Simons Foundation Grant News Today

“I have seen sane scientists lose their minds during totality. It is a cathartic reaction.”

At the time, news accounts reported the next total eclipse in Maine would be in Aroostook County in another 200 years.

Credit: Carl Buell A new study shows that the similarly smooth, nearly hairless skin of whales and hippopotamuses evolved independently. The work suggests that their last common ancestor was likely a land-dwelling mammal, uprooting current thinking that the skin came fine-tuned for life in the water from a shared amphibious ancestor. The study is published today in the journal Current Biology and was led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History; University of California, Irvine...