Two researchers from the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico are proposing a redefinition of the term “life” to extend beyond individual biological organisms to include structures and concepts that are produced not only by what would traditionally be considered lifeforms, but also to extend that definition to phenomena thatread more
The discovery of the fossils of a sponge-like creature that dates back to 890 million years ago suggests that simple animals appeared on Earth nearly 350 million years before the oldest known fossilized specimens first appeared in the Earth’s oceans. While the previously oldest known animal fossils, also in theread more
The massive wildfires currently burning in Canada and the US are intense enough to generate their own weather systems, cycles of air that soar high into the atmosphere that generate their own lightning storms, sparking new fires on the ground below, then falling in powerful downdrafts that feed fresh airread more
Researchers studying the lakes of liquid water that are buried under Mars’ southern polar ice caps are beginning to question whether or not these structures are indeed liquid, as the radar data would indicate, due to the lack of a heat source that would prevent the water from freezing. Butread more