Jul 23 How concerned should we be about the mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus? By Jenny Marder On Thursday, federal officials announced that the tropical Chikungunya mosquito-borne disease had been transmitted for the first time within the United States, infecting two Florida residents. What’s notable about these cases is that the people affected reported no recent… Continue reading
Jul 16 First steps of a baby Stegosaurus, captured in 3-D By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy A baby stegosaurus' first steps 150 million years ago can now be modeled in 3D with a few clicks on a camera phone. The technology makes studying dinosaur footprints cheap and easy. Continue reading
Jul 09 Student science journalists tackle concussions, climate change and teaching physics By Matt Ehrichs We asked young journalists in our Student Reporting Labs to find out how science affected their communities. They found fellow student athletes coping with the pain of multiple concussions, inspirational physics teachers who launch eggs with lighter fluid and citizen… Continue reading
Jul 02 Watch ideas light up a fish’s brain By Jenny Marder and Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Scientists at the NIH are mapping the activity of thousands of individual neurons inside the brain of a zebrafish as the animal hunts for food. In a small, windowless room that houses two powerful electron microscopes, a scientist is searching… Continue reading
Jun 25 How to 3-D print a dinosaur By Colleen Shalby The Smithsonian's Digitization Program is 3-D scanning and printing the more than 200 bones of the Nation's T.rex, one of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons ever discovered. Continue reading
Jun 11 Suffocating cells for science By Jenny Marder If you believe that all living things need oxygen to breathe, you’re not only wrong, but hopelessly human-centric. But don’t be too hard on yourself. Most mammals are biased toward multicellular organisms. It’s true that humans, along with mammals, birds,… Continue reading
Jun 04 Looks like there’s a party in deep space and Hubble’s got the photos By Jenny Marder If a tractor full of confetti was launched into the night sky and then beamed with a strobe light, it might look something like the Hubble Space Telescope image above. It is, according to NASA, among the most colorful of… Continue reading
May 28 How to get an octopus to cooperate at his photo shoot By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy In 2002, photographer Kent Treptow first picked up a $10 two-gallon aquarium, a hand-held light, and his camera and headed to Newport Beach’s rocky tidepools to capture the sea creatures there. But as photo shoots go, sea cucumbers, sea… Continue reading
May 21 In space, ‘take your protein pills’ and get your Sriracha on By Talia Mindich In space, green beans taste like grass and sliced strawberries are repulsively sweet. That's according to NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock, who spent more than 178 days living -- and eating -- aboard the International Space Station and space shuttle Discovery. Continue reading
May 07 As species decline, so do the scientists who name them By Jenny Marder Quentin Wheeler’s career can be traced back to a fascination with pond scum. Now president of SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Wheeler was 8 when he first peered through a microscope and saw the single-celled organisms known as… Continue reading