Enlarge / Picking up moisture from the ice-free sea, a storm builds and heads towards Europe. (credit: NASA) Extreme weather has become the new normal—whether it’s precipitation, drought, wind, heat, or cold. The question of how the ever-shrinking layer of Arctic sea ice has contributed to any of these changes has prompted some lively discussion […]
Enlarge / The home territory of New Guinea highland populations. (credit: Marc Dozier) The inhabitants of the Pacific came in waves. Aboriginal Australians were the first to cross the area, and they were followed by separate populations that inhabited New Guinea and nearby island chains. Later still, the Polynesians, descendants of early East Asians, spread […]
Enlarge / An Atlas V rocket launches in December 2012. (credit: United Launch Alliance) Amazon announced on Monday that its first Project Kuiper satellites will launch into low Earth orbit on an Atlas V rocket. The announcement provides concrete evidence that the ambitious Internet-from-space project is making progress. It is also notable for the choice […]
(video link) Open a can of mixed nuts, and chances are you’ll find a bunch of Brazil nuts topping the heap—whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on how you feel about Brazil nuts. It’s such a common phenomenon that it’s known as the “Brazil nut effect” (though muesli mix also gives rise to […]
Enlarge (credit: Bryant Baker, Los Padres ForestWatch) If you’re kind of judgmental when it comes to plants, you might describe the chamise plant as “meh.” Technically it’s a shrub, which in the hierarchy of plant types barely outranks a weed. Chamise grows up to a dozen feet tall and sprouts needle-like leaves less than a […]
Enlarge / NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen here in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) NASA has resolved the issues with its Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars and is ready to fly. The space agency announced on Saturday that it will attempt […]
Enlarge / A five-year-old boy with boxing gloves poses in front of a huge mural of himself in Denver, Colorado. (credit: Blaine Harrington III/Image Bank/Getty Images) Mention the word “graffiti,” and many people’s thoughts immediately turn to vandalism in the form of defacement of property. But there is also graffiti that rises above such negative […]
Enlarge / Residents wear protective masks while waiting to be vaccinated at a West Virginia United Health System Covid-19 vaccine clinic in Morgantown, West Virginia, U.S., on Thursday, March 11, 2021. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg) The US logged another 4 million or so vaccinations Friday, bringing the total doses administered in the country over 200 […]
Enlarge / Rendering of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle on the surface of the Moon. (credit: NASA) In an extraordinary announcement on Friday, NASA said that it has selected SpaceX and its Starship vehicle to serve as the lunar lander for its Artemis Program. This is NASA’s plan to return humans to the Moon later this decade. […]
Enlarge / The Arkansas state capitol. (credit: Daniel Schwen) Last week, the Arkansas state House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend state education law to allow teachers in public schools to teach creationism as “a theory of how the earth came to exist.” As it stands, the act promotes blatantly unconstitutional behavior as […]