Lifeboat Foundation

First spied in the 1960s, the huge dust clouds have now been confirmed—and may affect plans for future space exploration.

These maps sketch out the remnants of long-lost landmasses trapped within drifting continental plates called cratons. While some cratons are already well-understood, Antarctica’s lithospheric structure is tough to examine because of its remote location and the enormous ice sheets that obscure its underlying geology.

“These gravity images are revolutionizing our ability to study the least understood continent on Earth—Antarctica,” said study co-author Fausto Ferraccioli, science leader of geology and Geophysics at the British Antarctic Survey, in a statement. “In East Antarctica, we see an exciting mosaic of geological features that reveal fundamental similarities and differences between the crust beneath Antarctica and other continents it was joined to until 160 million years ago.”

Alexander Smith’s work on the Goldfeld conjecture reveals fundamental characteristics of elliptic curves.

Are you outraged?

We talked to the author of a study about why people are deeply unchill about those who don’t want to ever spawn offspring.

A tiny fossil rove beetle helps to reconstruct the breakup of the former supercontinent Gondwana 99 million years ago and the formation of our modern world.

The smartphone of the future is rolling out soon.

The future of mass depends on a conference vote next week.

A long-discussed resolution for next week’s General Conference on Weights and Measures would toss out the international prototype of the kilogram—a hunk of platinum and iridium in Paris that everyone agrees weighs 1 kilogram. Instead, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) would redefine the International System of Units to ensure that kilograms are based on things that can’t change over time. It would require an entire rethinking of how kilograms work.

The Solar Decathlon deadline is today! (And actually, you have until 5 p.m. Eastern. smile ) Teams, we want to see you at the National Showcase Build Challenge culminating at the 2020 @SmithsonianFolk Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC. https://www.solardecathlon.gov/about-apply.html

The Wellcome Trust, which gave out £1.1 billion (US$1.4 billion) in grants in 2016–17, is also the first funder to detail how it intends to implement Plan S. Its approach suggests that journals may not need to switch wholesale to open-access (OA) models by 2020 to be compliant with Plan S — if the initiative’s other backers decide on a similar line.

The Wellcome Trust has also announced how it will implement the plan, which could provide a blueprint for others.