Jan 28 New Space Telescope to Map Dark Matter This artist's concept shows the Euclid spacecraft, which will launch to an orbit around the sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. Image by ESA/C. Carreau. Update: Jan 29 | This week, NASA announced that it will partner with the… Continue reading
Jan 18 Paint Pigment, Violent Raccoons and Other Surprising Mercury Trivia Delegates gathered in Geneva this week to negotiate for a global treaty to regulate the toxic chemical mercury. Photo by Flickr via Radioactive Rosca. I want to call your attention to a blog on "issues relevant to… Continue reading
Jan 14 Milky Way Awash in Planets Since the last Kepler catalog was released in February 2012, the number of candidates discovered in the Kepler data has increased by 20 percent and now totals 2,740 potential planets orbiting 2,036 stars. Image by NASA. In case… Continue reading
Jan 11 The NewsHour Has the Flu This partial world map shows Google.org Flu Trends. Red indicates the most intense flu activity. Orange is moderate, yellow is low and green is minimal. Image by Google. The NewsHour has the flu. Or a really bad cold. Continue reading
Jan 07 Beyond Suburbia: The Other Side of Vultures A black vulture chews on a rubber seal from a vehicle in Everglades National Park, Florida. Photo by Curtis Morgan/Miami Herald/MCT via Getty Images. On Friday, I wrote about a colony of vultures that has occupied a suburban… Continue reading
Jan 04 Smoking Out the Vultures A few hours before sundown, the vultures arrive by the dozens to roost in Jessica Paulin's backyard. They swoop in, choose the perfect evergreen branch, and with one or two flaps of their massive wings, settle in for the… Continue reading
Dec 19 Research Chimps to Retire to Louisiana Sanctuary By Fred de Sam Lazaro Chimps socialize and snack at Chimp Haven. Image by Cameron Hickey. The NIH announced plans on Tuesday to move more than 100 chimpanzees from the New Iberia Research Center into retirement at Chimp Haven, a 200-acre chimpanzee… Continue reading
Dec 17 A Dramatic End for the Twin Moon Spacecraft This artist's concept shows one of the GRAIL satellites inserting itself into orbit. Image by NASA/JPL-Caltech. The twin GRAIL robots, the washing-machine sized satellites that have been zipping around the moon for nearly a year, will end their… Continue reading
Dec 14 Meteor Shower Told in Tweets Israelis in a hot water spring on the shore of the Dead Sea near the Israeli Kibbutz of Ein Gedi watch the sky for Geminid meteor streaks above the Judean desert on December 14, 2012. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty… Continue reading
Dec 12 In Cosmic Game of Billiards, What Are the Chances of an Asteroid Collision? This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA. There's been buzz in the news this week about two asteroids nearly sideswiping us. Boston Globe… Continue reading