Biology

The world’s oldest heart: Evolutionary insights from the 380 million-year-old fossil

Biology, World / /

In September of 2022, a research team working at the Gogo Formation sedimentary deposit in western Australia discovered the world’s oldest heart, located inside a fossilized prehistoric fish. The fish, classified as a placoderm, had been dead for approximately 380 million years.  The placoderm is crucial to studying the evolution of modern-day vertebrates. Because they […]

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Back to Basics: A Bird’s Preference for Native Species over Their Invasive Counterparts

Biology, Environment / /

As food availability in the Northern Hemisphere decrease in the fall, many birds travel southward. This seasonal trend of mass travel is known as migration. To prepare for a large migration, birds often stock up on fruits and other food sources. But with invasive plant species overtaking their native counterparts, birds are struggling to obtain

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Sending humans to Mars: Outlook, barriers, and timeline

Biology, Space / /

The United States has landed nine payloads on Mars — the fourth planet from the sun, with a reddish-brown coloration — dating all the way back to 1976. And yet, no human has ever set foot on Mars. Although Earth’s and Mars’ days are approximately equivalent lengths, many stark differences exist between the two celestial

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Secrets of the endurance athlete and how to become one

Biology, Health / /

People often perceive endurance as an ability that takes significant time and patience to develop or something limited only to those with “good” genetics. While both can be true, anyone can become a solid endurance athlete with the right training. Performance training that targets metrics that scientists use to assess fitness is one place to

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Marine snow: How deep-sea snow storms cool the planet

Biology, Environment / /

Snow falls 24 hours a day in the depths of the oceanic twilight zone. White flurries saturate the marine landscape, appearing in all different shapes and sizes. Unlike crystallized water droplets that fall from the sky, marine snow is made from a variety of different organic compounds. It sustains life in the deep ocean where

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How bioengineered microbes could buy time in the fight against desertification

Biology / /

The effects of human activity on the global climate are numerous and far-reaching; most people are already aware of the threats of global warming, sea level rising, and increased frequency of extreme weather events. A lesser-known process being accelerated by human activity is desertification — in which fertile, vegetated biomes become desert due to drought,

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