(Credit: RugliG/Shutterstock)
Wendy Fonarow arrived in Mexico City late in October 2017, eager to observe the nation’s Día de Muertos or Day of the Dead. Celebrations for this holiday—also called Día de los Muertos—start on the evening of October 31 and in fact span several days during which people celebrate lost loved ones. On November 1, they memorialize children, and on the second, adults.
In many regions of Latin America, families prepare ofrendas, or a ...read more
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin carrying two components of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package during the Apollo 11 mission. (Credit: NASA)
(Inside Science) — On July 20, 1969, just before 11 p.m. Eastern time, Neil Armstrong planted the first human footprints on another world. It was a defining moment in a journey that had transfixed the planet.
A few days earlier, Armstrong and his fellow astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had blasted skyward atop a 6.2 million-pound roc ...read more
The Chinese start-up LandSpace launched a three-stage rocket from the Jiuquan space center, but the mission failed to get its payload, a microsatellite, into orbit. (Credit: LandSpace)
China’s first privately-funded rocket maker, LandSpace, failed to put a microsatellite in orbit on Saturday during its inaugural flight.
The solid-fueled, three-stage Zhuque 1 rocket launched from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert at 4 a.m. EDT on Oct. 27. It soared successfully through its ...read more
(Credit: Karpova/Shutterstock)
Tobacco kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. But the addictive substance has a complex history — for many Native Americans, tobacco has been used ritually for hundreds of years. Now, researchers show Native Americans of the northwest were smoking tobacco more than 1,000 years before European fur-traders arrived with their own domesticated variety. The discovery could bolster public health campaigns in Native populations the researchers say. ...read more
Mummified cats may have been concealed behind walls to protect against witchcraft. (Credit: Trustees of the British Museum. Howard; Man, Volume 51, November 1951)
Looking for authentic Halloween decorations this year? I’ve done some research and have three historically-accurate recommendations: You could cut up an old boot, mummify a cat or fill a bottle with nails and urine.
They’re no pumpkins, but the goal of these sometimes macabre items was less about bringing the spook than k ...read more
Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, has frost that travels seasonally northward from its south pole, new observations confirm. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
Neptune’s largest moon Triton is still gathering frost on its surface – even after nearly 20 years of accumulation.
Backed by new observations, researchers recently announced that frost continues to travel northward from the southern polar cap of Triton. The frost, which is generated by the sun heating and sublimating volatile material ...read more
Millennia before chocolate fountains (above) were mainstays at wedding receptions, the cacao-derived ingredient was important to people living in Central and South America. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
It’s time to rewrite the history of chocolate. Using both archaeological and genomic data, researchers have revealed that consumption of the now globally-loved ingredient started much earlier than thought — and has a different birthplace than many assumed.
Chocolate is a ...read more
Scientists are debating landing sites for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, which will look for signs of life on the Red Planet. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Battle lines are being drawn on the Red Planet. Last week, more than 200 scientists from around the globe gathered in Los Angeles to debate the best place to send NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The choice of landing site will steer the direction of Mars research for the next several decades.
Similar in design to Curiosity, the as-yet-unnamed rov ...read more
Saturn’s Moon Dione. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Saturn’s moon Dione appears to be getting its tiger on. The world is decorated with long, bright stripes, according to a new study, something astronomers say is unlike anything else they’ve seen in the solar system.
After first noticing these stripes, researchers from the Planetary Science Institute and the Smithsonian began trying to figure out where they came from and why they exist.
Unusual L ...read more
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To step outside on a moonlit night is to see the darkness pushed back. The reflected sunlight from our natural satellite during a nearly full moon is enough to limn the nighttime landscape in silver and allow even human eyes to penetrate the gloom. But we can always do better, right? If one moon is good, surely two is even better. One Chinese researcher thinks so, at least. Wu Chunfeng, head of the Tian Fu New Area Science Society ...read more
