Apr 30 Steady Stream of Space Debris Rains Down on Earth Low Earth Orbit is the region of space within 1,200 miles of the Earth's surface. It is the most concentrated area for orbital debris. Photo by NASA Orbital Debris Program Office. Update: May 1 | On a January… Continue reading
Apr 25 Space Junk Threatens Cascade of Collisions The sheer amount of debris in low-Earth orbit is tipping space dangerously close to a cascade of hazardous collisions, scientists announced at a four-day international meeting on the subject this week. And there is an "urgent need" to… Continue reading
Apr 18 Two Earth-Sized Planets with Earth-Like Temperatures Discovered by Kepler The artist's concept depicts Kepler-62e, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star smaller and cooler than the sun, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. Photo by NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech. Two Earth-sized planets with… Continue reading
Apr 12 Vicious Sea Creature Sees in Dazzling Color A mantis shrimp peers from its burrow in the Bismarck Sea in Papua New Guinea. Photo by David Doubilet/ National Geographic/ Getty Images. We're a little late to the party here, but if you haven't yet read this comic… Continue reading
Apr 09 Babbling Sounds of Monkeys Share Rhythms with Human Speech A gelada baboon in Simien Mountains National Park, Ethiopia. Photo by A. Davey via Flickr. Scientists studying the evolution of speech have long puzzled over why there are no good models in primates. While primates share many traits with… Continue reading
Apr 02 Tips (and Recipes) for the Cicada Invasion Swarms of cicada nymphs emerge from the ground. Photo by Michael Raupp. On Friday, we wrote about the impending arrival of the 17-year cicadas -- the root sucking, egg laying, battery-sized bugs that will emerge from the… Continue reading
Mar 29 Swarms of Cicadas to Invade Eastern U.S. If you live along the mid-Atlantic from North Carolina to Connecticut, get ready to witness the loud and "spectacular" mating ritual of the cicadas. Photo by Michael Raupp. Sometime around Memorial Day, in the declining hours of daylight, swarms… Continue reading
Mar 26 ‘The World Needs You, Badly,’ Edward O. Wilson Tells Young Scientists Biologist Edward O. Wilson studies fire ants at Harvard University on Sept. 8, 1975. Photo by Hugh Patrick Brown/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Edward O. Wilson's "Letters to a Young Scientist" arrived in the mail this week. Continue reading
Mar 22 Big Bang Afterglow Reveals Older Universe, More Matter, Slower Expansion A new map shows the oldest light in our universe, as detected with the precision by the Planck mission. Image by ESA and the Planck Collaboration. You may have seen this map, which has been making the rounds since… Continue reading
Mar 19 Discovering Higgs Boson: the Thrill and Drama of the Waiting Game This proton-proton collision event, from the CMS experiment at CERN, shows characteristics expected from the decay of a Higgs boson. Photo by CERN. Following last week's major announcement at CERN, I finally had time to sit down and… Continue reading