Sleeping Outdoors
Join Huell as he meets two different couples who enjoy sleeping outside. Find out why and how they do it. Read more Visiting with Huell Howser
Paleontologists Unearth Giant Dinosaur Fossils That Could Belong to Largest Land Creature Ever Known
Paleontologists have uncovered the fossilized remains of a 98-million-year-old dinosaur in Argentina, believing it could be one of the largest land creatures ever to have existed.
The remains, comprising 24 tail vertebrae and parts of the pelvic and pectoral girdle, were discovered within the Candeleros Formation, a dense sedimentary rock formation in Neuquén Province in Argentina’s northwest Patagonia, reports CNN. Paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of a 98-million-year-old titanosaur in Neuquén Province in Argentina’s northwest Patagonia (Courtesy of Alejandro Otero and José Luis Carballido)
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Despite recent advancements in DNA evidence-gathering and high-tech investigative tools, a simple pencil-on-paper sketch can still have a significant impact on criminal cases. Forensic artists who create such sketches use eyewitness accounts, crime scene evidence, skeletal remains, and more to help illustrate and personify criminals and victims all of it in the pursuit of bringing perpetrators to justice.
To better understand the details of the job, Mental Floss asked three veteran forensic artists about tricks of the trade, why they’re not actually trying to create an exact likeness, and how a bird’s nest can be one of their best tools. Here’s what we’ve learned.
DOE awarding more than $50M to 15 projects to advance critical material innovations
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding more than $50 million in funding for 15 projects focused on field validation and demonstration as well as next-generation extraction, separation, and processing technologies for critical materials.
Critical materials are used in many products important to the US economy and energy technologies, such as rare-earth elements used to manufacture high-strength magnets for offshore wind-turbine generators and lithium and cobalt in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
Projects selected under this funding opportunity announcement will reduce both the costs of critical materials and the environmental impacts of production. The projects are divided into two main topic areas:
Discovery of ‘cryptic species’ shows Earth is even more biologically diverse
A method called DNA barcoding has revealed that some animals and plants believed to be a single species are actually separate
By Patrick Greenfield / The Guardian
A growing number of “cryptic species” hiding in plain sight have been unmasked in the past year, driven in part by the rise of DNA barcoding, a technique that can identify and differentiate between animal and plant species using their genetic divergence.
The discovery of new species of aloe, African leaf-nosed bats and chameleons that appear similar to the human eye, but are in fact many and separate, have thrilled and worried conservationists.