December 14, 2021
At UChicago printed 3D models of the Los Angeles basin are bombarded with megahertz-frequency laser light to generate tiny earthquakes. The results have been surprising. Sedimentary basins have long been believed to be amplifiers of ground motion, but the new data is “in some sense opposite of our conventional understanding,” said Park.
December 03, 2021
Most meteorites are made of tiny beads of glass that date back to the earliest days of the solar system, before the planets were even formed. The beads of glass inside these meteorites are called chondrules. Scientists with the University of Chicago have published an analysis laying out how these beads, which are found in many meteorites, came to be—and what they can tell us about what happened in the early solar system. “It’s a huge question in the field of cosmochemistry,” said Dauphas.
Now, finally, the team is happy to have put a significant dent in the mystery. Read the full article, by Louise Lerner, by clicking here.
December 01, 2021
Postdoc Nick Crouch in David Jablonski’s lab led an analysis by a multi-institutional team of researchers to test the effects of a basic assumption on how lineages diverge in evolutionary trees. The group assembled a new phylogeny for a group with a rich fossil record, the bivalves, inserted 86 time-calibration points from the fossil record, and quantified the distortions created by assuming that all lineages arise by bifurcations or “forks” rather than by allowing one lineage to branch from another. Click here for more details.