Agung in Indonesia seen in 2009. Antoine Vasse Nicolas / CC by 2.0
This week, the focus is on the rumbling volcanoes in Indonesia and Vanuatu. Here are some updates (along with a tidbit at the end on Washington’s Rainier.)
Agung
The unrest at Indonesia’s Agung continues and now the total evacuated has reached almost 100,000 people. Now, this volcanic crisis has been going for almost a week with no eruption … and we begin to enter the long, dark teatime of volcano monitoring: h ...read more
With two months left, more records could fall before we’re all done
The GOES-16 weather satellite captured this image showing hurricanes Maria, to the left, and Lee, to the right, on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. (Source: SLIDER by RAMMB/CIRA @ CSU)
We’ve known for some weeks now that the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane season has been absolutely brutal.
And now, thanks to new calculations, we have some statistical insights into the raw, howling power of the storms that hav ...read more
Cassini’s mission is over and gone for good. But we’re not done with Saturn yet — it just may be a while before we go back. (Credit: NASA)
By the end of the year, NASA will decide on a new New Frontiers-class mission. This medium-cost mission class is responsible for the Juno, New Horizons, and OSIRIS-REx probes, and has a handful of finalists selected for a mid-2020s launch. Among proposals for a Moon mission, a Venus lander, and a comet sample return are five Saturnian ...read more
This is an illustration of the new species, Uromys vika. (Credit: Velizar Simeonovski, The Field Museum)
The mysterious tale of the giant rat of Sumatra was famously “a story for which the world is not yet prepared,” according to Sherlock Holmes. Now, after years of searching, researchers have discovered a new tree-dwelling, coconut-piercing species of giant rat in the Solomon Islands—it measures 18-inch rodent that researchers finally tracked down after years of searching.
T ...read more
While there’s no I in TEAM, each penguin benefits from hunting together. Photo credit Sergey Uryadnikov
They say that many hands make light work. Well, for African penguins, many beaks make for bountiful hunts, according to a new study in Royal Society Open Science. The results suggest that dwindling populations may have greater consequences than previously realized.
African penguins (Spheniscus demersus), or as some call them “jackass” penguins for their donkey ...read more
An example of the expandable “water responsive material” that could provide power from evaporating water. (Credit: Xi Chen)
There’s energy everywhere, the trouble is harnessing it.
We extract power from wind, waves and sunlight, but researchers from Columbia University say there’s another font of untapped energy — water evaporating from lakes and reservoirs across the country. In a new analysis laying out a prospective plan to harness evaporation, they say that up ...read more
A dinosaur of the group Caenagnathidae, which had teeth as children, but grew beaks as adults. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
It’s well known that theropods were the ancestors of modern-day birds, but exactly how these dinosaurs made the transition from fearsome maws to toothless beaks has been unclear. A new study from researchers in China shows various adolescent species of toothed theropods actually had both for a time — they transitioned from toothy jaws to beaks during adolescenc ...read more
How can you protect an astronaut from getting a sunburn in space?
Kids learn how chemistry can protect astronauts at England’s National Space Center in Leicester. Credit: National Space Centre, Leicester 2
The Royal Society of Chemistry in London has designed a collection of hands-on chemistry experiments that kids can do to explore this question and discover the answer for themselves.
The project is called Mission: Starlight. It is free and includes downloadable videos, worksheets, ...read more
Astronaut Scott Kelly hosted a Super Bowl 50 party on the International Space Station, but no one came. (Credit: Scott Kelly)
No one knows for sure what a long-range space journey will be like for the people on board. Nobody in the history of our species has ever had to deal with the “Earth-out-of-view” phenomenon, for instance. How will it feel to live in close quarters with a small group, with no escape hatch? How will space travelers deal with the prospect of not seeing family o ...read more
