The term "fossil" is typically associated with once-living things that have been turned into rock. But wood, leaves, mosses, and insects from an ancient forest in Maine were found preserved without having been mineralized. A recent study delved into the mystery of how these plant and other remains could still be so fresh.

Researchers recently studied yeast populations to test the concept of "evolutionary rescue," which is the supposed ability of organisms to "adapt rapidly through evolution" in response to environmental stress.¹ A study of the changes in the single-cell creatures clearly showed that the yeast adapted.

The solar system is packed with wonders, from examples of geometric precision to evidences of a youthful origin. For over a century, some astronomers have theorized that the sun, planets, moons, and comets of the solar system all coalesced from a single massive swirling cloud of space dust or debris.

With more samples of human genomes now available, researchers are able to find solutions to questions that just a few years ago they could only dream of answering. For example, how many new mutations…copying errors within both of each individual's three billion-base-long human genome sets…occur each generation? And do more of them come from one parent or the other?

In early spring 2011, crop yield in Missouri farmland along the Mississippi River looked promising, with rows of plants just beginning to grow. But record rainfall threatened to overfill the river and flood Cairo, Illinois. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was forced open a levee near Bird's Point in southeastern Missouri, upstream of Cairo, to relieve the swollen river.