May 15 Teenage girl's 13,000-year-old wisdom tooth sheds light on early Native American origins By Jenny Marder The skeletal remains of a 13,000-year-old teenage girl pulled from an underwater cave below Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula provides fossil evidence for a persistent, but mostly resolved question on the descendants of early Americans. Continue reading
May 14 Poking cells, solving mysteries and other reasons scientists love basic research By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Scientists and engineers frequently seek solutions to specific problems. But the goal -- and challenge -- of basic research is to tackle broad questions without an immediate application in mind. As part of our ongoing series on the subject, PBS… Continue reading
May 13 Watch NewsHour asks: why do you choose basic research? By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Continue watching
May 13 Mysterious sea star disease makes its way to Oregon By Cassandra Profita, EarthFix The mysterious disease that has caused widespread sea star die-offs in Puget Sound is now killing dozens of sea stars off the Oregon Coast. Continue reading
May 13 500 years later, Christopher Columbus' flagship Santa Maria likely found off coast of Haiti By Anya van Wagtendonk A leading underwater archaeologist says he has identified the shipwrecked remains of Christopher Columbus’ flagship off the northern coast of Haiti. Continue reading
May 12 Watch Ice sheet in Antarctica has melted past 'point of no return,' NASA says By PBS News Hour Continue watching
May 12 University lectures are ineffective for learning, analysis finds By Travis Daub After nearly a thousand years, it might be time for universities to rethink how professors convey wisdom and information to their students, Science magazine reports. A meta-analysis of 225 studies published in PNAS found that the age-old practice… Continue reading
May 12 Two students solve the case of the watery ketchup by designing a new cap By Lindsey Foat, The Hale Center for Journalism at KCPT High school seniors Tyler Richards and Jonathan Thompson have spent a lot of time thinking about ketchup. As students in the Project Lead the Way program at North Liberty High School in Liberty, Missouri, Richards and Thompson have researched and… Continue reading
May 11 Dunes on Mars resemble Starfleet logos By Annie Sneed, Scientific American The resemblance is uncanny, but no, these aren't Starfleet logos emblazoned on planet Vulcan. Perhaps fittingly, though, this nasa Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image shows a section of an active dune field on Mars. Strong winds blowing in a single direction… Continue reading
May 09 Making rocket parts in a giant microwave By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy NASA rockets kick out an inferno that melts most metals. How do you make a material that won't melt at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit? The answer may be in microwaves. Continue reading