Taxonomy term

The remains of elaborate stone houses, some with hundreds of rooms, and other structures scattered throughout New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon attest to advanced settlements built there by ancestral Puebloans between A.D. 800 and 1250. But how these peoples subsisted amid the arid climate and seemingly infertile ground of the canyon has long puzzled scientists. In a new study, researchers suggest that Chaco Canyon’s salty desert soils may have supported ample agriculture after all.

It may seem to be common sense to assume that earth and space science topics such as climate change are taught by qualified teachers, but unfortunately, this is not the case in every state. 

At the ocean’s edge, the crash of waves against the shore is a familiar sound. It might be rhythmic, but it’s not particularly melodious. There are, however, a few spots around the world where the tides, waves and wind make actual music, thanks to acoustic man-made structures that use the movements of seawater to produce sound. Currently, three of these so-called tidal organs have been built, one each in Croatia, England and the United States.

Analysis of a finely preserved fossil dinosaur from China has revealed the animal’s erstwhile camouflage. It appears that the meter-high Early Cretaceous ceratopsid Psittacosaurus was light-colored on its underside and dark on top, a pattern known as countershading that may hint that the small herbivore lived in a dense forest environment.