Scientific Method / Science & Exploration

Week in science: rockets, Great Dying, and teaching evolution

Ars looks at the week's biggest science stories.

Insert <discovery> here: the role of placeholders in science: Is dark matter the only possible explanation for what we observe, or little more than a placeholder for something we don't fully understand? If it's the latter, then it will join some of the most significant concepts in science.

Yesterday's Delta IV-Heavy rocket launch: a personal impression: The biggest rocket launch ever from the US' West Coast went up on Thursday, and Ars was there to watch. The dynamic range of everything you see, hear, and feel is so large that no recording device can capture the entire range of sensation.

Massive volcanic eruptions + coal fires = the Great Dying: Researchers find coal ash in the sediments of the deep ocean, deposited at the start of the Earth's largest mass extinction. The volcanoes that triggered the extinction ignited neighboring coal beds, sending toxic metals into the oceans.

Recalling memories while asleep helps lock them in place: Evoking a memory while a person is awake can leave it in a state where it can be overwritten by new information. Doing the same while the person's sleeping, however, appears to lock the memory in place.

Learning self-control as a kid makes for a better adulthood: Researchers find that preteens who have good self-control are more likely to have better health and social well-being in their early 30s. Some of the resulting policy recommendations are a bit controversial.

Training teachers to take on the creationism/evolution battle: A recent survey reveals that only 28 percent of high school biology teachers consistently teach evolution. Political science professor Eric Plutzer discusses the issue with Ars and considers ways to get those numbers higher.

Still got the right stuff: the next generation of rocket scientists: The Google Lunar X Prize is inspiring a new generation of students—both college and high school—to get into rocket building and space exploration projects.

T. rex beaten by smaller dinos; eats them as payback: Using an ecological model, researchers hypothesize that Tyrannosaurus Rex was an active predator, akin to modern day lions, rather then a scavenger.

Gravity's lenses may skew surveys of early galaxies: We could drastically overcount the number of galaxies present in the early Universe due to the impact of gravitational lensing.

Modern humans walked out of Africa and across the Red Sea: Researchers have found 125,000-year-old sets of tools presumably made by modern humans in the Arabian peninsula, and think a temporarily dry Red Sea might have allowed them to simply walk away from their African birthplace.

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