Scotch pines on a Christmas tree farm in northern Michigan. (Credit: Bert Cregg, CC BY-ND) Environmentally conscious consumers often ask me whether a real Christmas tree or an artificial one is the more sustainable choice. As a horticulture and forestry researcher, I know this question is also a concern for the Christmas tree industry, which is wary of losing market share to artificial trees. And they have good reason: Of the 48.5 million Christmas trees Americans purchased in 2017, 4 ...read more

This newly identified rare black butterfly has been named after the pioneering 17th century female entomologist, Maria Sibylla Merian. An extraordinary woman, this naturalist and scientific illustrator once sold 255 paintings to fund an expedition across the Atlantic to document the flora and fauna of Dutch Suriname, collected in a book in 1705. The Central American butterfly honored with her name is dubbed Catasticta sibyllae. Exceedingly rare, only two specimens have been uncovered: on ...read more

(Inside Science) -- In medical textbooks, the nonpregnant uterus is often described as quiescent, dormant and useless. But now, researchers have found that the uterus may play a role in memory and cognition -- a role hitherto unappreciated because researchers haven’t looked closely at the uterus’s role outside of pregnancy. A third of women in the U.S. have their uteruses removed, a procedure called hysterectomy, by age 60, according to Heather Bimonte-Nelson, who directs Arizona St ...read more

Forget meditation, forget ayahuasca ceremonies and mindfulness practice. Today, knowing yourself is as easy as swabbing your cheek. Home genetics tests like those offered by 23andme are becoming readily affordable — just $69 for a test kit — and they offer an unprecedented look at our personal blueprint. It’s even possible today to study the genetics of your potential offspring before they’re born. So-called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis analyzes DNA from an embryo, ...read more

On November 26, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander successfully touched down on Mars. Though the probe’s main goal is to explore the planet’s interior, its sophisticated instruments are also offering a unique way to explore the Martian surface — by recording the sound of Martian wind. Windswept Sounds of Mars The recordings capture the sounds of winds gusting through Elysium Planitia, InSight’s Martian ...read more

The spectacular Geminid meteor shower peaks the night of December 13/14. Although many people consider it to be a poor cousin to August’s Perseid shower, the Geminids often put on a better show. This year, observers can expect to see up to 120 “shooting stars” per hour — an average of nearly two per minute — under a dark sky. Viewing conditions could hardly be better for the Geminids this year. The waxing crescent moon sets around 10:30 p.m. local time, leaving the ...read more

Escaping the Heliosphere Humanity has another interstellar emissary. After launching in 1977, NASA’s trailblazing spacecraft Voyager 2 has finally escaped the heliosphere, the Sun's protective bubble of charged particles. It follows in the path of its sibling,  Voyager 1, which crossed into interstellar space in 2012. The Sun's solar wind makes up the heliosphere, which surrounds us and all of the planets in our solar system. The boundary where the hot solar wind ...read more

OSIRIS-REx Findings OSIRIS-REx has been busy ever since it arrived at the asteroid Bennu on December 3. The latest updates from NASA reveal that the space rock is porous, blue, and covered in massive boulders. More excitingly, they discovered evidence that Bennu's minerals interacted with water at some point in its distant past. During a press conference today at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting, NASA's OSIRIS-REx team revealed the first results from their spacecraft's ...read more

Making lava to blow it up — that’s what scientists at the University of Buffalo have been up to. The first results of a long-term study led by Ingo Sonder, shown here stirring molten rock, were published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. The group has been cooking up lava in 10-gallon batches and injecting them with water to better understand the explosive reactions that sometimes occur when the two meet. “If you think about a volcanic eruption, there ...read more

Babies to order. Andrew crotty/Shutterstock.com When Adam Nash was still an embryo, living in a dish in the lab, scientists tested his DNA to make sure it was free of Fanconi anemia, the rare inherited blood disease from which his sister Molly suffered. They also checked his DNA for a marker that would reveal whether he shared the same tissue type. Molly needed a donor match for stem cell therapy, and her parents were determined to find one. Adam was conceived so the stem cells in his umbil ...read more