Enlarge / A chimpanzee named Ayumu participates in an eye-tracking session in an experimental booth. (credit: A. Goncalves et al., 2022) Swiss primatologist Christophe Boesch once commented on a picture of a chimpanzee skull, pondering, “What goes on in the chimpanzee’s mind when they see such a sight in the forest? ” We might not yet […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) Earth Day was April 22, and its usual message—take care of our planet—has been given added urgency by the challenges highlighted in the latest IPCC report. This year, Ars is taking a look at the technologies we normally cover, from cars to chipmaking, and finding out how we […]
Enlarge / Fossilized spider from the Aix-en-Provence formation in France seen in hand sample overlain with fluorescent microscopy image of the same fossil. UV illumination causes the fossil to glow brightly, revealing more details about its preservation. (credit: Olcott et al., 2022) Scientists have long puzzled over the exceptional preservation of certain fossils of Cenozoic-era […]
Enlarge / Conservation efforts for the shoe included careful reshaping and freeze-drying. (credit: Secrets of the Ice ) Sometime between 200 and 500 CE, someone crossing a high mountain pass in Norway discarded a shoe. More than 1, 500 years later, an unusually warm summer melted centuries of accumulated snow and ice , revealing the […]
Enlarge / SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle is ready to launch four astronauts for NASA. (credit: NASA) On Monday afternoon, a Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Now, less than two days later, SpaceX and NASA are preparing another Crew Dragon for launch. Monday’s landing returned a crew […]
Enlarge / Liver lesions in patient with chronic active hepatitis C. (credit: Getty | BSIP) At least one child has died of unexplained liver inflammation in a growing international outbreak of puzzling hepatitis cases in children, according to the World Health Organization. The outbreak tally has reached more than 170 cases in 12 countries and […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) An unfortunate byproduct of the arguments over climate change has been the publication of some truly awful books. Think tank staff members, disgruntled scientists, and self-appointed experts have produced page after page of arguments we knew were wrong decades ago, framing them as earth-shattering revelations that will cause […]
A male orb-weaving spider catapults off a female after mating. Survival could mean another chance to fertilize her eggs. A male orb-weaving spider catapults off a female after mating. Survival could mean another chance to fertilize her eggs. Rudyard Kipling famously observed in a 1911 poem that “the female of the species is deadlier than […]
Enlarge / On April 15, Crew Dragon Endeavour is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing international docking adapter. (credit: NASA) The Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station on Sunday evening, setting the stage to bring four private astronauts back to Earth. After slowly backing away from the orbiting laboratory, […]
Enlarge (credit: Zipline International) Six years ago, Rwanda had a blood delivery problem. More than 12 million people live in the small East African country, and like those in other nations, sometimes they get into car accidents. New mothers hemorrhage. Anemic children need urgent transfusions. You can’t predict these emergencies. They just happen. And when they […]