Greenland’s ice has grown and shrunk over time, driven by variations in the climate, but mapping out the history of those changes is a remarkably difficult task. The deeper that researchers dig into Greenland’s past, the more tangled the icy narrative becomes. Two new studies published today in Nature illustrate the complexity that faces scientists studying changes to the Greenland ice sheet. One study led by Joerg Schaefer finds that Greenland was almost entirely ice free for extended periods of time during the last 2....

Along with a half-dozen other deep sea specimens, Number 51 spends her days in a cylindrical black tank, swimming, slowly and backward using jet propulsion, like a helicopter taking off tail-first. Sometimes, Lewandowski pulls the shelled cephalopods from their dark, watery shelter for a photoshoot. More often, these darkness-loving creatures are exposed to the artificial lights of the lab for an experiment or two—designed to test the memory, mating behaviors, and other secret skills of the nautilus....

The PS4 Pro (codenamed Neo) offers different internals than the average PS4. The new Playstation will offer an upgraded GPU, a boosted clock rate for the CPU and come with a larger 1-terabyte hard drive standard. For this updated console, Sony is offering what they call “forward compatibility,” meaning old PS4 games will be patched to support the new console. The PS4 Pro will support 4K, HDR and some games will be able to use the console’s beefed up GPU to offer better graphics than what’s found on the current PS4....

In a new paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, Arizona State University researchers suggest that water on Earth originated from material brought by asteroids, assisted by some leftover gas strewn about after the sun’s formation. This is certainly far from the first time people have suggested water as we know it (and drink) it has an extraterrestrial origin. Historically, the easiest explanation has been that all of Earth’s water came from asteroids that impacted the Earth during the early days of its 4....

There is much debate in the automotive world over how often drivers of typical passenger cars or light trucks should change their oil. The quick-lube chains usually recommend it be done every three months or 3,000 miles, but many mechanics would tell you that such frequent changes are overkill. Indeed, most car owner’s manuals recommend changing out the oil less frequently, usually after 5,000 or 7,500 miles. According to the automotive website Edmunds....

Mosquitoes in love really do make beautiful music together. It’s a sound that actually is slightly less annoying to humans than the usual buzz of a swarm of the blood-suckers, perhaps because it makes use of what musicians consider the most euphonious combination of notes in music.Scientists are puzzling over a new mystery — what could be the significance of background radio noise coming from beyond the Milky Way?Here’s news that’ll make you stick to soda, even if it will rot your teeth and make you fat....

Nope, that’s our sun. In this video from NASA, solar researcher Holly Gilbert explains a gorgeous dynamic computer model of the Sun’s magnetic fields. The pink and green lines are open magnetic field lines, extending into space, while their counterparts, the white closed magnetic field lines emanate from and then circle back towards the sun’s surface. In addition to just being fascinating, understanding how the Sun’s magnetic field works can help us better prepare for solar storms, or coronal mass ejections, events that can disrupt the function of electrical grids, GPS devices, and other technology here on Earth....

As a tribute to the recently lit flame in Beijing, our first installment focuses on the pride of China: Table Tennis (a.k.a. Ping Pong). Inside you’ll find a 30-year old performance enhancer in its final days, a training method built for Forrest Gump and all (perhaps even more than) you’ll ever need to know about Ping Pong balls. Speed Glue A notorious performance enhancer used just hours before competition to get that extra zip on the ball....

We’ll point out up front that this will not be a guide to every word in your game’s settings menu. More than enough glossaries like this already exist. However, some features will have a stronger effect on your game than others, and a few can make the visuals look way better—while destroying performance at the same time. Finding the right balance is key, so we’ll be focusing on the buttons in your game’s menu that will have the biggest impact on your game....

This week’s episode features special guest Dr. Jennifer Gunter. She’s an OB/GYN and New York Times contributor known for obliterating myths about sexual health on Twitter and elsewhere. Dr. Gunter stopped by our studio to chat about her new book, “The Vagina Bible,” and share some of the fascinating facts she learned while writing it—and a new theory about the evolution of the hymen that she put together along the way....

If it’s really an asteroid crater, that is. There’s definitely a giant circular cavity sitting underneath an ice sheet that we’ve never before observed, but exactly how it got there has created something of a debate among geologists. Did an asteroid really smash into the ground? Was the crater created by other, more Earthly means? Here’s what we have so far: a research group from Denmark, studying a topographical map of the bedrock beneath northwest Greenland, realized there was a large, circular, closed depression intact under the massive Hiawatha Glacier....

This is the work of a team of neuroscientists and programmers from Cortical Labs, Monash University, RMIT University, University College London and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Their detailed findings were published earlier this month in the journal Neuron. Of course, the actual setup is more complex than just putting a glob of neurons in a Petri dish. In this system, called DishBrain, the nerve cells are overlaid on a multi-electrode array, which is like a sort of CMOS chip that’s able read very small changes in the electrical activity in the neuron....

For the next three weeks, police in Singapore will be aided in their duties by a pair of robots. Far from the armed and intimidating robot cops of popular science fiction, these small machines, both named Xavier, will instead be on the lookout for nuisance crimes. It is a high-profile demonstration of the act of shifting the burdens of policing from fallible humans to fallible machines, with a promise of cost savings in the process....

Stock up on power banks For your first few forays in camping, you may want to choose developed sites that are on the grid. But as you begin to crave longer adventures and stay off the beaten path, you won’t want to let a lack of outlets hold you back. A power bank can help keep your devices charged and make it possible to level up from a cooler full of ice to a camp fridge....

“The dispatcher has joint legal responsibility for every flight that an airline operates, with the captain,” explains Pasha Saleh, a pilot with Alaska Airlines who also directs the company’s innovation and flight operations strategy. That dispatcher comes up with the plan, they submit it to the FAA, and then eventually a cleared plan is sent to the pilot so they know where to go. The problem is that the human dispatchers have plenty of complex variables to consider....

The lionfish first made its way from the South Pacific to the Sunshine State in the 1980s as a popular aquarium pet. It now reigns terror up and down the salty reaches of the eastern United States and Bermuda, with some places hosting hundreds of individuals in a single acre. The species also has a voracious appetite and few known predators (the venomous appendages help), making it nearly impossible to beat back....

“Bacteria on the tongue are a lot more than just a random pile. They are more like an organ of our bodies,” says Gary Borisy, a researcher at the Forsyth Institute and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in a release about the new image. He recently published his work on the tongue microbiome last month in the journal Cell Biology. Researchers have known for a while that our tongues (as well as our guts, skin, belly button, and every other crevice of our bods) are teeming with microbes....

This story originally featured on Working Mother. For working moms, time is precious. With so much on our plates, it’s not surprising that when we’re working, we’re staying focused and sitting for long periods of time. Recent studies show an alarming number of Americans sitting for eight hours a day. Often referred to as the “new smoking,” the deconditioning effects, including decreased cardiovascular health and increased susceptibility to diseases such as diabetes and some cancers, are similar to the ill effects of smoking....

As for the skin, there are promising studies that show that red light therapy can help skin and muscle tissue heal. This form of treatment exposes you to low levels of red or almost infrared light, which then targets the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, and strengthens its function. Apart from tissue repair, this therapy can also aid in relieving bodily pains. This is the idea behind the LumiCure Light Therapy Torch....

That being said, it’s hard to decide how to take the latest feat for quadrupedal robots: they’re able to climb walls and ceilings now. The new achievement comes courtesy of researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, who published a paper last week in Science Robotics detailing their new creation, MARVEL. Short for “Magnetically Adhesive Robot for Versatile and Expeditious Locomotion,” MARVEL lives up to both the name and its acronym by relying on four electromagnetic legs tipped with new smart materials called magnetorheological elastomers (MREs)....