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PBS
The Mystery of the Cretaceous Pompeii
Since the 1990s, paleontologists have been pulling 125-million-year-old complete dinosaur skeletons from the rocks of the Lujiatun in Northeastern China, most seemingly posed in perfect rest. This has prompted comparisons to a famous...
PBS
How Mountains Make Evolution Weird
Mountains have a unique effect on diversity, messing with our understanding of animals through time, and pretty much just making evolution weird. And they would eventually reveal something even stranger about a group of mammals even...
PBS
Why Wasn't There A Second Age of Reptiles?
An asteroid impact triggered the K-Pg mass extinction, wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs, ending the Age of Reptiles, and ushering in the Age of Mammals. But why was it the mammals who triumphed?
PBS
The Graveyard at the Center of the Earth
Scientists have been trying to solve the mystery of why plate tectonics works the way it does for over a hundred years. And they might have just uncovered a key to cracking it.
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Could This Sperm Whale Eat The Meg?
Unlike in fiction, giant whales do not emerge fully-formed from the ocean deep. So, where did Livyatan melvillei come from? How did such a large predator live? And what caused the titan to die out? The answer may lie in an appetite so...
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Are All Oceans Basically Reincarnated?
This is the hundred-year tale of how an unlikely bunch of bottom-dwelling marine critters helped reveal that ocean basins are basically reincarnated every few hundred million years.
PBS
Darwin's Unexpected Final Obsession
After having solved the small matter of evolution by natural selection - becoming one of the most famous scientists in the world in the process - Charles Darwin turned his focus to a different personal obsession…
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The Sun is Not the Center of the Solar System
Despite what you may have heard or learned in school, the sun is NOT in fact the center of the solar system. And it won’t be until 2027… But this being a science channel, you might be thinking “What the heck is this guy talking about? Of...
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Why Some of the Rainbow is Missing
Over 200 years ago, scientists were looking at sunlight through a prism when they noticed that part of the rainbow was missing. There were dark lines where there should have been colors. Since then, scientists have unlocked the secrets...
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What is the Most Average Thing?
We may not know it, but averages affect our lives every day. Designers and manufacturers use averages to make our houses, cars, shoes and airline seats safer and more comfortable(ish). But calculating averages is way more complicated...
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The Surprising Power of Sex in Evolution
We all know Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, right? Natural selection? But what about his lesser-know theory of evolution: sexual selection. Let’s talk about how animals like peacocks, whose eye-catching physical traits make them...
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Camouflage Isn't What It Appears To Be
Camouflage is nature’s ultimate game of hide-and-seek, and the secret to winning this game is all in the brain. By studying the masters of disguise, we can see how they trick the brain to make themselves invisible — and what this can...
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Why Useless Knowledge Can Be So Useful
Our lizard friend the Gila monster probably has no idea that a chemical in its spit inspired one of the most important medical advancements of the 21st century. But this story is really about something bigger. Something deeper, beneath...
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Why Paleontologists Can’t Stop Fighting About Spinosaurus
What does it mean to be a “semi-aquatic” dinosaur? Was it wading in the shallows, or could it have been a skilled swimmer? Each scenario paints a very different picture of Spinosaurus, and the discovery of new fossils has paleontologists...
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What Could We See with a Planet-Sized Telescope?
The James Webb Telescope just took a photo of a newly discovered exoplanet. Exciting stuff but the raw image just looks like a small, faint dot—not a fully detailed world. The question is, just how big would a telescope need to be to...
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Why OOH Sounds Different Than AHH
Human language is an incredible thing: a combination of mouth sounds that we combine into words, sentences, poems, and constitutions. They carry meaning, emotion, and power. But underneath it all, language is really just physics. In this...
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When the CIA Spied on Planet Earth
In 1995, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a top-secret, first-of-its-kind US spy satellite program was declassified, leading to the unexpected story of how former enemies would become scientific allies, and technology...
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The Great Oxygenation
Life’s been around on Earth for at least 3.7 billion years. But for most of that time, it was incredibly boring — just simple little cells squirming around in water. It only got interesting in the last few hundred million years. And that...
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How Scorpions Became Earth’s Ultimate Survivors
Scorpions are a frightening and deadly group of animals. But their venom is one of nature's most unique chemical cocktails. Here’s how scientists are using it for inspiration to design new medicines and pain killers.
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The Biggest Myth About Innovation
The idea of the lone genius creating everything isn’t just misleading. It’s harmful and wrong. Innovation thrives when people work together, and rather than nice linear paths, new ideas come from chance events and unexpected connections....
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How Did X Become the Unknown (and so much else)?
X is everywhere and it’s probably thanks to math. But why is x the symbol for the unknown?
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Can a Billion Oysters Save New York City?
When people picture New York City they see skyscrapers, subways, and a concrete jungle. But the Big Apple is really a seaside city built on an archipelago. In the wake of a century of industrial pollution and climate change-fueled...
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How Scientists Made the Hottest Thing Ever
At CERN, physicists are searching for answers to some of the biggest questions ever — like how the universe started and where everything comes from. To get one step closer to an answer, CERN scientists recreated the first moment after...
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I Don’t Know How to Feel About 2023
2023 was a wild year with everything from scorching temperatures to massive wildfires. Even with more renewable energy than ever, 2023’s climate data still seems really bad. So how should we think about climate change today? And what can...