Signs of ammonia on Pluto's surface may hint at liquid water underground. (Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI)
The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is still making new findings. Most recently, researchers used its data to find traces of ammonia on Pluto’s surface. Intriguingly, the ammonia lines up with a cracked region called Virgil Fossae, which has mounds of water ice and shows signs of past tectonic activity. Because ammonia is eventually destroyed in environments like ...read more
A satellite view of the Chuckegg Creek wildfire near High Level, Alberta in Canada on May 26, 2019.
With unusual heat refusing to loosen its grip on Western Canada, ten out-of-control wildfires are now burning in northern Alberta.
Thanks to the hot, dry weather and rising winds, officials in Alberta were concerned on Tuesday (May 29) that the Chuckegg Creek fire near High Level, Alberta could lead to "blow-up fire behavior." The fire has already scorched 580 square miles — an area l ...read more
EF3 tornado from an 2017 tornado outbreak near Washburn, Illinois. Wikimedia Commons.
I live in Ohio and one thing I've had to get used to here that I didn't experience most places I have lived are tornadoes. This week, parts of western Ohio got hit by some big and destructive tornadoes and in total, at least 17 tornadoes were confirmed across the state. This is part of a larger tornado outbreak across the central U.S. Tornadoes are a lot like volcanic eruptions: they've highly destructive a ...read more
New research suggests that LDL cholesterol may play a role in developing early-onset Alzheimer's disease. (Credit: Atthapon Raksthaput/Shutterstock)
Most of us know that high levels of “bad” cholesterol in our blood can increase our risk of developing cardiovascular problems. Now, a new study gives us another reason to keep cholesterol levels in check. High cholesterol may also play a role in the development of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, a research team has found.
T ...read more
A colony of tufted puffins. (Credit: tryton2011/shutterstock)
From beached whales to strange seal die-offs, mass marine life mortality events are getting more common. And thanks to changing temperatures, mass seabird deaths are on the rise as well.
A study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One catalogs a four-month period starting in October 2016 where researchers and volunteers collected dead seabirds from St. Paul Island off the Alaskan coast in the Bering Sea. They foun ...read more
A composite image of the supernova Cassiopeia A. A similar event may have triggered wildfires and led to ecological changes on Earth millions of years ago. (Credit: NASA)
In one fiery burst, an exploding nearby star millions of years ago may have helped change the course of life on Earth.
Upon its death, this supernova sent high-energy charged particles, called cosmic rays, racing across the universe. Now, a new study says those cosmic rays may have led to an uptick in wildfires across t ...read more
(Credit: sirirat/Shutterstock)
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics can spread among microbes in just two hours, reports a team of researchers. The finding, though alarming, could also lead to better ways to treat bacterial infections that do not promote the spread of antibiotic resistance.
“It all happens very quickly,” said Christian Lesterlin, a geneticist at the University of Lyon in France, who led the new research. Lesterlin and his team discovered that bacteria can transf ...read more
Changing Methods of Science Communication
When we discuss science communication, we often talk about it as either targeted at professional scientists or as targeted at the public. However, with the increase in citizen science and public engagement in science, new ways to communicate about science — modes that exist somewhere between separate professional and public genres — have developed apace.
In my new book, Science Communication Online, from The Ohio State University P ...read more
A paper in a peer-reviewed medical journal makes the suggestion that physicist Stephen Hawking's disability, which famously confined him to a wheelchair and robbed him of his speech, was psychosomatic in nature.
Hmm. I think this says more about the author than it does about Hawking.
The paper is called Delusional Health Beliefs and it comes by British doctor Peter May. It was published a few days ago in the Medico-Legal Journal.
May begins the paper by discussing conversion di ...read more
