We can learn a lot from studying the rings inside trees. The science of tree-ring analysis is called dendrochronology, and examining these markings can provide information about the tree’s age, whether it had been through any fires, or if it had endured any insect outbreaks. A tree’s rings can also give significant insight into what...
The world’s wealthiest people are often criticized for being greedy. In many cases, this criticism is warranted. While a significant portion of society struggles to put food on its tables, the wealthiest among us seem to continue to make more and more money. While millions of people lost their jobs and were unable to pay rent,...
The sun gives life to plants and microorganisms, provides us with warmth and daylight, and is an endless source of renewable energy. By all accounts, solar energy should be our first choice for heating our water and homes and powering our cars, but there’s just one problem that has stumped the solar industry for quite...
For millennia, humans have looked up at the sky and wondered what forces power the sun and stars. Many early societies chalked it up to the work of deities or a higher power. As technology and scientific knowledge has advanced, we have been able to probe further into space and answer some of these burning...
18-year-old Loren Schauers and 21-year-old Sabia Mistral-Reiche were, by all accounts, an ordinary young couple. Living in Great Falls, Montana, the pair had been dating for eighteen months. Then, a tragic accident changed Sabia and Loren forever. Teen crushed by a forklift Loren was driving a forklift across a bridge. He began moving closer to...
Scientists are constantly learning about our history as a species. Sometimes, these new discoveries change everything we think about a specific population. Scientists found DNA not linked to any known human ancestor. This suggests that at some point in history, there may have been another group of hominids that we didn’t know existed. DNA Not...
Researchers in Australia recently discovered a 2 million-year-old skull that gives us more clues about our evolution as a species. The skull, which they found in South Africa, is of the species Paranthropus robustus, a cousin species to our predecessors, Homo erectus. Many recent fossil discoveries, like the Siberian Unicorn or the “dinosaur mummy” have...
Between 2018 and 2019, we observed the first 28 cycles of a fast radio burst coming from ultra-deep space. Astronomers estimated that the object it came from was approximately five hundred million lightyears away. Despite this, they declared that this mysterious radio signal was the closest our planet has ever seen. That is, until now....
When a scientist in China invented a new jet engine that could change the future of jet propulsion, it went largely unnoticed. Jua Tang’s jet engine that turns electricity directly into thrust, however, could eliminate the need for fossil fuels and revolutionize air and possibly even space travel. A New Jet Engine As a society,...
In the state of Pennsylvania, leaving your dog out in the cold could land you in jail. In 2016, a small Boston Terrier puppy in Pennsylvania was rescued from a near-death situation. As the news spread, animal rights activists across the state began demanding tougher punishments for perpetrators of animal cruelty. In 2017, state legislatures...
As climate change continues to progress and our world gradually gets warmer, changes are occurring in ecosystems across the earth. Nowhere is this change more evident than in the earth’s poles. In 2018, researchers successfully revived two species of frozen worms from melting permafrost in Siberia. These worms are now awake, after being frozen for...
Tackling homelessness is one of the biggest challenges facing society. In the United States, over five hundred thousand people experience homelessness on any given night [1]. In Canada, there are at least 235 thousand people who experience homelessness every year, with 35 thousand on any given night [2]. But what would happen if you gave...
