Leeches may be 200 million years older than we thought—and haven’t always sucked blood

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - The biological history of leeches is difficult to study: Their tissue decomposes almost immediately, and their boneless bodies rarely fossilize. But a geological formation in Wisconsin preserved a leech fossil for 437 million years, a new study finds. It’s the first-ever discovery of its kind—and an analysis of the preserved leech suggests...
By Mary Randolph | Smithsonian Magazine |

Leeches weren’t always bloodsucking fiends like today. They used to swallow their prey whole

ZME SCIENCE - Leeches are some of the most hated creatures in the world, even though most people rarely (if ever) see one. We even use the word as an insult. A leech is a parasite, someone who lives only to suck the blood from others. But leeches deserve more respect. A newly described fossil...
By Mihai Andrei | ZME Science |

Leeches didn't always suck blood — ancient fossils reveal they swallowed prey whole

DISCOVER MAGAZINE - It’s the beginning of the spooky season, which means ghouls, ghosts, and bloodsuckers abound. One of the most famous bloodsuckers in nature is, of course, the leech. These parasites feed on blood and have been used throughout history to treat a whole host of medical problems in humans. Now, for the first...
By Stephanie Edwards | Discover Magazine |

Carbon cycle ‘flaw’ can overshoot, plunging Earth into potential Ice Age: Study

INTERESTING ENGINEERING - A new study has provided fresh insights into how Earth recycles its carbon. Rock weathering acts as the slow, reliable mechanism that stabilizes Earth’s climate. The easy explanation is that rain, rocks, and carbon burial keep the climate in check, but new research shows this account may be incomplete. The University of...
By Mrigakshi Dixit | Interesting Engineering |

This leech had an appetite for something other than blood

THE NEW YORK TIMES - If you look around Waukesha County in Wisconsin today, it can be difficult to imagine a tropical coastline teeming with trilobites, the oldest known scorpions and jawless vertebrates. But 437 million years ago, during the Silurian period, these creatures lived and died there, some getting washed into a salty cove...
By Jack Tamisiea | The New York Times |

How global warming today could trigger a future ice age

EARTH.COM - Earth has never stood still when it comes to climate. For billions of years, our planet has cycled between heat and cold, shaping the environment where life evolved. But new research from UC Riverside (UCR) reveals that the story of Earth’s carbon balance is more complicated than once believed. The findings suggest that...
By Eric Ralls | Earth.com |

How Earth’s ‘thermostat’ can malfunction, flipping global warming into ice-age level cooling

STUDYFINDS - New modeling shows that global warming events can, under certain conditions, trigger long-term cooling strong enough to resemble ice age conditions, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside. When the planet experiences large-scale carbon emissions and warming, natural cooling processes can sometimes overshoot and send global temperatures plummeting far below their...
By Staff Report | StudyFinds |

Exoplanet discoveries pass the 6,000 mark, shedding light on how our solar system compares with the rest of the universe

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Just decades after the first exoplanets were identified, our database of the distant worlds—monitored by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute—has breached a new threshold. Now, astronomers have officially identified more than 6,000 planets outside our solar system. “This milestone represents decades of cosmic exploration driven by NASA space telescopes—exploration that has completely...
By Margherita Bassi | Smithsonian Magazine |

NASA’s extrasolar planet tally officially hits the 6,000 mark

FORBES - NASA reports that its official tally of extrasolar planets has hit the 6,000 mark. This thirty-year milestone has been in the works since two little known Swiss astronomers, Michel Mayor and Didiez Queloz, first detected 51 Pegasi b. The first of the so-called “hot Jupiters” to be detected, “51 Peg” is a gas...
By Bruce Dorminey | Forbes |

Why Is Venus Hell and Earth an Eden?

QUANTA MAGAZINE - enus is arguably the worst place in the solar system. A cloak of carbon dioxide suffocates the planet, subjecting its surface to skull-crushing pressure. Sulfuric acid rains down through the sickly yellow sky but never reaches the lava-licked ground. Venus is so hot — hot enough to melt lead — that the...
By Robin George Andrews | Quanta Magazine |
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