A group of scientists with Chicago’s Field Museum recently discovered fossilized grape seeds that may link dinosaurs to today’s abundant wine offerings. The South American study discovered nine new fossil grape species dating back at least 19 million years – with the oldest found in a 60 million-year-old rock. Dr. Fabiany Herrera, assistant curator of … Read more
A mature male brown spider (Latrodectus geometricus). Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Invasive brown widow spiders on three continents were heavily infected with a single strain of Rhabdochlamydia, a bacterium related to major human and animal pathogens, including chlamydia. However, a bite from these spiders will not infect humans with chlamydia. Until now, Rhabdochlamydia … Read more
Credit: Harrison Haines from Pexels The spectacular aurora at the beginning of May this year showed the power that solar storms can unleash as radiation, but every now and then the sun does something far more destructive. Known as “solar particle events,” these bursts of protons directly from the sun’s surface can shoot out like … Read more
Lithouva – earliest fossil grape from the Western Hemisphere, ~60 million years from Colombia. The upper figure shows fossils accompanied by CT reconstruction. The bottom shows the artist’s reconstruction. Credit: Fabiany Herrera, art by Pollyanna von Knorring. If you’ve ever eaten a raisin or enjoyed a glass of wine, you may partly have the extinction … Read more