Mass mortality of seabirds. Marine mammal deaths. Alaskans sickened by shellfish. What’s the common theme? Seawater contaminated by toxic algae. Call it death by phytoplankton. A group of Alaskans — including state officials, tribes, nonprofit organizations and researchers — have recently come together to try to combat these marine toxins. The goal is to keep […]
For the first time, astronomers have detected a signal from stars emerging in the early universe. Using a radio antenna not much larger than a refrigerator, the researchers discovered that ancient suns were active within 180 million years of the Big Bang. The astronomers, from Arizona State University (ASU), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) […]
Several times in the distant past, our home planet has been cleansed of its residents, with the exception of a few plucky survivors. Perhaps the best known and most spectacular extinction was that of the dinosaurs, caused when a meteorite six miles in diameter crashed into Earth about 65 million years ago. There was another […]