Jul 24 As glaciers shrink, iceberg tourism booms By Teresa Carey Scientists are concerned that global warming is destabilizing glaciers and ice shelves, creating larger and more frequent icebergs, like the Petermann Ice Island and the iceberg off the Innaarsuit settlement in Greenland. Continue reading
Jul 20 NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will ‘shake’ hands with sun, thanks to small push from Venus By Anna Kusmer With the Parker Solar Probe, NASA must strike the perfect balance between flying close enough to collect data but not so close that it burns up. Here’s what the mission will take. Continue reading
Jul 18 Watch 5:29 This aquatic grass could help shellfish threatened by ocean acidification By Jes Burns, OPB/EarthFix An increase in carbon emissions are showing up not only in the air, but also in water. Now researchers and shellfish farmers are teaming up to see how marine plants can help stave off the effects of ocean acidification. Special… Continue watching
Jul 17 Why are yawns contagious? We asked a scientist By Teresa Carey The average adult yawns 20 times per day. And when you feel a yawn coming on, it can be nearly impossible to suppress. But why does being around other yawners make you yawn?… Continue reading
Jul 16 Why 96 million plastic ‘shade balls’ dumped into the LA Reservoir may not save water By Amanda Grennell In 2015, officials poured 96 million "shade balls" into the Los Angeles Reservoir to improve water quality and save water. The video went viral, but those shade balls may have used more water than they saved, MIT scientists reported Monday. Continue reading
Jul 12 What is a blazar? Its high-energy flares could unlock the foundations of the universe By Amanda Grennell How 300 scientists in 12 countries across four continents detected one of the universe's most elusive particles. Continue reading
Jul 11 Watch 8:49 NASA scientists track climate-changing methane leaks from the air By Miles O'Brien Science correspondent Miles O’Brien joins us from the atmosphere above Southern California, where NASA engineers leverage state-of-the-art technology to measure methane. Released through oil and gas production, livestock emissions, and organic waste, methane is about 85 times more potent at… Continue watching
Jul 06 What happened to Zika? By Amanda Grennell Two summers ago, Zika virus infected more than half a million people and caused more than 3,700 birth defects in the Americas. Then, the virus nosedived. With the weather warming and mosquitoes out, how much do we need to worry… Continue reading
Jul 05 Spiders fly on the currents of Earth’s electric field By Amanda Grennell Spiders don’t have wings, but they can fly across entire oceans on long strands of silk. For more than a century, scientists thought it was the wind that carried them, but a new study shows the Earth’s electric field can… Continue reading
Jun 22 To beat Vegas bookies at the World Cup, these statisticians turned to artificial intelligence By Amanda Grennell After cleaning up at the 2014 World Cup, statistician Andreas Groll is enlisting machine learning to keep his lucky streak going… Continue reading