Category: Science & Research

Stuff that it would be cool to learn more about!

“The elaborate frills and horns of a group of dinosaurs including Triceratops and Styracosaurus did not evolve to…

“The elaborate frills and horns of a group of dinosaurs including Triceratops and Styracosaurus did not evolve to help species recognise each other, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London.

It has been suggested that different species that live in the same location may evolve features in order to distinguish one another to help avoid problems such as hybridisation, where two individuals of different species produce infertile or unfit offspring.

To test this hypothesis the researchers examined patterns of diversity in the ornamentation of 46 species of ceratopsians, the horned dinosaurs, but found no difference between species that lived together and those that lived separately.

A previous research paper from Queen Mary found that the frill in one ceratopsian species, Protoceratops, may have evolved under sexual selection. These new findings appear to add evidence to this across the entire group.

The researchers also found evidence that ornamental traits seemed to evolve at a much faster rate than other traits. As these structures are costly to grow and maintain, this finding similarly points to a strong selective pressure on these traits.

The study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B”.

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-dinosaur-frills-horns-evolve-species.html

This is as close as I will ever get to space travel, I guess, and a guaranteed one way ticket :)

This is as close as I will ever get to space travel, I guess, and a guaranteed one way ticket 🙂

“NASA is inviting people around the world to submit their names online to be placed on a microchip aboard NASA’s historic Parker Solar Probe mission launching in summer 2018. The mission will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and your name will go along for the ride.”

For more info on the Parker Solar Probe
http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/

To get your own ticket
http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/Name-to-Sun/

Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion. “Einstein’s relativity pushes physicists towards a picture of the universe as a…

Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion. “Einstein’s relativity pushes physicists towards a picture of the universe as a block, in which the past, present, and future all exist on the same footing; but maybe that shift in thinking has gone too far.” https://fqxi.org/community/articles/display/226

https://fqxi.org/community/articles/display/226