Portal:Science

Guy Morrell Bradley (April 25, 1870 – July 8, 1905) was an American game warden and deputy sheriff for Monroe County, Florida. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he relocated to Florida with his family when he was young. As a boy, he often served as guide to visiting fishermen and plume hunters, although he later denounced poaching after legislation was passed to protect the dwindling number of birds. In 1902, Bradley was hired by the American Ornithologists' Union, at the request of the Florida Audubon Society, to become one of the country's first game wardens. (Full article...)

The social history of viruses describes the influence of viruses and viral infections on human history. Epidemics caused by viruses began when human behaviour changed during the Neolithic period, around 12,000 years ago, when humans developed more densely populated agricultural communities. This allowed viruses to spread rapidly and subsequently to become endemic. Viruses of plants and livestock also increased, and as humans became dependent on agriculture and farming, diseases such as potyviruses of potatoes and rinderpest of cattle had devastating consequences. (Full article...)

The African striped weasel (Poecilogale albinucha), also known as the white-naped weasel, striped weasel or African weasel, is a small mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa, where its range stretches from as far north as Kenya south to South Africa. It is in the family Mustelidae and is the lone member of the genus Poecilogale. It has a long, slender body with short legs and a bushy tail. One of the smallest carnivorans in Africa, it measures 24 to 35 cm (9.4 to 13.8 in) long excluding the tail, with males generally larger than females. It has black fur over most of its body, with distinctive white bands running from the top of its head down its back, with the tail being completely white. The closest living relative of this species is the striped polecat, and it may also be related to the extinct Propoecilogale bolti. (Full article...)

A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards its center. It can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting in a stable, compact formation. Globular clusters are similar in form to dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and though globular clusters were long held to be the more luminous of the two, discoveries of outliers had made the distinction between the two less clear by the early 21st century. Their name is derived from Latin globulus (small sphere). Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as "globulars". (Full article...)

Segnosaurus is a genus of therizinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what is now southeastern Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous, about 102–86 million years ago. Multiple incomplete but well-preserved specimens were discovered in the Gobi Desert in the 1970s, and in 1979 the genus and species Segnosaurus galbinensis were named. The generic name Segnosaurus means "slow lizard" and the specific name galbinensis refers to the Galbin region. The known material of this dinosaur includes the lower jaw, neck and tail vertebrae, the pelvis, shoulder girdle, and limb bones. Parts of the specimens have gone missing or become damaged since they were collected. Remains from Japan originally assigned to Allosaurus were reassigned to Segnosaurus sp. (of unspecified species) in 2025. (Full article...)

The history of Mars observation is about the recorded history of observation of the planet Mars. Some of the early records of Mars's observation date back to the era of the ancient Egyptian astronomers in the 2nd millennium BCE. Chinese records about the motions of Mars appeared before the founding of the Zhou dynasty (1045 BCE). Detailed observations of the position of Mars were made by Babylonian astronomers who developed arithmetic techniques to predict the future position of the planet. The ancient Greek philosophers and Hellenistic astronomers developed a geocentric model to explain the planet's motions. Measurements of Mars's angular diameter can be found in ancient Greek and Indian texts. In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model for the Solar System in which the planets follow circular orbits about the Sun. This was revised by Johannes Kepler, yielding an elliptic orbit for Mars that more accurately fitted the observational data. (Full article...)

Corona Australis is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its Latin name means "southern crown", and it is the southern counterpart of Corona Borealis, the northern crown. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. The Ancient Greeks saw Corona Australis as a wreath rather than a crown and associated it with Sagittarius or Centaurus. Other cultures have likened the pattern to a turtle, ostrich nest, a tent, or even a hut belonging to a rock hyrax. (Full article...)

Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a tropical parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. It is spread mostly by insects in the subfamily Triatominae, known as "kissing bugs". The symptoms change throughout the infection. In the early stage, symptoms are typically either not present or mild and may include fever, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, or swelling at the site of the bite. After four to eight weeks, untreated individuals enter the chronic phase of disease, which in most cases does not result in further symptoms. Up to 45% of people with chronic infections develop heart disease 10–30 years after the initial illness, which can lead to heart failure. Digestive complications, including an enlarged esophagus or an enlarged colon, may also occur in up to 21% of people, and up to 10% of people may experience nerve damage. (Full article...)

Mimodactylus is a genus of istiodactyliform pterosaur that lived in what is now Lebanon during the Late Cretaceous, 95 million years ago. The only known specimen was discovered in a limestone quarry near the town of Hjoula, belonging to the Sannine Formation. The owner of the quarry allowed the specimen to be prepared and scientifically described by an international team of researchers. When it was eventually sold, the buyer donated it to the MIM Museum in Beirut. In 2019, the researchers named the new genus and species Mimodactylus libanensis; the generic name refers to the MIM Museum, combined with the Greek word daktylos for "digit", and the specific name refers to Lebanon. The well-preserved holotype specimen is the first complete pterosaur from the Afro-Arabian continent (which consisted of the then joined Arabian Peninsula and Africa), and the third pterosaur fossil known from Lebanon. (Full article...)

Margaretta "Etta" Louisa Lemon MBE (née Smith; 22 November 1860 – 8 July 1953) was an English bird conservationist and a founding member of what is now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). (Full article...)

Meinhard Michael Moser (13 March 1924 – 30 September 2002) was an Austrian mycologist. His work principally concerned the taxonomy, chemistry, and toxicity of the gilled mushrooms (Agaricales), especially those of the genus Cortinarius, and the ecology of ectomycorrhizal relationships. His contributions to the Kleine Kryptogamenflora von Mitteleuropa series of mycological guidebooks were well regarded and widely used. In particular, his 1953 Blätter- und Bauchpilze (Agaricales und Gastromycetes) [The Gilled and Gasteroid Fungi (Agaricales and Gastromycetes)], which became known as simply "Moser", saw several editions in both the original German and in translation. Other important works included a 1960 monograph on the genus Phlegmacium (sometimes considered part of Cortinarius) and a 1975 study of members of Cortinarius, Dermocybe, and Stephanopus in South America, co-authored with the mycologist Egon Horak. (Full article...)

The redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), also known as the Australian black widow, is a species of highly venomous spider believed to originate in Australia, but which is now found in Southeast Asia, Japan and New Zealand. It has also been found in packing crates in the United States with colonies elsewhere outside Australia. It is a member of the cosmopolitan genus Latrodectus, the widow spiders. The adult female is easily recognised by her spherical black body with a prominent red stripe on the upper side of her abdomen and an hourglass-shaped red/orange streak on the underside. Females usually have a body length of about 10 millimetres (0.4 in), while the male is much smaller, being only 3–4 mm (0.12–0.16 in) long. (Full article...)

Subfossil lemurs are lemurs from Madagascar that are represented by recent (subfossil) remains dating from nearly 26,000 years ago to approximately 560 years ago (from the late Pleistocene until the Holocene). They include both extant and extinct species, although the term more frequently refers to the extinct giant lemurs. The diversity of subfossil lemur communities was greater than that of present-day lemur communities, ranging to as high as 20 or more species per location, compared with 10 to 12 species today. Extinct species are estimated to have ranged in size from slightly over 10 kg (22 lb) to roughly 160 kg (350 lb). Even the subfossil remains of living species are larger and more robust than the skeletal remains of modern specimens. The subfossil sites found around most of the island demonstrate that most giant lemurs had wide distributions and that ranges of living species have contracted significantly since the arrival of humans. (Full article...)

Armillaria gallica (synonymous with A. bulbosa and A. lutea) is a species of honey mushroom in the family Physalacriaceae of the order Agaricales. The species is a common and ecologically important wood-decay fungus that can live as a saprobe, or as an opportunistic parasite in weakened tree hosts to cause root or butt rot. It is found in temperate regions of Asia, North America, and Europe. The species forms fruit bodies singly or in groups in soil or rotting wood. The fungus has been inadvertently introduced to South Africa. Armillaria gallica has had a confusing taxonomy, due in part to historical difficulties encountered in distinguishing between similar Armillaria species. The fungus received international attention in the early 1990s when an individual colony living in a Michigan forest was reported to cover an area of 15 hectares (37 acres), weigh at least 9.5 tonnes (9,500 kg; 21,000 lb), and be 1,500 years old. This individual is popularly known as the "humongous fungus", and is a tourist attraction and inspiration for an annual mushroom-themed festival in Crystal Falls. Recent studies have revised the fungus's age to 2,500 years and its size to about 400 tonnes (400,000 kg; 880,000 lb), four times the original estimate. (Full article...)

The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either L₄, existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L₅, 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU. (Full article...)