Are there science facts

Julia Shaw is a research associate at University College London. She is also a, speaker, and author of the international best-selling book The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory , released in 14 languages in Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.

See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Facts are so last century. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Another study found that the Deccan volcano eruptions may have actually helped re-warm the climate after the asteroid hit. Feathers are rarely preserved in the fossil record, but scientists have uncovered feathered dino fossils in China and Siberia, suggesting plumage was common across the great lizards.

Underneath the feathers, dinos could have had brightly colored scales, like many modern-day lizards. Though adult T. The dinosaur's long stride could carry it as fast as 25 mph, but it never reached a suspended gait , since it always had at least one leg on the ground. A study suggested that instead of roaring, the T. Early dinosaurs may have laid leathery, soft-shelled eggs , like turtles do today.

Paleontologists recently found fossils of such eggs from two dinosaur species in the Gobi Desert. Evidence of Neanderthal cave art in Europe significantly predates similar paintings by Homo sapiens.

Our extinct cousins also crafted tools and ornaments out of stone and bone, made tar glue from birch bark that allowed them to attach wooden handles to stone tools, and cooked with fire though they may have relied on lightning strikes to start the flames. Perhaps this intelligence is what inspired early humans to breed with Neanderthals and Denisovans , another early hominin species. Groups of Homo sapiens may have evolved at the same time all over Africa instead of in one primary location, a paper suggested.

A skull discovered in also showed that was happening about , years ago , further back in history than previously thought. Not all of these groups would have looked identical, but they may have been close enough to all be considered Homo sapiens.

The groups would have interacted with one another and migrated across the continent. So instead of emerging in one area in eastern or southern Africa and then spreading from there, distantly related groups of humans across the continent could have become more similar over time. Read more: A handful of recent discoveries has transformed our entire understanding of human history. Archaeologists have discovered evidence of much earlier human presence. Most recently, they uncovered nearly 2, stone tools, ash, and other human artifacts in a high-altitude cave in Mexico, some of which date back 30, years.

Scientists have also found fossilized human poop that's about 14, years old in an Oregon cave. Artifacts from a settlement in southern Chile were dated to between 14, and 19, years old. And a horse jaw bone that bore human markings suggested humans occupied the Bluefish Caves of Yukon, Canada 24, years ago. Lorena Becerra-Valdivia, an archaeological scientist at the Universities of Oxford and New South Wales, told Business Insider that "the new findings suggest that humans likely took a coastal route.

That means they were probably seafarers who arrived by boat , possibly from modern-day Russia or Japan. Then they expanded south by sailing down the Pacific Coast. Camels humps store fat, which the animals burn for fuel when traveling long distances with limited resources.

A camel can use that fat to replace about three weeks' worth of food, according to Animal Planet. It's the camel's red blood cells that enable it to go a week without drinking water. Unlike other creatures, camels have oval-shaped blood cells that are more flexible and enable them to store large quantities of water. The US Department of Agriculture released the Food Guide Pyramid in , but much of the nutritional advice it offered has since been debunked.

The pyramid made no distinction between refined carbs like white bread and whole grains like brown rice. There is also no distinction between the healthiest proteins like beans, nuts, and fish and red meat, which can increase one's risk of cancer and heart disease. The chart also banished healthy fats to the "use sparingly" tip of the pyramid, lumping them in with added sugars and trans fats from processed oils and packaged foods.

In the mids, Harvard researchers estimated that trans fats led to roughly 50, preventable deaths each year in the US. Washington Post. We support teachers How it Works. Online Resources.

We investigate science education. Donate Our Work We support teachers. We block threats to science education. In the Press. DIYSci Activities. March 16, Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested.

If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. The major physical feature that ensures orcas are dolphins is the presence of a melon — a fatty deposit that assists the animals in echolocation and only exists in dolphins.

Orcas are highly intelligent, highly adaptable and able to communicate and coordinate hunting tactics. They are extremely fast swimmers and have been recorded at speeds of up to 54kph! A wild orca pod can cover over kilometers a day, foraging, and socializing. Unlike humans, grasshoppers do not have ears on the side of their heads.

In adults, the tympanum is covered and protected by the wings, and allows the grasshopper to hear the songs of its fellow grasshoppers.

The grasshopper tympanum is adapted to vibrate in response to signals that are important to the grasshopper. Male grasshoppers use sounds to call for mates and to claim territory. Females can hear the sound that males make and judge the relative size of the male from the pitch of the call large males make deeper sounds.

Other males can hear the sounds and judge the size of a potential rival. Males use this information to avoid fights with larger male grasshoppers or to chase smaller rivals from their territory. In order for food to have taste, chemicals from the food must first dissolve in saliva.

During this process, some salivary constituents chemically interact with taste substances. For example, salivary buffers e. After this session, drink a glass of water and repeat. Did you feel a difference? No longer a mere liquid, the helium has become a superfluid — a liquid that flows without friction.

The reason is that Betelgeuse is a supergiant star — the largest type of star in the Universe.