What We Learned in Science News 2019 – The New York Times, The New York Times
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Developments in science that we’re still thinking about at year end.
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It’s not easy to say that any particular space or astronomy development was the most important in a given year. But if we had to choose some highlights, we’d opt for these unforgettable events and findings.
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Image************************************************************************************************************************************** A tangled mass of articulated fish fossils uncovered in North Dakota. The site appears to date to the day 66 million years ago when a meteor hit Earth, killing nearly all life on the planet.Credit …Robert DePalma / University of Kansas
You probably know the broad outline of the story: million years ago, a giant meteorite landed in what is now the Gulf of Mexico, and ended the dinosaurs . This year, various teams of scientists, working independently, helped fill in the picture of exactly what happened on that fateful day.
The largest discovery was a site in North Dakota that preserved a jumble of fossilized fish and plant life that may have been thrown together by a tsunami
on the very day of the meteorite strike. Closer to the impact site, scientists alsoa geological timeline of disasters that befell Earth
that day. And researchers detailed evidence found in Europe that the Chicxulub eventacidified the ocean in a flash
, extinguishing much of Earth’s ocean life at the time.
An exhaustive analysis of hundreds of bird species in the United States and Canada contained a warning: The majority of bird species are in decline, many by huge numbers. The likely culprits? Habitat loss and pesticides.Quantum computing changed everything and nothing
This year we met a new extinct human relative, Homo luzonensis. It was discovered in a cave on Luzon Island in the Philippines, and adds further complexity to the story of human evolution.
The North Pole is at the very top of the world, right? Actually, the planet’s magnetic north is a great distance from degrees north, and it moves around. Lately it has moved more than expected, requiring scientists to update the World Magnetic Model a year earlier than planned. The tinkering ensures that modern navigation tools will continue to function properly, but it is a reminder of the geoscience mysteries deep beneath Earth’s surface.
VideoVideo by Vrselja, et al./Nature(*************************
When does life end and death begin? Scientists seem to have blurred that line when they managed to restore cellular activity in brains removed from slaughtered pigs. Although the pig brains did not exhibit any higher functions, some cells regained metabolic activity. The research is preliminary, but it upends standard medical thinking about the brain and raises more than a few metaphysical conundrums. (******************************************************************** (Pondering the periodic table’s future********************
Happy th birthday to the Periodic Table of Elements! As scientists celebrated Dmitri Mendeleev’s enduring array of chemical elements this year, some also wondered whether there might be a better way to organize the stuff of the universe. A New and Improved Table could come in handy: As more superheavy elements are discovered, their behaviors could challenge the integrity of Mendeleev’s memorable chart. (************************************************************** (*********************************************************************** (************************************************************************************************************************************************** (Read More) ******************** (**************************************************************************
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