Articles written by Christina Larson
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This ancient snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton
WASHINGTON (AP) — A ancient giant snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton, researchers reported Thursday. Fossils found near a coal mine revealed a snake that stretched an estimated 36 feet (11 meters) to 50 feet (...
This ancient snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton
WASHINGTON (AP) — A ancient giant snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton, researchers reported Thursday. Fossils found near a coal mine revealed a snake that stretched an estimated 36 feet (11 meters) to 50 feet (...
Blind people can hear and feel April's total solar eclipse with new technology
WASHINGTON (AP) — While eclipse watchers look to the skies, people who are blind or visually impaired will be able to hear and feel the celestial event. Sound and touch devices will be available at public gatherings on April 8, when a total solar e...
How do animals react during a total solar eclipse? Scientists plan to find out in April
WASHINGTON (AP) — When a total solar eclipse transforms day into night, will tortoises start acting romantic? Will giraffes gallop? Will apes sing odd notes? Researchers will be standing by to observe how animals' routines at the Fort Worth Zoo in T...
Ancient stone tools found in Ukraine date to over 1 million years ago, and may be oldest in Europe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ancient stone tools found in western Ukraine may be the oldest known evidence of early human presence in Europe, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The chipped stones, deliberately fashioned from v...
Are insects drawn to light? New research shows it's confusion, not fatal attraction
WASHINGTON (AP) — Like a moth to flame, many scientists and poets have long assumed that flying insects were simply, inexorably drawn to bright lights. But that's not exactly what's going on, a new study suggests. Rather than being attracted to light...
A cluster of lost cities in Ecuadorian Amazon that lasted 1,000 years has been mapped
WASHINGTON (AP) — Archeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers around 2,000 years ago. A series of earthen mounds and buried roads in Ecuador was first noticed more than t...
Penguin parents sleep for just a few seconds at a time to guard newborns, study shows
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a challenge for all new parents: Getting enough sleep while keeping a close eye on their newborns. For some penguins, it means thousands of mini-catnaps a day, researchers discovered. Chinstrap penguins in Antarctica need to gu...
Dolphin moms use baby talk to call to their young, recordings show
WASHINGTON (AP) — You know instantly when someone is speaking to an infant or small child. It turns out that dolphin mothers also use a kind of high-pitched baby talk. A study published Monday found that female bottlenose dolphins change their t...
Bring back dodo? Ambitious plan draws investors, critics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The dodo bird isn't coming back anytime soon. Nor is the woolly mammoth. But a company working on technologies to bring back extinct species has attracted more investors, while other scientists are skeptical such feats are possible...
Twinkle, twinkle fading stars: Hiding in our brighter skies
WASHINGTON (AP) — Every year, the night sky grows brighter, and the stars look dimmer. A new study that analyzes data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers finds that artificial lighting is making the night sky about 10% brighter each year. T...
Moving species emerges as last resort as climate warms
In a desperate effort to save a seabird species in Hawaii from rising ocean waters, scientists are moving chicks to a new island hundreds of miles away. Moving species to save them — once considered taboo — is quickly gaining traction as climate cha...
Big cats in urban jungle: LA mountain lions, Mumbai leopards
Los Angeles and Mumbai, India, share many superlatives as pinnacles of cinema, fashion, and traffic congestion. But another similarity lurks in the shadows, most often seen at night walking silently on four paws. These metropolises are the world's...
Your dog's personality may have little to do with its breed
WASHINGTON (AP) — Research confirms what dog lovers know — every pup is truly an individual. Many of the popular stereotypes about the behavior of golden retrievers, poodles or schnauzers, for example, aren't supported by science, according to a new...
Scientists figure out how vampire bats got a taste for blood
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood. They compared the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other bat species and identified 13 genes that are missing or no longe...
Fossil footprints puzzle scientists: Bear or ancient human?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Prehistoric footprints that have puzzled scientists since the 1970s are getting a second look: Were they left by extinct animals or by human ancestors? When famed paleontologist Mary Leakey first uncovered the footprints in T...
California spill came 52 years after historic oil disaster
The weekend oil leak along the Southern California coast happened not far from the site of the catastrophe more than a generation ago that helped give rise to the modern environmental movement itself: the 1969 Santa Barbara spill. That still ranks...
Scientists decipher Marie Antoinette's redacted love notes
WASHINGTON (AP) — "Not without you." "My dear friend." "You that I love." Marie Antoinette sent these expressions of affection — or more? — in letters to her close friend and rumored lover Axel von Fersen. Someone later used dark ink to scrib...
Fossil leaves may reveal climate in last era of dinosaurs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Barclay opens a metal drawer in archives of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum containing fossils that are nearly 100 million years old. Despite their age, these rocks aren't fragile. The geologist and botanist h...
First sign of animal life on Earth may be a sponge fossil
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Around a billion years ago, a region of northwest Canada now defined by s...
Summit shows Biden's big vision on fighting climate change
WASHINGTON (AP) — What did the world learn at Joe Biden's global summit about his vision of the battle to save the world's climate? For two days, Biden and his team of climate experts pressed his case that tackling global warming not only can avert a...
Go forth and spend: Call for action closes US climate summit
WASHINGTON (AP) — World leaders shared tales of climate-friendly breakthroughs — and feverish quests for more — to close President Joe Biden's virtual global climate summit on Friday, from Kenyans abandoning kerosene lanterns for solar to Israe...
Female banded mongooses lead battle for chance to find mates
WASHINGTON (AP) — When families of banded mongooses prepare to fight, they form battle lines. Each clan of about 20 animals stands nose to nose, their ears flattened back, as they stare down the enemy. A patch of scrubby savannah separates them, u...
World isn't meeting biodiversity goals, UN report finds
A decade-long global effort to save Earth's disappearing species and declining ecosystems has mostly stumbled, with fragile habitats like coral reefs and tropical forests in more trouble than ever, researchers said in a report Tuesday. In 2010, more...
Once seen as loners, male elephants shown to follow elders
WASHINGTON (AP) — A line of elephants’ trundles across a dusty landscape in northern Botswana, ears flapping and trunks occasionally brushing the ground. As they pass a motion-activated camera hidden in low shrubbery, photos record the presence of...
