In the last few moments of last night's Super Bowl, the Patriots intercepted the ball for the win after a spectacularly bad call by the Seahawks. But neither the Patriots' win or the Seahawks' collapse were the stars of last night's show. No, that honor belonged to the dancing sharks.
It's Groundhog Day! Why is this a holiday? (And why isn't it called Whistle-Pig Day instead?) We celebrate groundhogs in February in part because these squirrel relatives are still in deep hibernation at this point, living off their copious fat reserves until it's warm again. Their stirrings remind us of spring and warmer times to come.
About 25,000 to 3,000 years ago, land mammals died out in massive numbers from the Arctic to the Caribbean, which scientists have attributed variously to climate change and human activity. Bats weren't as susceptible as their non-flying cousins — in the Caribbean, about 18 percent of bat species died out, compared to about 80 percent of land mammals — but still, several species disappeared from entire islands.
While NASA's Dawn mission is hot on the tail of the biggest rock in the asteroid belt, researchers are still finding new things within the treasure trove of data the spacecraft collected in 2011 and 2012. Back then Dawn was visiting Vesta, the second-largest object in the asteroid belt, which scientists thought would be bone-dry.
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