Curious Kids: what was the biggest dinosaur that ever lived?

Getty Images Nic Rawlence, University of OtagoWhat actually was the biggest dinosaur? – Zavier, 14, Tauranga, New Zealand. Great question Zavier, and one that palaeontologists (scientists who study fossil animals and plants) are interested in all around the world. And let’s face it, kids of all ages (and I include adults here) are fascinated by dinosaurs that break records for the biggest, the longest, the scariest or the fastest. It’s why, to this day, one of most famous dinosaurs is still Tyranosaurus rex, the tyrant king. These record-breaking dinosaurs are part of the reason why the Jurassic Park movie franchise has been so successful. Just think of the scene where Dr Alan Grant (played by New Zealand actor Sam Neill) is stunned by the giant sauropod dinosaur rearing up to reach the highest leaves in the tree with its long neck. But how do scientists work out how big and heavy a dinosaur was? And what were the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived? Calculating dinosaur size In an ideal world, calculating how big a dinosaur was would be easy – with a nearly complete skeleton. Standing next to the remarkable Triceratops skeleton on permanent display at Melbourne Museum makes you realise how gigantic and formidable these creatures were. By measuring bone proportions (such as length,...
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What’s the difference between climate and weather models? It all comes down to chaos

Nadia Piet/AIxDESIGN & Archival Images of AI / Better Images of AI , CC BY-SA Andy Hogg, Australian National University; Aidan Heerdegen, Australian National University, and Kelsey Druken, Australian National UniversityWeather forecasts help you decide whether to go for a picnic, hang out your washing or ride your bike to work. They also provide warnings for extreme events, and predictions to optimise our power grid. To achieve this, services such as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology use complex mathematical representations of Earth and its atmosphere – weather and climate models. The same software is also used by scientists to predict our future climate in the coming decades or even centuries. These predictions allow us to plan for, or avoid, the impacts of future climate change. Weather and climate models are highly complex. The Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator, for example, is comprised of millions of lines of computer code. Without climate and weather models we would be flying blind, both for short-term weather events and for our long-term future. But how do they work – and how are they different? The same physical principles Weather is the short-term behaviour of the atmosphere – the temperature on a given day, the wind, whether it’s raining and how much. Climate is about long-term...
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Scientists Drill Ice Core–2 Miles Down–Extracting 1.2 Million Years of Climate Record On Earth

Antarctica ice core – PNRA / IPEV via SWNSAn international team of scientists in the Antarctic has successfully extracted what is believed to be the world’s oldest ice—a historic milestone for climate science.They drilled down almost two miles to extract 2.8-km of ice core, reaching the actual bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.The air bubbles trapped inside the ice are “like tiny time capsules of Earth’s atmospheric past”. The samples equate to a continuous record of climate history dating back to 1.2 million years ago, which could illuminate the mysteries of glacial climate cycles.This was the fourth Antarctic field mission for the Europeans behind the ‘Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice’ project, funded by the European Commission.They achieved more than 200 days of successful drilling and ice core processing operations across four seasons in the harsh environment of the central Antarctic plateau, working at an altitude of 3,200 meters above sea level with an average summer temperature of -35°C.The ice core from Beyond EPICA will offer unprecedented insights into the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, a remarkable period between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles slowed down from 41,000-years to 100,000-year intervals.The reasons behind this shift remain one of climate science’s enduring mysteries, one which this project...
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Some of Earth’s most ancient lifeforms can live on hydrogen – and we can learn from their chemical powers

Carsten Steger / Wikimedia, CC BY Pok Man Leung, Monash University and Chris Greening, Monash UniversityThree-quarters of all matter in the universe is made up of hydrogen. The young Earth was also rich in hydrogen, thanks to fierce geological and volcanic activity. Just as stars burn hydrogen to produce heat and light through nuclear reactions, life emerged by extracting energy from this simple molecule via chemical reactions. Some of these early life forms were archaea: an enigmatic third form of life only discovered in the 1970s. (The other two forms are bacteria and eukaryotes, the group that includes all animals, plants and fungi.) We have studied thousands of species of archaea to understand how they have thrived for billions of years on our constantly changing planet. In their genetic blueprints we found instructions for producing special enzymes (called hydrogenases) to harvest energy from hydrogen gas, which lets them survive in some of the most punishing environments on Earth. Our latest research is published in Cell and Nature Communications. A life powered by hydrogen Archaea are found in places where no other life can survive. For example, some flourish in boiling hot springs where the water is so acidic it would dissolve iron. Here, hydrogen is continually formed from the geothermal processes in Earth’s...
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Studies show climate change caused Earth's axis to meander 10 metres in last 120 years

New Delhi, (IANS) Two NASA-funded studies have shown that melting ice, dwindling groundwater, and rising seas, a result of climate change, has also led to the Earth's axis to meander 10 metres in the last 120 years.In the first study, published in Nature Geoscience, researchers analysed polar motion across 12 decades.The scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland attributed 90 per cent of recurring fluctuations in polar motions between 1900 and 2018 to changes in groundwater, ice sheets, glaciers, and sea levels.The remainder mostly resulted from Earth's interior dynamics, like the wobble from the tilt of the inner core concerning the bulk of the planet, they said.Changes caused due to Earth's rising temperatures "are strong drivers of the changes we’re seeing in the planet’s rotation," said Surendra Adhikari, a co-author of both papers and a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.The second study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that since 2000, days have been lengthening by 1.33 milliseconds.This change is attributed to the accelerated melting of glaciers and ice sheets due to human-caused greenhouse emissions.The lengthening of days could decelerate by 2100 if emissions are significantly reduced.However, if emissions continue to rise, the effect could reach...
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Some of Earth’s most ancient lifeforms can live on hydrogen – and we can learn from their chemical powers

Carsten Steger / Wikimedia, CC BY Pok Man Leung, Monash University and Chris Greening, Monash UniversityThree-quarters of all matter in the universe is made up of hydrogen. The young Earth was also rich in hydrogen, thanks to fierce geological and volcanic activity. Just as stars burn hydrogen to produce heat and light through nuclear reactions, life emerged by extracting energy from this simple molecule via chemical reactions. Some of these early life forms were archaea: an enigmatic third form of life only discovered in the 1970s. (The other two forms are bacteria and eukaryotes, the group that includes all animals, plants and fungi.) We have studied thousands of species of archaea to understand how they have thrived for billions of years on our constantly changing planet. In their genetic blueprints we found instructions for producing special enzymes (called hydrogenases) to harvest energy from hydrogen gas, which lets them survive in some of the most punishing environments on Earth. Our latest research is published in Cell and Nature Communications. A life powered by hydrogen Archaea are found in places where no other life can survive. For example, some flourish in boiling hot springs where the water is so acidic it would dissolve iron. Here, hydrogen is continually formed from the geothermal processes in Earth’s...
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First 'extreme' solar storm in 20 years brings spectacular auroras

The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to Britain -- and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend.The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) -- expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun -- came just after 1600 GMT, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center.It was later upgraded to an "extreme" geomagnetic storm -- the first since the "Halloween Storms" of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged power infrastructure in South Africa. More CMEs are expected to pummel the planet in the coming days.Social media lit up with people posting pictures of auroras from northern Europe and Australasia."We've just woken the kids to go watch the Northern Lights in the back garden! Clearly visible with the naked eye," Iain Mansfield in Hertford, England, told AFP.That sense of wonder was shared in Australia's island state of Tasmania."Absolutely biblical skies in Tasmania at 4am this morning. I'm leaving today and knew I could not pass up this opportunity," photographer Sean O' Riordan posted on social media platform X alongside a photo.The excitement spread across Europe and North America, from Mont...
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Why does a leap year have 366 days?

Leap Day is coming. Marvin Samuel Tolentino Pineda/iStock, via Getty imagesBhagya Subrayan, Purdue University You may be used to hearing that it takes the Earth 365 days to make a full lap, but that journey actually lasts about 365 and a quarter days. Leap years help to keep the 12-month calendar matched up with Earth’s movement around the Sun.After four years, those leftover hours add up to a whole day. In a leap year, we add this extra day to the month of February, making it 29 days long instead of the usual 28. The idea of an annual catch-up dates back to ancient Rome, where people had a calendar with 355 days instead of 365 because it was based on cycles and phases of the Moon. They noticed that their calendar was getting out of sync with the seasons, so they began adding an extra month, which they called Mercedonius, every two years to catch up with the missing days. In the year 45 B.C.E., Roman emperor Julius Caesar introduced a solar calendar, based on one developed in Egypt. Every four years, February received an extra day to keep the calendar in line with the Earth’s journey around the Sun. In honor of Caesar, this system is still known as the Julian calendar. But that wasn’t the last tweak. As time went on, people realized that the Earth’s journey wasn’t exactly 365.25 days – it actually took 365.24219 days, which...
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Researchers found 37 mine sites in Australia that could be converted into renewable energy storage. So what are we waiting for?

Shutterstock Timothy Weber, Australian National University and Andrew Blakers, Australian National UniversityThe world is rapidly moving towards a renewable energy future. To support the transition, we must prepare back-up energy supplies for times when solar panels and wind turbines are not producing enough electricity. One solution is to build more pumped hydro energy storage. But where should this expansion happen? Our new research identified more than 900 suitable locations around the world: at former and existing mining sites. Some 37 sites are in Australia. Huge open-cut mining pits would be turned into reservoirs to hold water for renewable energy storage. It would give the sites a new lease on life and help shore up the world’s low-emissions future. The benefits of pumped hydro storage Pumped hydro energy storage has been demonstrated at scale for more than a century. Over the past few years, we have been identifying the best sites for “closed-loop” pumped hydro systems around the world. Unlike conventional hydropower systems operating on rivers, closed-loop systems are located away from rivers. They require only two reservoirs, one higher than the other, between which water flows down a tunnel and through a turbine, producing electricity. The water can be released – and power produced – to cover gaps in electricity...
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The world is quietly losing the land it needs to feed itself

A drought-affected corn field in the town of Serodino, Santa Fe province, Argentina, on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. MUST CREDIT: Sebastian Lopez Brach/BloombergThe greatest threats to our existence today are caused by human activity rather than nature acting alone, according to a recent United Nations report.Many people are familiar with human contribution to climate change and perhaps also the loss of biodiversity. But there’s a third environmental impact that rarely gets the attention it deserves: desertification, also known as land degradation.The world is rapidly losing usable land for self-inflicted reasons, ranging from intensive agriculture and overgrazing of livestock to real estate development and, yes, climate change. The crisis is further fueling food and water insecurity, as well as adding to more greenhouse gas emissions.Environmental scientists haven’t ignored the problem. In fact, the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 led to the creation of three UN conventions: climate change, biodiversity and desertification.The climate convention holds big COP summits each year – such as COP28 in Dubai – that now frequently make front-page headlines.But while the biodiversity and desertification conventions also hold COP summits, they’re only once every two years and rarely get that much interest. It’s a lost opportunity,...
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Scientists shocked to discover new species of green anaconda, the world’s biggest snake

Shutterstock Bryan G. Fry, The University of QueenslandThe green anaconda has long been considered one of the Amazon’s most formidable and mysterious animals. Our new research upends scientific understanding of this magnificent creature, revealing it is actually two genetically different species. The surprising finding opens a new chapter in conservation of this top jungle predator. Green anacondas are the world’s heaviest snakes, and among the longest. Predominantly found in rivers and wetlands in South America, they are renowned for their lightning speed and ability to asphyxiate huge prey then swallow them whole. My colleagues and I were shocked to discover significant genetic differences between the two anaconda species. Given the reptile is such a large vertebrate, it’s remarkable this difference has slipped under the radar until now. Conservation strategies for green anacondas must now be reassessed, to help each unique species cope with threats such as climate change, habitat degradation and pollution. The findings also show the urgent need to better understand the diversity of Earth’s animal and plant species before it’s too late. Scientists discovered a new snake species known as the northern green anaconda. Bryan FryAn impressive apex predator Historically, four anaconda species have been recognised, including...
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Indian American scientist hoping to be first woman to jump from stratosphere

Swati Varshey has a PhD in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has made over 1,200 jumps with a speciality in vertical freefall, according to Space.com. Swati Varshney. PHOTO: @risingunited.org An Indian-American scientist is hoping to become the first woman to skydive from the stratosphere at an altitude of 42.5 km above the Earth, and shatter four records in the process. Swati Varshey has been selected as one of the three candidates selected by the Hera Project of Rising United that seeks to empower women in science and technology, the organization has announced. - If she makes it to the skydive in 2025, Hera Project expects her to break four current records: The free fall record by 1.1 kilometer from the highest altitude; endure the longest free fall time; break the sound barrier unaided by 264 kph; and the highest crewed balloon flight by over 1 kilometer. “At Rising United, we’re embarking on a historic journey, shattering records and ceilings to advance women’s equality and inspire young women’s interest in STEAM education”, the organization said. Swati Varshey has a PhD in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has made over 1,200 jumps with a specialty in vertical freefall, according to Space.com. Billed as the “First Female Mission to the Edge of Space”, the...
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Earthquake footage shows Turkey’s buildings collapsing like pancakes. An expert explains why

 Mustafa Karali / AP Mark Quigley, The University of MelbourneA pair of huge earthquakes have struck in Turkey, leaving more than 3,000 people dead and unknown numbers injured or displaced.The first quake, near Gaziantep close to the Syrian border, measured 7.8 in magnitude and was felt as far away as the UK. The second occurred nine hours later, on what appears to be an intersecting fault, registering a magnitude of 7.5.Adding to the devastation, some 3,450 buildings have collapsed, according to the Turkish government. Many of the modern buildings have failed in a “pancake mode” of structural collapse.Why did this happen? Was it simply the enormous magnitude and violence of the quake, or is the problem with the buildings?Thousands of years of earthquakesEarthquakes are common in Turkey, which sits in a very seismically active region where three tectonic plates constantly grind against one another beneath Earth’s surface. Historical records of earthquakes in the region go back at least 2,000 years, to a quake in 17 CE that levelled a dozen towns.The East Anatolian Fault zone that hosted these earthquakes is at the boundary between the Arabian and Anatolian tectonic plates, which move past each other at approximately 6 to 10 mm per year. The elastic strain that accumulates in this plate boundary zone is released by intermittent...
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