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Untangling the origins of Beelzebufo — the giant frog that lived alongside the dinosaurs — turns out to be one of the most bedeviling problems in the history of amphibians.

Thank you to these paleoartists for allowing us to use their wonderful illustrations:
Ceri Thomas: http://alphynix.tumblr.com/
Nobu Tamura: https://spinops.blogspot.com/
Julio Lacerda: https://252mya.com/gallery/julio-lacerda

This video features this paleogeographic map: Scotese, C.R., 2019. Plate Tectonics, Paleogeography, and Ice Ages, YouTube video: https://youtu.be/UevnAq1MTVA.

Here are the two of the papers we reference in this video:

Continue reading “The Biggest Frog that Ever Lived” | >

WASHINGTON — The competition for the moon between the Unites States and China is being closely watched by the Defense Department as the military expects to play a role protecting U.S. access to cislunar space.

One concern for the Pentagon is the possibility that China establishes a presence on the moon before the United States and tries to set the international rules of behavior in space, said Brig. Gen. Steven Butow, director of the space portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit.

DIU is a Defense Department organization based in Silicon Valley that works with commercial vendors developing technologies relevant to national security.

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Old Facebook is going away; long live New Facebook, a redesign that will soon become permanent. Facebook has been taking to, well, Facebook, to warn its users that the old-school look will disappear in September. And unlike the current test of “New Facebook,” there will be no way to switch back if you’re not a fan.

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Researchers link end of Green Sahara with Southeast Asia megadrought.

Physical evidence found in caves in Laos helps tell a story about a connection between the end of the Green Sahara — when once heavily vegetated Northern Africa became a hyper-arid landscape — and a previously unknown megadrought that crippled Southeast Asia 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

In a paper published today in Nature Communications, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania, William Paterson University of New Jersey and other international institutions explain how this major climate transformation led to a shift in human settlement patterns in Southeast Asia, which is now inhabited by more than 600 million people.

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Molecular engineers at the University of Chicago have found a way to extend the quantum state of a qubit to 22 milliseconds, representing a huge improvement and a window some say will make quantum computers far more feasible. The secret is an alternating magnetic field, which they say is scientifically “intricate” but easy to apply.

🤯 You like quantum. So do we. Let’s nerd out over it together.

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