Taxonomy term

The inside of a strong tornado is an intense place, with wind speeds of more than 450 kilometers per hour and dramatic drops in air pressure and temperature. But due to the dangerous unpredictability of such storms, few real-time measurements have been taken inside actual twisters. In a new study, researchers took a mathematical approach to circumvent the danger and calculate temperature changes inside tornadoes, offering a glimpse into how these violent storms operate.

In August and September 2015, a massive dust storm swept across the Middle East, engulfing seven nations in sand thick enough to ground flights, trigger respiratory distress for many, and obscure the region from satellites. At the time, the unprecedented size of the storm was blamed on the ongoing conflict in Syria, with unusual amounts of dust being raised from abandoned agricultural lands and increased military traffic. But a new study cites a combination of climatic factors and weather as the more likely culprits.

Paleontologists have long thought that the eggs of dinosaurs — like those of their living bird relatives — probably hatched after short incubation times, up to a few weeks at most. But surprising results from a new study suggest that nonavian dinosaurs spent anywhere from three to six months inside an egg, incubation times similar to reptiles like crocodiles and alligators.

New dating of artifacts recovered from a site in the northern Yukon, on the Alaskan border, may push back the hypothesized entry date of the first American colonizers via a northwestern route — long thought to have occurred over the Bering land bridge between 18,000 and 14,000 years ago — by several thousand years.