: Lynn Tomsho, Penn State
A Slimmer Milky Way Revealed by New Measurements
The visible, stellar part of our Milky Way in the middle is embedded into its much more massive and more extended dark matter halo, indicated in dim red. Credit: Axel Quetz, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (Heidelberg), SDSS-II Collaboration
A Survivor in Greenland: A Novel Bacterial Species is Found Trapped in 120,000-Year-Old Ice
Credit: Penn State A scanning electron microscope image of the Chryseobacterium greenlandensis bacteria found in a Greenland glacier.
Heart of the Crab Pulsar Probed — First Direct Look Into the Core of a Neutron Star
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Gehrz (University of Minnesota) New information about the heart of one of the most famous objects in the sky -- the Crab Pulsar in the Crab Nebula -- has been revealed by an international team of scientists searching for gravitational waves. The team's achievement also is the first direct look into the interior of a neutron star.
NASA's Swift Satellite Catches First "Normal" Supernova in the Act of Exploding
Seemingly out of nowhere, Supernova 2008D burst onto the scene on January 9, 2008, as seen in ultraviolet images (upper right) and X-ray images (beneath) taken by NASA's Swift satellite, giving scientists the unique opportunity to witness the birth of a supernova. CREDIT: NASA Swift team.
Climate Change Does Double-Whammy to Animals in Seasonal Environments
Credit: Eric Post, Penn State Plant-eating animals like caribou in highly seasonal environments like the Arctic face two climate-related challenges in locating nutritious food. Not only are these animals arriving at their breeding grounds after the plants there have passed their peak nutritional value, but these animals now are less able to find good food by moving their calves to other locations where, prior to global warming, plants had been available later in the season.
Subscribe to Research