The Deep-Sea Find That Changed Biology
In 1977, a small crew of oceanographers traveled to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and stumbled across a brand new form of life. The discovery was so unusual, it turned biology on its head and brought into question much of what scientists thought they knew about where life can form and what it needs [...]
Name That Tune: Identifying Whale Songs For Science
Researchers in the field of marine biology are turning to citizen scientists, sitting at home in front of your computer, to help unlock the secrets of whale songs. In Pixar’s aquatic adventure Finding Nemo, Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres, attempts to communicate with a whale to find the missing title character. She speaks in a [...]
No Power Lines Needed for this OKC Couple
One house, two people, and no power lines from the street.
A Debate Over Who Regulates Gas ‘Fracking’ in Pa.
A new Pennsylvania law could curb municipalities’ ability to zone and regulate hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking.” And that raises questions about how much say a local government should have over what goes on within its borders. State lawmakers are grappling with how to update Commonwealth’s decades-old Oil and Gas Act to catch up with [...]
The Library Phantom Returns!
He? She? It? Whoever it is, the Phantom Sculptor is suddenly back! As I recently reported, somebody has been dropping glorious little paper sculptures into libraries and museums all over Edinburgh, Scotland, and we’ve just heard (thank you, alert reader Paul Smith) that there are now three more. And they will be the last. In [...]
‘Physics Of The Future’: How We’ll Live In 2100?
Imagine being able to access the Internet through the contact lenses on your eyeballs. Blink, and you’d be online. Meet someone, and you’d have the ability to immediately search their identity. And if your friend happens to be speaking a different language, an instantaneous translation could appear directly in front of you. That might sound [...]
What I Still Hear: Sounds That Have Disappeared
I tell stories on a show called Radiolab with a guy who is several decades younger than me. Jad Abumrad is brilliant at it. Nobody turns complex subjects into soundscapes that work their way into the heart (and head) like he does. But — because he was born in the ’70s, he’s got blank spots. [...]
Food Giant Unilever Says Restaurants Need To Cut Waste
Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate that makes blockbuster food products like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Skippy peanut butter and supplies thousands of food-service companies in 74 countries, is a Fortune Global 500 company. If it decides it wants to do something about food waste, it could keep a lot of perfectly tasty morsels out of the garbage [...]
New Roving Science Lab Charts A Course For Mars
It’s time to go back to Mars. Once every two years, the orbits of Earth and Mars are aligned just right, so it’s possible to send a spacecraft from here to there. That special time is now. NASA’s latest mission is the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). It’s another six-wheeled rover, but much larger than the [...]
After Ohio State Clobbers Michigan, Cuddle Up With Professor Feynman
It’s Thanksgiving weekend, so when you’re footballed up, (or is it footballed out? Or maybe you’re football indifferent?) whatever you are, here’s a nice way to spend five minutes: Cuddle up with the great physicist Richard Feynman and hear him talk about beauty, curiosity and — most important of all — about doubt. Doubt is [...]
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