Month-long events include hands-on activities like nature festivals, museum events, trainings, bioblitzes, and more. The “citizen science” movement is gathering momentum, as scientists, policy makers, and the public themselves recognize that EVERYONE can make meaningful contributions to research. SciStarter is teaming up with the Citizen Science Association to raise awareness of hundreds of events and research opportunities that will be offered as part of Citizen Science Day activit ...read more

Last week I waxed mildly poetic on the ephemeral nature of living beings and the inorganic reality of a fossil. Fossils are just shadows, I said, or memories ... or something like that. Well, this week I've got something much more exciting and less poetic. It's an ancient pygmy grasshopper, Electrotettix attenboroughi, and it's no rocky fossil, no sir. This is a genuine, mint condition, honest-to-God organic grasshopper, encased in a shiny amber shell and preserved for something like 20 m ...read more

Somewhat like looking down the barrel of a gun, antibiotic resistance is a looming threat to modern medicine. The rise of MRSA, super drug-resistant gonorrhea and other “nightmare” bacteria risk rendering our microscopic defenses useless. What to do when your last-last-last resort fails to kill these pathogens? Someday, perhaps sooner than later, we’re going to need new antibiotics, not to mention medicines for cancer, depression, and other conditions that aren’t readily ...read more

We're kicking off Citizen Science Day with a mission for you. SciStarter is challenging you to join and participate (at least once) in any three SciStarter Affiliate projects listed here between April 14 and May 14. Complete your mission and you'll earn a SciStarter certificate. Keep on participating during Citizen Science Days and you'll be eligible to become one of the top three mission contributors to win some swag and be connected with of one the scientists you helped! Will you ch ...read more

Deadly fish known for their spikes and venom may pack a newfound weapon — switchblades on their faces, some of which can fluoresce green, a new study finds. The discovery began when ichthyologist William Leo Smith at the University of Kansas at Lawrence dissected a wispy waspfish that had been his pet. Wispy waspfish are a species of stonefish, a group inhabiting Indian and Pacific coastal waters that are among the deadliest in the oceans. Many protect themselves with spikes or camouflage ...read more

Americans aren't exactly known for our knowledge of history (or geography, for that matter). But we should at least know our own presidents, right? Enter these researchers, who used an online survey to measure how well people can distinguish real U.S. presidents from others with well-known or presidential-sounding names. They found that, while people were actually able to recognize 88% of U.S. presidents by name (the exceptions including lesser known presidents like Franklin Pierce and Ches ...read more

Naming objects and the features that cover them help astronomers to characterize, understand, and communicate about the subjects of their studies. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has recently released official names for seven features on the planet Mercury, as well as 12 on the largest moon of Pluto, Charon. On April 6, the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature released its approved names for seven faculae on Mercury. Faculae are bright surface features th ...read more

We've all heard of sweating bullets, but this is something else entirely. A medical case report from Italian researchers last year details a 21-year-old patient who began mysteriously sweating blood from her face and palms. The condition had been ongoing for about three years, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports, when she decided to check herself into a hospital — needless to say, the doctors were perplexed. Bloody, But Fine Strangely, the young woman was otherwise totally ...read more

These days it's hard to find a place on Earth where humans haven't interfered in some way. Venture to the most remote jungle or the depths of the Mariana Trench and you've likely been preceded by some emissary of humanity, whether that's chemicals carried on the wind or something more tangible. But there are places where our long shadow has never reached, where the events of the past 100,000 years might as well have never happened. Locked deep below gargantuan sheets of ice thous ...read more

When you picture the rugged coastlines of Norway, tropical heat probably doesn't come to mind, but it should. Even in the country’s Arctic reaches, the coast is typically free from ice and snow, and the weather is often more Seattle than Anchorage. How can that be? Residents can thank the Gulf Stream, an ocean conveyor belt that pushes warm water their way from the tropics. And Northern Europeans aren’t the only ones who should be thankful, either. Much of Europe and the east coast ...read more