Hiya everyone, this is going to be a blast because I’m going to show you the wonders of our animal kingdom!!!! Basically, I’m going to be posting some animal facts. If you’re interested in another animal and want me to share the facts about it, comment on whatever animal you’d like me to share. If […]

Our world is filled with rules, but imagine if you had the power to create just one for everyone to follow.  What would it be, and how could it change the way we live? So whats yours? Share your answers in the comments below and explain why!

Generally, when one pictures a battery, one imagines the lithium-ion battery in various high-tech forms. Yet in 2022, Polar Night Energy launched the world's first commercial sand battery, capable of storing 500-600C in heat energy for months. Compare this to a standard lithium battery that can only hold energy for a few hours! Now, Polar Night Energy, in collaboration with the heating company Lovisan Lmp, will launch a sand battery 10 times the size and capable of storing up to 100 megawatts hour of heat. This battery will eliminate the need for oil-based energy for the entire town of...

Hello, My Munchkins! I did my first A Bit About Me a little bit over a year ago, so Im making an updated one. Lets jump into it.                     MY INTERESTS My favorite color is seafoam green, and my favorite food is cheese and broccoli soup. […]

If youre thinking of the Mesozoic Era the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods you probably think DINOSAURS! Youre not wrong. That era, 252 million to 66 million years ago, was when dinosaurs evolved, reigned and died. But youd also be missing out on a lot of other amazing creatures, especially other reptiles.



Dinosaurs are only one group of Mesozoic reptiles. Other land-dwellers included ancestors of modern-day crocodiles, called Batrachopus. Meanwhile, the air was ruled by pterosaurs.



Though pterosaurs often come in sets of play dinosaurs, they were only dinosaur relatives. Well-adapted for flying, they had hollow, air-filled bones, similar to modern birds. Their wings, though, were usually covered with thin membranes rather than feathers. (Some pterosaurs, though, may have been covered in fuzzy protofeathers.) Pterosaurs ranged in size. Some were as small as eagles. The largest known, Quetzalcoatlus, had a wingspan of some 10 meters (33 feet).



See all the entries from our Lets Learn About series





The Mesozoic seas were dominated by other non-dinosaur reptiles. These included the ichthyosaurs, or fish-lizards. Scientists have discovered fossils of more than 100 species of these animals. Among them are the remains of one unlucky reptile who likely died from trying to eat a meal as big as itself. Plesiosaurs had long necks with dozens of bones. Their giant flippers let them swim through the water like a penguin. Although big, plesiosaurs still had plenty of worries. These included giant mosasaurs that preyed on plesiosaurs. You might recognize those giant sea monsters from the aquatic show in Jurassic World.



While the Mesozoic Era is often called the Age of Reptiles, reptiles werent the only animals around, of course. Fish still swam the seas. Insects and other invertebrates were numerous. And mammals our ancestors were just getting their start.





Want to know more? Weve got some stories to get you started:



Thats no dino! Not all ancient reptiles were dinosaurs. Some soared, many swam the seas and still others looked like dinos but actually werent. (6/12/2015) Readability: 6.6



The real sea monsters No known dinosaurs lived in the oceans. But there were lots of big aquatic reptiles that were every bit as ferocious and awesome. (6/19/2015) Readability: 7.3



Early dino-era start for modern mammals Fossils of an extinct group of rodent-sized mammals suggest they were related to modern mammals. These ancient remains push back the origin of mammals by many millions of years. (10/1/2014) Readability: 7.3





Dinosaurs may get most of our attention, but there were plenty of other reptiles that roamed Earth during the Mesozoic the Age of Reptiles.



Explore more



Scientists Say: Jurassic



Explainer: How a fossil forms



Explainer: Understanding geologic time



Fossil hunting can start as childs play



These crocodile ancestors lived a two-legged life



These fuzz-covered flying reptiles had catlike whiskers



This ancient reptiles last meal may have truly been a killer



Activities



Word Find



Download and print Pterosaurs: A Card Game from the American Museum of Natural History. The game, based on the museums collections and exhibits, challenges players to gain points by building their own food chains and breaking their opponents.

A tiny mantis shrimp found off the Pacific coast of South and Central America has inspired a new robot that somersaults and rolls as well as a circus acrobat or Disney sidekick.





Forty years ago, Roy Caldwell documented the somersaulting mantis shrimp in his lab.Credit: Roy Caldwell



Wen-Bo Li is a mechanical engineer exploring how to design soft robots that move by rolling. He works at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Not long ago, he came across a description from more than 40 years ago of how a mantis shrimp navigated beaches.



Roy Caldwell is an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Back in 1979, he published a report in Nature about a mantis shrimp known as Nannosquilla decemspinosa. The tiny crustacean looks a bit like a cross between a caterpillar and a lobster. Caldwell watched as the animal walked underwater. But when waves pulled back, beaching the critter on wet sand, it no longer used its legs. The animal continues in a series of backward somersaults, generally moving in a straight line until it encounters an obstacle or water suffiently deep for swimming, or until it becomes fatigued,” he wrote. He described this as a unique form of locomotion.





Intrigued, Li searched for more detailed information. I found that it could move by a series of backward somersaults for as far as 2 meters [79 inches]. Along the way, it might do 20 to 40 consecutive, dynamic rolls, he learned. It can even mount an incline.





Wen-Bo Li used video footage to analyze the movement of his teams novel robot.Credit: Wen-Bo Li



His team set to work. “After figuring out this fascinating mechanism, Li says, we started to design a soft robot to emulate the somersaulting.” They made the robots body in a series of segments, similar to those in a mantis shrimp. We used 11 chambers. The shape is the same as the flat dorsal [backside] surface of the animal. That makes it stable.



Before it moves, the robot called SomBot stretches out straight. Suction-cup action holds it to the floor. As the researchers push air through long thin tubes attached to one end, the suction releases. This causes the robots torso to bend into a circle and roll.



SomBot can roll pretty quickly up to 9.2 body lengths per second. Li says that the suction combined with the somersault is the key to that speed. With the help of the controllable anchoring, the curling body can be converted into fast movement, he says.



The team described its design in the April 2021 issue of IEEE Xplore.



The rolled-up shape of the ocean dwelling N. decemspinosa (left) and the soft-robot SomBot (right) look similar. Inspired by the mantis shrimp, engineers built their segmented soft robot to scoot faster than other soft robots.R. Caldwell; W.-B. Li



Soft versus hard robots



Daniela Rus is a robotics engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. She designed a soft-fish robot called SoFi. Hard-bodied robots are made of materials such as hard plastics and metal, she notes. Often large and heavy, these can be dangerous to be around, she explains. Thats why many robot designers prefer softer materials. These robots will end up closer to real organisms in softness.



Engineers often choose soft robots for missions where they need to protect soft organisms around them such as people or other animals. Rus says that this new tech would not only be safer but also more capable of a wide range of motions than hard-bodied robots.



For its new robot, the Shanghai team used an elastomer. Its a polymer a material made from a long chain of repeating units. The same rubbery elastomer is sometimes used in shoe soles and car tires. After molded into a desired shape, it stays elastic. Rus describes this as being compliant. That flexibility, she says, should allow it to withstand force and to move as needed.





A need for speed



Lis group had started with one big goal: make SomBot faster than earlier types of soft robots. Its somersaulting action appears to have helped them succeed. The team tested SomBots speed against a rigid-but-soft robot inspired by a cheetahs spine. That soft-rolling robot looks like a caterpillar. It was designed to move much like human fingers. SomBot beat it by more than three body lengths per second.



But while SomBots speed is impressive, Li and his team have not yet gotten full control of its rolling action. They are beginning to consider giving it a closed-loop design. This may be something like a doughnut or perhaps the mythical snake that bites its own tail.



SomBots suction also works best on smooth surfaces. However, most natural ones are fairly coarse. “Anchoring by suction won’t work on rough and uneven surfaces,” such as sidewalks, Li admits.



The new robots style of moving is something that Disneys animators appreciate, too. In their new animated film, Raya and the Last Dragon, the sidekick who transports the warrior princess also relies on rolling locomotion. One of the movies producers has described that sidekick named Tuk Tuk as part armadillo, part pillbug and part pug (a type of dog). Two of those can roll into a ball. In the movie, Tuk Tuk somersaults across the Asian landscape, speeding Raya from one site to another.

Did you know that 100,000 flights take off and land each day around the world? Air travel has shrunk our world, allowing people to travel from any corner of the world to another. However, we know now that aviation is responsible for three to four percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations expects this number to multiply three times by 2050 due to the increasing demand. For this reason, Innes FitzGerald, a long-distance runner from the UK, has taken a stand. Her next race was scheduled to be in Australia, but Innes declined, stating, The reality of the travel fills me with deep...

Ecosystem (noun, EE-koh-sis-tem)



An ecosystem is a network of living and nonliving things interacting in the same place.



The living things in an ecosystem could include animals, plants and microbes. The nonliving things may include soil, water and air. But an ecosystem is worth more than the sum of its parts. Living things need energy and nutrients to live and ecosystems link organisms to both.



Nutrients are chemicals that living things need to function. They include elements such as carbon and nitrogen. They can also be molecules like proteins that are made from elements. These elements cycle through an ecosystem. For instance, when an animal eats a plant. Or when a microbe decomposes a dead animal. That means the same atoms get reused in different living things. In fact, the same carbon atoms in your body might once have been part of a dinosaur!



Energy doesn’t cycle through living things the way nutrients do. But ecosystems need a constant supply of it. Thats because energy is always being lost. Living things use energy to break down food, grow, recover from injuries and much more.



The sun supplies this energy. Plants and algae use photosynthesis to turn solar energy into chemical energy. This is a key link in ecosystems. Humans and other life-forms cant use the suns energy directly. We need to get it from plants, or from organisms that have eaten plants.





Let’s look at how living and nonliving things interact in one ecosystem: a rainforest.



Giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) live in South American rainforests. There, they dig around in the soil for insects. As they hunt, the animals mix up the soil. That allows air to move deeper underground. (Take note air and soil are nonliving parts of the ecosystem.)



This process delivers fresh air to microbes that live in the soil and spurs their growth. The microbes chomp away at dead material in the soil. This breaks down large molecules into smaller ones nutrients that a plant’s roots can absorb. And as a plant converts the suns energy into chemical energy, an insect munching the plants leaves can take some of this energy for itself.



Together, all these living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem form a thriving habitat.



In a sentence



Almendro trees use lightning to gain a competitive advantage in their jungle ecosystems.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

On February 17, 2026, more than 1.5 billion people worldwide will welcome the start of the Chinese New Year. Also called Lunar or Spring New Year, it is one of the most important holidays in China. The date of the two-week celebration is determined by the lunar calendar. It usually falls between late January and mid-February. For many families, it is a time to reflect on the past year and prepare for a fresh start.

Since being introduced to chess at the tender age of six, Tanitoluwa"Tani" Adewumihas had one goal. He wants to become the world's youngest-ever Grandmaster the highest title a chess player can achieve. The record is currently held by Russian chess player Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin, who qualified for the title in 2002 at the age of 12 years and seven months.

Before we had paintings, sculptures, drawings, and the incredible 3D art we see today, did you know that prehistoric people were creating art too?  Yep, you read that right!  Way back in prehistoric times, people used sticks, rocks, and natural things like berries and charcoal to make pictures on cave walls. They drew animals, their […]

I heard a car pulling into the driveway. Soon enough, Adam, my Grandson, burst into my room, with a broad grin. Wow, you are right on time for my interview! I remarked cheerfully. Of course! I want top marks for this interview for my school science project! Adam replied ecstatically, So, lets start. Grandpa, please tell me the story of Covid-19 and how it changed your life! Well, as you know, I am a professor of biology. However, did you know that the pandemic fifty years ago was the reason I decided on that path? As I continued, I felt myself being pulled into the memories of 2020...

Hello everyone! I know a big storm is almost here. So I ask myself, what’s the coldest it can reach? Have no fear, FunNews is here! The Russian R Stands For Rigid Weather Back in the 80’s, (Which probably none of us were even born in), Russia faced some freezing temps, I didn’t even know […]

Image credit Pixabay/CC Father's Day In The Year Of The Pandemic by Karuna Lohmann, 13 Sunday, 6/21/2020, is the day I remember best during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was twelve years old, standing with my parents in a park, my shoes tapping out a rapid beat. I was holding my speech in my hands, rereading it to pass time. The breeze whooshed and the pages fluttered like a butterfly flapping its wings, trying to fly. I remember playing with my mask while waiting for people to arrive. Soon a small group formed a circle around me. I thanked everyone for coming. Yet at the same time, a small bit of...

For many years, astronomers and scientists have been searching for and studying objects in space.  They’ve been using powerful telescopes and advanced technology to look for hidden stars, distant galaxies, and even asteroids that could come close to Earth.  Experts have also been searching through millions of pieces of data to find new discoveries that […]

Hi! I have been on KN before, and some of you may remember me if you have been here long enough. My username on KN is DancerGirl887, but on KT it’s CatholicGirly887. As you probably saw from my username for KT, my religion is Catholicism, which is the major and first branch of Christianity. Just […]

Hey Puggy Army! I know I should have posted something like this on my birthday (Feb 15), but I was busy with my birthday party (it was so fun!), so Im posting this now. I only know one person heres birthday, @itrules0ut343 (July 20), because we are friends irl. Sadly, hes leaving KN for good […]

Sea urchins are underwater lawnmowers. Their never-ending appetites can alter whole coastal ecosystems. Normally they eat algae and other underwater greenery. But these spiny invertebrates also will take a bite of something more meaty and dangerous. Thats the surprise finding of a new study.



In a first, researchers have seen urchins attacking and eating predatory sea stars. Normally starfish are the predators. Researchers describe this unexpected flip on who eats who in the June issue of Ethology. 



Jeff Clements is a marine behavioral ecologist. He now works for Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Moncton. But back in 2018 he worked at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. For one project, he became part a team studying common sun stars in Sweden. At some point, Clements needed to separate one of the sun stars for a short while. So he placed it in an aquarium that already housed some 80 green sea urchins.



Starfish are predators of urchins, he recalls thinking. Nothings gonna happen. But the urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) hadnt eaten a bite in two weeks. When Clements came back to the tank the next day, the sun star (Crossaster papposus) was nowhere to be seen. A group of urchins were piled on the side of the tank. Below them was something red. It was barely visible. When Clements pried the urchins off, he found the remains of the starfish.





The urchins had just ripped it apart, he says.





No fluke



Clements and his colleagues realized no one had ever described this urchin behavior. To test whether it was a freak occurrence, the team ran two trials. Each time, they placed a single sun star in the urchin tank. Then they watched. 



One urchin would approach the starfish. It would feel around. Eventually it attached itself to one of the sun stars many arms. Other urchins would soon do the same. They quickly covered the sun stars arms. When the team removed the urchins after about an hour, they found tips of the starfishs arms had been chewed off. So had its eyes and other sensory organs that reside on those arms.



This aspect of the sun stars anatomy may pose a risk. 



[The tips] are the first part of the sun star that the urchin is going to encounter as it approaches, explains Clements. So if the urchin consumes those first, the sun star is going to be less effective at escaping the attacks.



The team calls this tactic urchin pinning.



Green sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) took only minutes to glom onto this sun stars arms. They pinned the bigger animal in place while they gnawed at its sensitive, eyed arm tips.Jeff Clements



Do urchins play defense or offense



Its possible the urchins are acting in self-defense. They may be disarming literally a predator in their midst. But the urchins hunger might also explain their attacks, says Julie Schram. Shes an animal physiologist at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. In crowded lab conditions with limited food, urchins can switch up their diet in surprising ways, she notes. Some species, for instance, have been seen cannibalizing each other.   



This would suggest to me that when starved, adult urchins will seek out alternate food sources, she says. 



The urchins capacity to feed on predatory sea stars had been hinted at before. Sea stars have turned up in urchin stomachs, notes Jason Hodin. Hes a marine biologist at the University of Washington in Friday Harbor. But this dining turnabout often was interpreted as scavenging. For instance, the urchins might have just finished off the remains of someone elses dinner.



Actively attacking starfish for dinner is a more interesting possibility, he says. And, he adds, Its satisfying to see that possibility confirmed, at least in the lab.



If urchin attacks also occur in the wild, Clements thinks there could be some interesting impacts on kelp forests. When overabundant, urchins can overgraze kelp forests,  leaving behind barrens. If urchins are able to survive by eating other animals, they may not die off when the kelp is gone. This could keep urchin numbers high and delay the recovery of these kelp forests, says Clements.



Such discussions are premature, argues Megan Dethier. Such ideas are making way too much out of a peculiar lab situation, says this marine ecologist. She works at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Laboratories. After all, Dethier notes, such attacks havent been documented even in urchin barrens, where food is scarce,



And the urchin attacks cant be intentional, she adds, since the animals dont have a brain or central nervous system. It makes no sense, she says, that urchins could mount a coordinated predatory attack.



Such mob attacks may be based on chemicals released into the water by feeding, Clements counters. Once the first urchin starts chewing on a starfish, the other urchins may start recognizing the chemical scent of sea stars as food. Clements wants to run new tests to see what levels of hunger and crowding density might affect urchin appetites for sun stars. 

Have you ever heard of Morse code? Its a special way to send messages using short sounds or lights (the dots) and longer sounds or lights (the dashes). For example, if you wanted to say “HELLO” in Morse code, it would look like this: (H), (E), […]

Like most little kids, Anne Kort was fascinated by dinosaurs. But by high school, she had become interested in other kinds of prehistoric life. I just wanted to learn about everything that wasn’t a dinosaur, says Kort. I like all the weird things.  



She found one weird thing while working on her masters degree. She was studying fossils from an extinct mammal called Patriofelis ulta. This catlike carnivore stalked the U.S. West roughly 50 million years ago. CT scans revealed something special about the beasts vertebrae.  



The backbones of animals have special protrusions that help the pieces fit together. Called articulations, they help keep the spine stable. The vertebrae of Patriofelis, though, didnt look like those of todays mammals. They had interlocking parts that fit together like a lock and key, says Kort.  



In graduate school, Kort used CT scans to study the lower backbones of the extinct predator, Patriofelis ulta. Protrusions bookending each vertebra interlocked in a way not seen in todays mammals.A. Kort


Now a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Kort uses computers to study how mammals evolved to move. Studying fossils virtually allows Kort to examine specimens in ways that are impossible by hand. She even makes YouTube videos teaching others how to study fossils using 3-D software available to the public. In this interview, she shares her experiences and advice with Science News Explores. (This interview has been edited for content and readability.)   



What inspired you to pursue your career? 



In college, I wanted to do science but not physics or chemistry. Earth science sounded cool, so I decided to do it. I thought it was about trees, rocks and water. But it is just geology in disguise. I still ended up loving it. 



During my junior and senior years, I ended up working on CT scans of modern rodent jaws. We were trying to identify similar-looking species from just their jaw bones. We could then go back and identify those same species in the fossil record. That let us track how their ranges changed during the Ice Ages. That’s how I got started with 3-D data and paleontology. I wasn’t that interested in the rodent jaws, specifically, but I loved everything else about the research.



What was one of your biggest setbacks and how did you get past that? 



A good example of me screwing up was my attempts to apply to grad school. I started applying senior year of undergrad and didnt finish because I got so overwhelmed. It was pretty brutal. After taking a gap year, I applied to six schools. I got outright rejected from three, interviewed and then got rejections from another two and didnt hear from the last for months. I was pretty confident that I wasn’t going to get into the last, Indiana University Bloomington. And it felt like I wasn’t ever going to attend grad school. I took it very hard. Reflecting back on it, it wasnt as big of a deal as it felt because I couldve always applied during another cycle if I didnt get in.



I think there’s kind of an unfortunate perception that you must always have this perfect chain of successes. Otherwise, you’re going to fall out of a very competitive field. I see why people think that. But I’ve definitely met successful people who didn’t have this perfect chain of successes. Success is based on chance and opportunity, to some extent. But it’s also based on the ability to deal with setbacks when they inevitably happen. And I suspect there’s very few people who have literally never had any sort of setback. 





Anne Kort shows off her Ph.D. work using 3-D virtual models of fossils.



What do you do in your spare time? 



I play an embarrassing amount of video games. Which, funny enough, is an interest connected with the 3-D scanning and virtual paleontology stuff. I’ve been playing Animal Crossing every morning for, like, half an hour before I start getting ready. I sit in my armchair with my cat on my lap and I have my coffee. I also play MMOs [massively multiplayer online video games] and other games with my husband. And I like going to natural history and art museums when I can.  



What piece of advice do you wish you had been given when you were younger? 



I wish I had been told that networking is just making friends with people who have the same interests as you. It is very important, and you cannot downplay the importance of it. Those connections that I built up over time really are why I’m where I am.  But it does not have to be this scary thing. You don’t have to think of it as taking things from people. 



Id also say don’t fixate on getting one specific job in a specific field. If you have a very specific dream as a kid, you know just a fraction of a fraction of the possibilities that exist. It’s possible that really cool jobs don’t even exist yet. Be willing to experiment with your interests and don’t tie yourself to your childhood dream.  



There might be something that sounds really boring on paper like geology. But by trying it out, youll see there are a lot of really interesting things to it that you never would have known about. Sometimes those experiments fail, and that’s fine. If I had to choose between taking a non-paleontology job I enjoy and a paleontology job where I’m miserably overworked, I’m picking the first option. 

Those hoping for some respite from thepowerfulnor'easterthat is currentlypummeling the US East Coast and Mid-Atlanticwithheavy snow and near-blizzard conditions are in for a disappointment.On February2, 2021, aka Groundhog Day,legendary woodchuckPunxsutawney Phil observed his shadow.This according to folklore means that the frosty weather will remain with us for an additional six weeks.

Danish toymaker LEGO is entering a new era with Smart Play. The groundbreaking system brings LEGO bricks to life with lights, sounds, and interactive features. It aims to transform how kids build, explore, and play.

Geologists have long maintained that our Earth comprises four layers the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and, the deepest layer,theinner core. However, a team of scientists led by Jo Stephenson, a doctoral student in seismology at Australian National University in Canberra, now asserts thatour planet may be harboring a mysterious, fifth layer an"inner-inner" coreas well.

A burnt orange sky greeted San Franciscos early risers for several days in November 2018. The California citys residents usually enjoy good air quality. For nearly two weeks in a row, however, the air quality ranged from unhealthy to very unhealthy. The cause: a raging wildfire some 280 kilometers (175 miles) away. A new report now links pollution from that Camp Fire to flareups of eczema. This itchy skin condition affects almost one-in-three Americans, mostly children and adolescents.



More worrisome, polluting wildfires are likely to become even more of a problem in the future as Earths climate continues to warm.



The Camp Fire was Californias deadliest and most destructive. It started on November 8, 2018 and lasted 17 days. Before it was over, it destroyed more than 18,804 buildings or other structures. It also left at least 85 people dead.



Explainer: What are aerosols?





But the infernos health effects ranged far beyond the 620 square kilometers (153,336 acres or about 240 square miles) that burned. The fire emitted high levels of aerosols that polluted the air. These far-flung particles are so small they can be breathed deeply into the lungs. A large share of these aerosols were just 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller. Such tiny bits can inflame airways, harm the heart, alter brain functions and more.



Even from miles away, smoke from wildfires can make people feel awful.



Some people will be coughing, says Kenneth Kizer. Hes a medical doctor and public health expert with Atlas Research. Its based in Washington, D.C. Whats more, he notes, The eyes burn. The nose runs. Even your chest may hurt as you breathe irritants into your lungs.



A former firefighter, Kizer chaired a committee that considered what Californias wildfires might mean for health, communities and planning. The National Academies of Science and Medicine published that programs report last year.



But it wasnt quite complete. This past April 21, researchers also linked pollution from the Camp Fire to eczema and itchy skin.





Irritated and inflamed



The new study looked at cases of such skin disease not only during and after the Camp Fire, but also before it. Normal skin acts as a good barrier to the environment. Thats not true in people with eczema, explains Maria Wei. Their skin can be sensitive from head to toe. Blotchy, bumpy or scaly rashes may break out.



Wei is a dermatologist at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Eczemas itch can be very life-altering, Wei says. It affects peoples moods. It may even cause people to lose sleep, she notes.



Wei and others looked at visits to UCSF dermatology clinics over an 18-week period, starting in October 2018. The team also reviewed data for the same 18 weeks starting in October 2015 and October 2016. There were no large wildfires in the area at those times. In all, the team reviewed 8,049 clinic visits by 4,147 patients. The researchers examined data for fire-related air pollution during the study period, too. They also looked at other factors that can affect skin sensitivity, such as temperature and humidity.



Eczema can affect up to roughly one in five children and teens worldwide, Swedish researchers reported in 2020.-aniaostudio-/iStock/Getty Images Plus



The surprise finding, Wei reports: A very short-term exposure to air pollution causes an immediate signal in terms of skin response. For instance, clinic visits for eczema went up in all age groups. This started the second week of the Camp Fire. It kept up for the next four weeks (except for the week of Thanksgiving). Thats in comparison to clinic visits before the fire and after December 19.



Childrens visits climbed by nearly 50 percent compared to the period before the fire. For adults, the rate rose by 15 percent. That trend wasnt surprising. When youre born your skin isnt totally mature, Wei explains. So eczema generally is more common in children than adults.



The team also saw a link or correlation between fire-related pollution and oral eczema medicines prescribed to adults. Those medicines often are used for severe cases where skin creams dont provide relief.



Smoke-related aerosols might affect the skin in different ways, Wei says. Some chemicals are directly toxic to cells. They may cause a type of cell damage known as oxidation. Others may set off an allergic reaction. Even stress about the wildfire can play a role, she adds.



Her team described its findings in JAMA Dermatology.



The study looked only for links to one wildfire. Its findings may not apply to other wildfires and other places, the team warns. Their study also looked only at data from one hospital system.



To Kizers knowledge, this paper is the first to link eczema and itch to pollution from a wildfire. He did not work on the study. But he did write a commentary about it in the same April 21 JAMA Dermatology.



Wildfires throughout California late last summer led to 17 consecutive days of unhealthy air around San Francisco. That topped the previous record from the 2018 Camp Fire.Justin Sullivan/Staff/Getty Images News



Wildfires on the rise



Spring in California is very dry this year. So experts expect the summer and fall of 2021 to see a severe wildfire season. And the wildfires are just going to layer on and add to the health burden of whatever air pollution is there already, Kizer says.



Since 2000, Californias wildfire season has gotten longer. It peaks earlier, too. Those findings come from graduate student Shu Li and environmental engineer Tirtha Banerjee. Theyre at the University of California, Irvine. They shared their work in Scientific Reports on April 22.



More work is needed before the findings by Weis team can be applied generally, Li says. Particles from extreme wildfires can be carried over great distances. However, she adds, their concentration can also be diluted. She would like to know how high the wildfire pollution has to be to trigger skin effects.



Large wildfires due to lightning and other natural causes are the main reason why more area is getting burned, Li and Banerjee found. But its the frequency of small human-caused wildfires that has gone up most rapidly. These smaller blazes burn through fewer than 200 hectares (500 acres).



Which [size fire] has a greater impact on human health? Li asks. Right now, no one knows.



And California isnt the only place that should worry. More urban areas across the western United States have had poorer air quality during the summer than in the past. Wildfires explain why, say researchers in Utah, Colorado and Nevada. They reported their findings April 30 in Environmental Research Letters.



What to do



Medicines can treat eczema and itch, Wei says. See a doctor if you want relief, she advises. Thats true whether its wildfire season or not.



Better still, take precautions, she says. If wildfire smoke pollutes your air, stay indoors. If you must go out, wear long sleeves and long pants. Moisturize your skin, too. That can provide an extra barrier to pollution.



Better planning can help communities prevent some wildfires, Kizer says. Longer term, people can cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions. Those reductions can rein in the impacts of climate change. However, some climate-change impacts are here to stay. This is part of the picture that the young people are going to have to live with, Kizer says. And its not a pleasant part of the future.

Salto the robot is acting a bit squirrelly.



It can take a flying leap and land on a narrow pipe, just like a squirrel soaring from branch to branch. Its the first time scientists have been able to get a robot to land balanced on such a tiny target.



Weve been inspired by squirrels, says Justin Yim. Hes an engineer who worked on the project at the University of California, Berkeley. (Now he works at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.) The Salto team reported its new results March 19 in Science Robotics.



The one-legged robots clawlike gripper foot helps it land on branches, like a squirrel.Justin K. Yim and Eric K. Wang



Squirrels are one of natures acrobats. They can scamper over telephone wires and vault between trees. They can even navigate Ninja Warrior-style obstacle courses.



A secret to squirrels parkour prowess is exceptional balance. Even if a jump carries them a bit beyond or short of their target, squirrels can maneuver their bodies so that they stay upright. One way is by adjusting how hard their legs push against a branch as they land.



Salto can now make similar adjustments. Yim was part of the team that described how April 4 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.



Think of playing hopscotch, he says. If you land on a square and feel like youre going to fall forward, you might try to stand up tall. To prevent yourself from toppling over, youd push your feet hard against the ground. And if you land too far back, you might crouch down, so you dont tip backward.



Yims team tried to help Salto mimic those tactics.



This spindly little hopping bot was developed in 2016. It was named for saltatorial a term for things that leap or are adapted to leaping. In 2020, Saltos developers figured out how to make Salto stick a landing on flat surfaces. For the new work, they made two big changes. They added a clawlike gripper to Saltos foot. Now it can catch a pipe during landings. They also gave Salto the ability to stand or crouch. This can help improve its balance.




@sciencenewsofficial Salto the robot can take flying leaps and adjust its landing just like squirrels do. Scientists hope that the squirrel-inspired tech could one day help with construction inspections or conducting environmental monitoring in forests. #Robot #Squirrel #STEM #Robotics original sound – sciencenewsofficial – sciencenewsofficial




In test jumps in the lab, Salto leapt from one plastic pipe to another. It successfully did this 25 times out of 30. It caught the tube, swinging over or under it most of the time. But in two trials, Salto leapt, landed and perched just perfectly. It stuck a balanced upright hold on the pipe.



Theres lots of room for improvement, Yim says. Salto may not be ready to join that circus group Cirque du Soleil yet. Still, Yim has ideas about how to improve the robots balance. They could improve Saltos gripper, for a better grasp when trying to land on a pipe. That would work like a squirrel squeezing a branch with its toes.



Yim envisions future robots that are even more agile than Salto. To help with construction, for instance, they might one day hop onto pipes or beams while carrying cameras for inspection. Or maybe Salto could leap throughout a forest as an environmental monitor.



But Salto will need many more tweaks to catch up to its bushy-tailed brothers, Yim says. The robot is definitely not able to do what a squirrel can do just yet.

Massive Otodus megalodon sharks the oceans largest meat-eaters ever ran hot. It now appears that their rise (and fall) may have been tied to their warm-bloodedness.



Chemical measurements on fossil O. megalodon teeth suggest the sharks had higher body temperatures than surrounding waters. Analyses of carbon and oxygen in the teeth revealed that the giant sharks body temperature was about 7 degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seawater temperatures at the time.





Lets learn about sharks



That warm-bloodedness may have been a double-edged sword. The trait may have helped megalodons become swift, fearsome apex predators. Those are hunters at the top of the food chain. O. megalodon grew up to 20 meters (66 feet) long. That makes it one of Earths biggest carnivores ever. But the sharks voracious appetite also may have spelled the species doom.



A creatures metabolism is the set of chemical reactions needed to sustain life. Gigantic bodies require a lot of food to power their metabolisms, notes Robert Eagle. A marine biogeochemist, he studies the chemistry of ocean ecosystems. Massive sharks may have been particularly vulnerable to extinction when food became scarce, he says. Eagle was part of a team that studied fossils of O. megalodon and its living and extinct kin to learn about the animals metabolisms.



Game over for megalodons



Mammals can boost their metabolisms and maintain their body heat, even in colder environments. This trait is called endothermy or warm-bloodedness. Some families of fish, both living and extinct, can do something similar. They can keep some body parts warmer than the surrounding water. This is known as regional warm-bloodedness. Many modern sharks belonging to the group that includes great white sharks have this ability.



Jacking up the temperatures of some body parts is one way some sharks evolved to be giant, says Jack Cooper. A paleobiologist, he studies ancient life at Swansea University in Wales. He did not take part in the new study. Filter feeding offers another path to getting large, Cooper points out. Gentler giants, such as whale sharks, use this strategy when they gulp lots of water and eat the tiny creatures within.



Scientists have long thought megalodon was regionally warm-blooded, Eagle says. Estimates of this beasts body shape, swimming speeds and energy needs point to some warm-bloodedness. The shark also was known to hunt in both colder and warmer waters. That suggests it had some control over its body temperature.





The question, Eagle says, isnt really whether O. megalodon was warm-blooded. Its how warm-blooded. His team wondered how the megasharks internal temps compared to one of its major competitors: the great white shark.



O. megalodon evolved around 23 million years ago. It went extinct sometime between 3.5 million and 2.6 million years ago. Great white sharks emerged late in megalodons reign, roughly 3.5 million years ago. They competed for food with their massive cousins.





Some scientists suspect this competition helped drive O. megalodon to extinction, especially when food became scarcer. The climate changed during the Pliocene Epoch, which spanned 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago. That led to a sharp drop in the numbers of marine mammals. They were a primary food source for both sharks.



But the great whites stuck around when O. megalodon died out, Eagle says. Being the much smaller of the two, they likely needed less food to maintain their metabolism.



Ancient temperature check



To study the ancient sharks body temperatures, the team turned to the only fossils left by these sharks: their teeth.



Fossilized teeth can say a lot about the bodies they came from. A tooths enamel contains isotopes, heavier and lighter forms of a chemical element. Eagles team examined chemically bonded forms of heavier-than-usual carbon and oxygen. The technique acted as a kind of ancient thermometer. The abundance of bonds between these isotopes is only affected by body temperature, Eagle says.



Explainer: What are chemical bonds?



The team used this technique on teeth from great whites and megalodons. They also used it on other animals who lived at the same time. Mollusks are entirely cold-blooded; they cant control their body temperature. Analyzing ancient mollusks revealed the oceans water temperature.



Great whites and megalodons were at least somewhat warm-blooded, the team found. A megalodons body was warmer than the water around it. It also was warmer than the bodies of great white sharks. Neither shark, however, was as warm-blooded as marine mammals, such as whales.



The researchers shared their findings June 26 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.



It’s fantastic that we have more evidence for regional warm-bloodedness in megalodon, Cooper says. O. megalodons higher body temperature would have allowed it to swim further and faster, he says. That increased its chances of finding prey. But when the sharks prey dwindled some 3 million years ago, he says, megalodon may well have starved into extinction.



Eagles team is now exploring the chicken-or-egg question of which came first for megalodons: warm-bloodedness or apex-predator status. You need to be big to be a mega-predator. But its not clear whether carnivores need to be warm-blooded to become apex predators. Were hoping to fit it all together into an evolutionary story as to what drives what.

Mosasaurs a fearsome group of ancient predators once ruled the seas. Now researchers have turned up a 66-million-year fossil tooth from one. And the big surprise: It came from a site that wasnt part of the ocean. As such, this tooth is rewriting the aquatic reptiles history. Some mosasaurs ruled the rivers, it suggests.





The tooth came from a genus known as Prognathodontini (Prog-NAH-thow-don-TEE-nee). These enormous animals could span up to 11 meters (36 feet) or about the length of a telephone pole. The lizard-like creatures showed up during the Late Cretaceous, some 100 million years ago. Then, like nearly all of their dinosaur cousins, mosasaurs went extinct when a massive asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago.



Explainer: The age of dinosaurs



Ancient dinos roamed the land. Mosasaurs prowled the water. More closely related to lizards and snakes than dinos, these giants had shark-like tails and paddle-shaped fins. These helped them glide through water to surprise their prey.



With powerful jaws, this lurking predator could bite through big turtles, fishes and reptiles [including dinosaurs]. It was terrifying, says Melanie During. She works at Uppsala University in Sweden. A paleontologist, she uses fossils to learn about ancient life.



In 2022, a team from the North Dakota Geological Society was digging for fossils in a former river floodplain. The North Dakota site is known as the Hell Creek Formation.



In one football-shaped piece of rock, the team found three fossils: a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth, an ancient crocodile jawbone and a mosasaur tooth.



That last one was unexpected. What was a sea reptile doing with a croc and a dinosaur? We were already surprised when a mosasaur tooth was in Hell Creek. We tried everything to prove that the tooth was from a marine reptile, says During. But thats not what the evidence showed.



This fossil tooth from a mosasaur was found in North Dakota.Trissa Shaw



Before giving up, the team compared the new fossils to ones at Vrije University Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Here, they turned to a chemical technique called isotope analysis. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. Isotope patterns can reveal parts of an animals life history, such as where it lived and what it ate.



Because all fossils at Hell Creek were 66 million years old, the researchers could compare them. They focused on isotopes of three elements: oxygen, strontium and carbon.



Oxygen isotopes pointed to what type of water the mosasaur lived in. Living in salt water, a mosasaur would have built up more of a heavier oxygen isotope. Yet the oxygen in the Hell Creek mosasaur tooth had more lighter isotopes than expected. Strontium and carbon isotopes showed a similar pattern.



The results point to the tooths owner having lived and died in freshwater. It was not merely a sea denizen that washed into a river.



Such data suggest scientists will have to reconsider what they know about mosasaur lifestyles, the researchers say. They shared their new findings in BMC Zoology on December 12, 2025.



Members of the North Dakota Geological Survey during a dig where they discovered the mosasaur tooth.Trissa Shaw



Adapting to change



Its a remarkable example of a species apparently adapting to a habitat, says Barry Albright. Hes a paleontologist at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville who didnt work on the study. It was entirely unexpected, he says. The reptiles were long considered to be exclusively marine.



Nicholas Longrich works at the University of Bath in England. In the sea, [mosasaurs] evolve a range of jaw shapes and tooth shapes, body forms and sizes, this paleontologist says. But now, were seeing them occupy other habitats, he says. It indicates they were diverse and thriving before the asteroid struck, killing off much of Earth’s life 66 million years ago.



Diverse predators at the top of the food web imply diverse prey, Longrich points out. So what drew mosasaurs into rivers?





Mosasaurs evolved into a number of species of many sizes. But all were serious predators, as this brief overview shows.



Heres one idea. During the Late Cretaceous, shallow tropical seas covered Earth. One of them the Western Interior Seaway split in half what is now North America. The rich ecosystems of this sea were full of fish and other prey for mosasaurs to eat. Later, as the continent uplifted, the sea underwent major changes.



One change was that its salt levels fell. Seaway mosasaurs might have adapted enough to be able to venture into freshwater. That could have included the river channels at Hell Creek.



Its possible that mosasaurs were following prey upriver, says Femke Holwerda. Shes a mosasaur expert at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.



Mosasaurs had been hardly the only ocean predators. They had rivals for food. Adapting to life in a river may have helped the Hell Creek mosasaurs occupy a new ecological role. Here, they might have competed less for food, Albright thinks.




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It wouldnt be the first time aquatic life left the ocean. Amazon river dolphins adapted to live in murky rivers. Other ancient marine reptiles have been found in riverbeds, too.



There is no reason why mosasaurs would have been constrained to only marine environments, says Kiersten Formoso. A vertebrate paleobiologist, she works at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.



It would be interesting to see more mosasaur fossils, says Formoso. Was this just a curious mosasaur? she asks. Perhaps a pioneer for its species?



To gather more data, Durings team hopes to return to Hell Creek. Finding the skeleton of this mosasaur would be like winning the jackpot. By finding the entire body, we could see how it adapted, says During.



Indeed, Longrich says, mosasaur bones in the area might have been misidentified before or even ignored. After all, researchers werent looking for them in riverbeds. I cant help but wonder if there are [somewhere, unidentified freshwater mosasaur] teeth and bones sitting in museum drawers.

Our seemingly calm Sun can havea nasty temperthat comes in the form of powerful explosions. The star'sunpredictable outburstscandisruptsatellites in orbit andbe dangerous forastronauts.Though the flares are well-documented, researchers have never been able to pinpoint thecause of the erratic behavior. Now, the Sun'sincrediblemulti-staged "tantrum"may help scientists get closer to solving thelong-standing mystery.

In June 2017, Cathy Raley was about to take her dog on a hike when she suddenly broke out in hives. Her tongue swelled and her throat got tight. Thats when I called 911, she recalls.



On the way to the hospital, Raley stopped being able to swallow. She was immediately given a steroid. She also received a medicine for severe allergic reactions called epinephrine (Ep-ih-NEFF-rin). That eventually calmed her symptoms, though Raley had to spend four hours in the hospital before she could go home.



Explainer: What are allergies?



Shed clearly suffered a major allergic reaction but to what? She was 61 years old and didnt know of anything she was allergic to. So she went to an allergist who combed through her history for clues to what happened.



One hint: Raley had recently had another bout of hives. That one erupted in the middle of the night a sign that it had been a delayed reaction to something. And both times, the hives had occurred after shed cooked red meat: beef and pork.



I have no idea if its related, Raley finally told the allergist, but two months ago, I got bitten by a tick.



That turned out to be the key to solving Raleys mystery.



Cathy Raley has picked up ticks on hikes with her dog, Jake, in the wooded outskirts of Olympia, Wash. But one bite in particular may have sparked a severe allergic reaction.Cathy Raley



She was later diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome. This is an allergy to red meat that scientists knew could develop in response to the bite of a lone star tick. Raley, however, had been bitten while hiking near her home in Olympia, Wash. Lone star ticks are found only east of the Rocky Mountains thousands of kilometers (miles) away.



Two new research reports one on Raleys case and another on a woman in Maine  now suggest the lone star tick isnt the only U.S. tick that can trigger this allergy. The western blacklegged tick and the deer tick may trigger an allergy to red meat, too.



It was a very surprising finding, says Hanna Oltean. She works at Washington States Department of Health in Shoreline. As an epidemiologist, she studies the spread and control of diseases. Oltean was part of a team that described the two alpha-gal cases in Emerging Infectious Diseases in April.



This report raises new questions about a little-known and potentially deadly allergy.





How alpha-gal syndrome works



Scientists discovered alpha-gal syndrome in 2009.



It was first reported in 24 people whod had allergic reactions a few hours after eating red meat, such as beef, pork or lamb. More than eight in every 10 of them recalled being bitten by ticks before showing these symptoms. That raised scientists suspicions that tick bites may have triggered the allergies.



The saliva of certain tick species carries a sugar molecule called alpha-gal. These species include the lone star tick and others found in Europe and Australia. When these ticks bite, the sugar molecule and other compounds can get into someones body. There, they can somehow make the immune systems go haywire.



The next exposure to alpha-gal may trigger an allergic reaction in these people. Red meats and other animal products (such as milk and gelatin) are rich in alpha-gal. So those foods could incite that bad reaction.



Scientists knew that alpha-gal syndrome could develop in response to the bite of a lone star tick (shown). But new research suggests that other types of ticks can trigger this allergy as well.CDC



Alpha-gal syndrome can present very differently from patient to patient, says Johanna Salzer. This epidemiologist works at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.



Some people may get hives and throat swelling, as Raley did. Other cases may look more like the woman from Maine. Shed been bitten by a deer tick. Later, after eating red meat, she developed abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.



The delayed and often mysterious nature of a patients stomach issues can make alpha-gal syndrome hard to diagnose, says Sarah McGill. As a gastroenterologist, she specializes in the digestive system. She works at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.



In the past, doctors hadnt considered food allergies when seeing adult patients with chronic digestive problems, she says. Why? Most food allergies develop when people are young. But alpha-gal syndrome is very unique, she says. Adults can get it suddenly. And theres no cure though some people may eventually be able to eat red meat again without issue. 



Alpha-gal syndrome is not well-known



Another problem: Many doctors and nurses have never heard of alpha-gal syndrome.



In one U.S. survey of healthcare providers, more than four in every 10 had not heard of the condition. Among those who had, about one in three didnt know how it was acquired. Nearly half didnt know what tests to order to diagnose it. Salzer and her colleagues shared these results in 2023.




@sciencenewsofficial A bite from certain tick species could leave you allergic to red meat. Lone star tick bites can trigger alpha-gal syndrome a mysterious allergy to a sugar molecule found in red meat, milk and gelatin. Now, scientists have identified two additional tick species in the U.S. that may also be responsible for causing this condition. Watch for tips from scientists on how to avoid tick bites, especially if you spend a lot of time in the woods. #tickseason #ticks #alphagalsyndrome #redmeat #redmeatallergy #allergyproblems #science #sciencenews original sound – sciencenewsofficial




McGill has seen patients whose alpha-gal symptoms were dismissed by other doctors. When patients asked to be tested for the condition, some doctors had refused.



Those experiences remind McGill of celiac disease, another digestive illness. Here, the immune system overreacts to gluten. This disease was misunderstood for a long time. Patients were sometimes told their symptoms were in their head, McGill says. I see that same pattern happening with alpha-gal syndrome.



Increasing awareness among doctors and nurses could speed up diagnosis, Salzer says. That in turn could help patients feel better faster.



Its hard to know just how many patients were talking about. While alpha-gal syndrome appears fairly rare, exact numbers are hard to pin down. Salzer was part of a team that tallied about 110,000 suspected cases in the United States from 2010 to 2022. But this might be an undercount. As many as 450,000 people might have been affected during this time, those researchers say.



How to avoid alpha-gal syndrome



And this condition can be life-threatening, Oltean emphasizes. But if people know the risks, she adds, they can take appropriate precautions.



For Oltean, that means avoiding tick bites. She knows that can be difficult, especially during tick season. Ticks are generally seeking blood meals from early spring to late fall, depending on where you live.



After being outdoors, many people scan their bodies to ensure theyre not carrying any ticks. Quickly finding and removing those tiny arachnids can keep them from spreading diseases. Thats the case for Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. A tick must latch onto someones body for hours or days to transmit the bacteria that cause those illnesses.



That does not seem to be the case with alpha-gal syndrome, Oltean says. There are no bacteria being transmitted. Tick saliva is thought to cause the allergy. So its possible that a single bite from a tick even one yanked away at once could spark the condition.




Case clusters



Suspected cases of alpha-gal syndrome cluster mostly in the southern, midwestern and mid-Atlantic United States. This map shows cases from 2017 to 2022. Cases are shown per 1 million people in the population per year. Areas with larger case counts are shown in dark blue.



J.M. Thompson et al/MMWR 2023




Oltean is brimming with tips to prevent tick bites. Walk in the center of trails. Avoid tall brush and grassy areas. Wear tightly woven clothing. Apply tick repellent to exposed skin, and shower soon after being outdoors.



Since alpha-gal syndrome was discovered so recently, theres still a lot to learn about whos most at risk.



Why are some people bitten by ticks all the time and they never develop alpha-gal syndrome? Salzer asks. She also wants to know just how long a tick must attach for someone to get the condition.



Her research suggests that most U.S. alpha-gal cases have happened in the lone star ticks range. Oltean wonders why lone star ticks seem better at triggering an immune response. And do multiple tick bites over time make someone more likely to develop the condition? 



Answering such questions could help people protect themselves from this condition and help doctors better spot those who have it.





Learn more about the risk of alpha-gal syndrome and how many people may be at risk of developing this allergy to meat.

Cryogenic (adjective, Cry-oh-JEN-ick)



Cryogenic refers to technology that works in or relies on very low temperatures. Typically, cryogenic tech involves temperatures lower than 150 Celsius (238 Fahrenheit). The word cryogenic also refers to fields that build systems for achieving and using these cold temps.



Cryogenic tech is often useful because it alters a substances state. For instance, cooling can change something from a liquid into a solid. Or a gas into a liquid.



Heres an example. Cryogenics can cool rocket fuels, such as hydrogen and methane. This turns the fuels which would be gases at room temperature into liquids. Those liquids can then be stored in tanks and burned, granting rockets the thrust needed to lift off into space.



Cryogenic tools might also be used during surgery. This is called cryosurgery. It allows doctors to freeze off diseased tissue, such as cancerous cells.





In other cases, cryogenic tech is used to preserve cells, such as egg cells. Say someone wants to have a child in the future. But they arent sure if the egg cells in their body will still be viable at that time. (Viable means the cell can still be fertilized.) That person could have some of their egg cells frozen in their current state. Think of this as pressing the pause button on life. The eggs can be reawakened and fertilized later.



Biologists might also freeze lab samples to keep them from decaying. In conservation biology, scientists might preserve the DNA of an endangered species. That way, scientists might be able to clone new members of that species in the future. (To clone means to grow a genetic copy of another individual.)



This field is even useful for preserving food. Quick-freezing can often better retain foods qualities than just putting it in a freezer. In the freezer, teeny-tiny ice shards form in food, which can change its taste. Cryogenics allows for flash-freezing. This process quickly freezes food before these shards can form. 



In a sentence



By turning fuels from gas into liquid, cryogenics can create high-density rocket propellant.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

Some artistsseem toexcel at impressingthe world with artworkthat can only be called unusual at best. First, there wasMaurizio Cattelan'sComedian,a series of threesculptures each comprising a single banana affixedto a wall withduct tape that soldfor$120,000 apiece in 2019. Now,contemporary Italian artistSalvatore Garauhas managed to sellan immaterial, or imaginary,masterpiece to an anonymous buyer for an astonishing 15,000 euros (about $18,000)!

Its common to hear the term chaos used to describe seemingly random, unpredictable events. The energetic behavior of kids on a bus ride home from a field trip might be one example. But to scientists, chaos means something else. It refers to a system that is not totally random but still cannot be easily predicted. Theres a whole area of science devoted to this. Its known as chaos theory.



In a non-chaotic system, its easy to measure the details of the starting environment. A ball rolling down a hill is one example. Here, the balls mass and the hills height and angle of decline are the starting conditions. If you know these starting conditions, you can predict how fast and far the ball will roll.





A chaotic system is similarly sensitive to its initial conditions. But even tiny changes to those conditions can lead to huge changes later. So, its hard to look at a chaotic system at any given time and know exactly what its initial conditions were.



For example, have you ever wondered why predictions of the weather one to three days from now can be horribly wrong? Blame chaos. In fact, weather is the poster child of chaotic systems.





The origin of chaos theory



Mathematician Edward Lorenz developed modern chaos theory in the 1960s. At the time, he was a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. His work involved using computers to predict weather patterns. That research turned up something strange. A computer could predict very different weather patterns from almost the same set of starting data.



But those starting data werent exactly the same. Small variations in the initial conditions led to wildly different outcomes.



To explain his findings, Lorenz likened the subtle differences in starting conditions to the impacts of the flapping wings of some distant butterfly. Indeed, by 1972 he called this the butterfly effect. The idea was that the flap of an insects wings in South America might set up conditions that led to a tornado in Texas. He suggested that even subtle air movements such as those caused by butterfly wings could create a domino effect. Over time and distance, those effects might add up and intensify winds.



Does a butterfly really affect the weather? Probably not. Bo-Wen Shen is a mathematician at San Diego State University in California. This idea is an oversimplification, he argues. In fact, the concept has been generalized mistakenly, Shen says. Its led to a belief that even small human actions could lead to huge unintended impacts. But the general idea that tiny changes to chaotic systems can have huge effects still holds up.





Maren Hunsberger, a scientist and actress, explains how chaos is not some random behavior, but instead describes things that are hard to predict well. This video shows why.



Studying chaos





Chaos is difficult to predict, but not impossible. From the outside, chaotic systems appear to have traits that are semi-random and unpredictable. But even though such systems are more sensitive to their initial conditions, they do still follow all the same laws of physics as simple systems. So the motions or events of even chaotic systems progress with almost clock-like precision. As such, they can be predictable and largely knowable if you can measure enough of those initial conditions.



One way scientists predict chaotic systems is by studying whats known as their strange attractors. A strange attractor is any underlying force that controls the overall behavior of a chaotic system.



Shaped like swirling ribbons, these attractors work somewhat like wind picking up leaves. Like leaves, chaotic systems are drawn to their attractors. Similarly, a rubber ducky in the ocean will be drawn to its attractor the ocean surface. This is true no matter how waves, winds and birds may jostle the toy. Knowing the shape and position of an attractor can help scientists predict the path of something (such as storm clouds) in a chaotic system.



Chaos theory can help scientists better understand many different processes besides weather and climate. For instance, it can help explain irregular heartbeats and the motions of star clusters.

Post your funniest memes for kids in the comments!

President Ronald Reagan's love for jelly beans was well-known. However, America's 40th leader also had a soft spot for ice cream. In 1984, he issued Proclamation 5219. It declaredJuly as National Ice Cream Monthand the third Sunday of Julyas National Ice Cream Day.Americans are urged to celebrate the month"with appropriate ceremonies and activities." This means eating as much ice cream as you can. Thesefunfacts willkeep youentertainedwhile youperformyour civic duty.

Everybody gets bored sometimes, especially when theres no homework or a rainy day outside. So, what do you like to do when youre feeling bored? Do you have a favorite activity that helps you pass the time? Share your answers in the comments below and explain why!

On July 31, 2022,Jessin Fisher (10), his brother Liam (7), and cousin Kaiden Madsen (9) wentfossil-huntingin the Hell Creek Formation in the North Dakota Badlands.The area is rich in dinosaur bones, and the trio hoped to find a few.Little did they know that they were about to stumble upon one of onlya handful of juvenileTyrannosaurus rex (T. rex)skeletons ever found!

Ever since last week, KS stuff has been going on and off from being blocked! Sometimes, I get temporarily banned for doing too much suspicious unblocked game apps, but when the KS services were blocked, it said that my school district’s adimin was looking over the app to determine if it should be blocked or […]

The Thwaites Glacier in WestAntarctica is the world's largest and widest glacier. The massive ice sheetstretches80 miles (129 km) across,roughly the sizeof Florida.The glacier loses about 50 billion tons of ice annually and already accounts for about 4 percent of the planet's current sea level rise. If it were to melt completely, it could raise global sea levels by about twofeet (61 cm). This would displacemillions of peoplein coastal communities worldwide.It is no wonder theice masshas been nicknamed"Doomsday Glacier."

A raremanuscriptco-authored byGerman-American physicistAlbert Einstein and Swiss-Italian engineer Michele Bessojust became themostexpensiveautographed scientific paper ever sold.The final price which added up to more than13.3 million euros ($15 million)with fees far exceededthe3.5 millionEuros ($3.9 million)expectedbyChristie's Auction House Parisoffice, which hosted the sale.

Hi again guys!! For one, Im sorry, I dont think I put a category on my first post ( If it got approved because I am making this before the other post gets accepted). Anywho, this space is for just chatting with no specific thing. I hope to make new friends here. This space is […]