Mar 22 Radiation in Japan’s Food Supply: Dangerous or Benign? By Jenny Marder The Japanese government reported on Sunday that it had halted some food shipments to prevent tainted samples of milk and spinach from reaching consumers. Iodine 131 was found in milk samples in Kawamata, a town in Fukushima prefecture, where the… Continue reading
Mar 15 Mechanics of a Nuclear Meltdown Explained By Jenny Marder After a powerful explosion on Tuesday, Japanese workers are still struggling to regain control of an earthquake and tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant amid worsening fears of a full meltdown. Which raises the questions: What exactly is a nuclear meltdown? And… Continue reading
Feb 28 Shuttle Debris, Explained By Jenny Marder Viewer question: Was there any comment on the two pieces of debris that came off about 5:48 into the video? (Watch the Discovery launch here). Updated: 4:40 pm EST | By 10:47 am EST Monday morning, astronaut Steven Bowen… Continue reading
Feb 22 Just Ask: Why Do Onions Make Us Cry? By Evan Conway We all know the stinging sensation and welling up of tears that comes from chopping onions. But why does this happen? In fact, the reason onions make us cry can be traced back to the soil. Onions are part of… Continue reading
Jan 25 What is a Neutrino…And Why Do They Matter? By Jenny Marder Neutrinos are teeny, tiny, nearly massless particles that travel at near lightspeeds. Born from violent astrophysical events like exploding stars and gamma ray bursts, they are fantastically abundant in the universe, and can move as easily through lead as we… Continue reading
Jan 18 How Does Salt Battle Road Ice? By Jenny Marder Since as early as the 1930s, a variation on simple table salt has been used to keep wintry roads from getting dangerously slippery. The mechanism is simple: When liquid water freezes into ice, the loose water molecules arrange themselves into… Continue reading
Jan 11 How Close Are We to Finding an Earthlike Planet? By Jenny Marder And what constitutes an "earthlike planet" anyway? The Kepler Space telescope has found a small, rocky planet, the smallest yet found orbiting a star outside our solar system, the Kepler team announced Monday at the annual meeting of… Continue reading
Jan 04 Birds Tumbling From the Sky; Fish Floating Dead in the Water: How Unusual Are These Animal Die-Offs? By Jenny Marder On New Years Day, residents of Beebe, Ark., awoke to find some 5,000 dead blackbirds strewn across roads, lawns and rooftops. Three days later, 125 miles from Beebe, thousands of fish were found dead on riverbanks and floating along the… Continue reading
Dec 21 Just Ask: Probing the Sun … How Close Can We Get? By Jenny Marder Here's this week's Just Ask! science query: At what point would a spacecraft approaching the sun vaporize? -- Bob Rinehuls We all know the tale of Icarus. He attempts to escape imprisonment in Crete with wings made of feather, wood… Continue reading
Dec 14 Just Ask: How Does Sunscreen Work? By Jenny Marder As a cold front settles across the Eastern seaboard, we turn wistfully to thoughts of the sun for this week’s Just Ask! science post. This one comes from a reader, Amanda Teicher, who wants to know: “How does sunscreen work?”… Continue reading