Many Turing mechanism models yield too-perfect patterns; varying cell sizes vastly improves the results. A mixture of two types of pigment-producing cells undergoes diffusiophoretic transport to self-assemble into a hexagonal pattern. Credit: Siamak Mirfendereski and Ankur Gupta/CU Boulder A mixture of two types of pigment-producing cells undergoes diffusiophoretic transport…
Storm reached sustained winds of 160 mph on Monday morning. Hurricane Melissa will make landfall in southern Jamaica less than 24 hours from now, and it is likely to be the most catastrophic storm in the Caribbean island’s history. As it crawled across the northern Caribbean Sea on Monday…
Marine mammals are being forced into new and more dangerous waters, scientists warn. For millennia, some of the world’s largest filter-feeding whales, including humpbacks, fin whales, and blue whales, have undertaken some of the longest migrations on earth to travel between their warm breeding grounds in the tropics to…
If we ID the DNA for a great antibody, anyone can now make it. One of the things that emerging diseases, including the COVID and Zika pandemics, have taught us is that it’s tough to keep up with infectious diseases in the modern world. Things like air travel can…
A handful of bat species hunt birds, and new sensor data tells us how. There are three species of bats that eat birds. We know that because we have found feathers and other avian remains in their feces. What we didn’t know was how exactly they hunt birds, which…
Microbial DNA suggests troops suffered from paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever, among other diseases. In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte led a disastrous military campaign into Moscow. The death toll was devastating: Out of some 615,000 men, only about 110,000 survivors returned. (Napoleon abandoned his army in early December to return…
A South Korean rocket startup will soon make its first attempt to reach low-Earth orbit. Welcome to Edition 8.16 of the Rocket Report! The 10th anniversary of SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 rocket landing is coming up at the end of this year. We’re still waiting for a second company…
Fossil beds in New Mexico show diverse species present in the late Cretaceous. The end of the dinosaurs was clearly linked to an asteroid impact that brought the Cretaceous period to a close. But the details of their end have remained a matter of debate since the impact crater…
The NTP produced controversial studies on cellphone radiation and fluoride. The director of a federal health institute that has arguably produced two of the most controversial government studies in recent years has accepted a new federal role to advance the goals of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Meanwhile,…
Europeans weren’t the first people to collect fossils in Australia. Australia’s First Peoples may or may not have hunted the continent’s megafauna to extinction, but they definitely collected fossils. A team of archaeologists examined the fossilized leg bone of an extinct kangaroo and realized that instead of evidence of…
