Capcom Charlie Duke, and backup crewmembers Jim Lovell and Fred Haise in Mission Control during Apollo 11’s descent. NASA “Got the Earth straight out our front window.” As the lunar module Eagle yawed into a windows up orientation, Buzz Aldrin looked away from the computer to see the Earth nearly a quarter of a million miles away. “Sure do,” agreed Neil Armstrong, adding, “Houston, [I hope] you’re looking at our Delta-H.” The&n ...read more
(Credit: Keplinger Research Group and Science/AAAS) Humanoid robots like Sophia, granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia, and Atlas, which backflips like a boss, are rigid, strong and rather bulky. They’re made to look like us; they’re not designed after us. But researchers are working hard to give robots a softer touch without losing strength. Two new studies released Thursday in Science and Science Robotics showcase new moving robotic parts, called actuators, that are advancing soft r ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock) Squirrels are a passion for Sarah Westrick, a biology researcher at the University of Michigan. Last summer she attended the Kluane Red Squirrel Project in the Shakwak Trench near Kluane National Park and Reserve in Canada’s southwest Yukon Territory. Researchers congregate there each summer to study the North American red squirrel. Westrick was studying the squirrel’s maternal behavior, specifically how the moms prepare their pups for nature’s rea ...read more
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One verdict on global warming in 2017 is in: Warmest year with no temperature boost from El Niño, and second warmest overall This map shows how air temperatures at a height of two meters varied in 2017 from the 1981–2010 average. (Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service, ECMWF) Today brought another lesson about the difference between weather and climate. While winds were howling, snow was blowing, and temperatures were plummeting thanks to the bomb cycl ...read more
(Credit: InnerVisionPRO/Shutterstock) When turns you on? When responding to the question, most people turn to physical attributes, and we can probably all guess what the answers might be. But for some, sexual attraction stems not from the assemblage of flesh and bone that carries us through life, but from what resides within. No, it’s not the soul — it’s the mind. Or so they say. So-called sapiosexuals claim to be attracted to intellect, and many say that it ov ...read more
Willy from Philly measures snow precipitation Did you know that forecasters rely on YOU to help accurately predict storms, floods, droughts and extreme weather conditions? The National Weather Service, for example, depends on people just like you to report local rain and snow precipitation measurements to a citizen science project known as CoCoRaHS: Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network. Learn more about this long-running, popular project and, when you’re ready to jum ...read more
By: Caitlin Larkin You probably remember when the Ebola virus became news in 2014, after it killed thousands of people. Erica Ollmann Saphire (pictured above), a structural biologist at The Scripps Research Institute, and one of the world’s foremost experts on Ebola, understood the molecular structure of the disease—and she knew its weak spots. She had a plan of attack to find an antiviral drug. Her first step was to study millions of chemical compounds to determine their potential a ...read more
An animation of images acquired by the GOES-16 weather satellite shows a strong winter storm undergoing a phenomenon known as “bombogenesis.” Click on the image to watch the animation created by the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. (Source: CIMSS Satellite Blog) Last night, my daughter called me from New York City to ask worriedly about the so-called bomb cyclone that was threatening the northeastern United States. “What is this about a bomb?,&rdquo ...read more
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