With hot, dry and windy conditions continuing, the dangerous Brian Head fire is expected to grow significantly A giant smoke plume from Utah’s Brian Head Fire is seen streaming across much of the state and on into Wyoming and Colorado in this animation created from images captured by the GOES-West weather satellite on Monday, June 26, 2017. The white arrow in the first frame marks the location of the fire, near the Brian Head ski resort. (Source: RAMSDIS Online/RAMMB/CIRA) ...read more

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A new study examines the blurry distinction between “hard” and “soft” drugs. The “hardness” of drugs is a concept that makes intuitive sense, but is difficult to put into precise terms. “Hard” drugs are those which are viewed as more addictive, more potent and more toxic than the comparatively benign “soft” variety. The concept has a normative aspect: “hard” drugs are bad, and you should avoid them, even if you use soft dru ...read more

Your dog may act like a good listener—but does she really notice when you’re feeling down? Or does she just know how to deploy a wet nose and a tail-wag to earn treats? A new study says negative emotions are contagious for dogs. They’ll pick up a companion’s bad feelings just by sound, whether that companion is human or canine. “Emotional contagion” is the most basic form of empathy, write Annika Huber of the University of Vienna’s Cleve ...read more

Airglow, as seen from the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA) On rare occasions throughout history, the darkness of night fails to materialize. Even with the moon darkened, the sky fills with a diffuse glow that seems to filter out of the very air itself. Such “bright nights” have been recorded back to the days of Pliny the Elder around 132 B.C., although explanations for the phenomenon have been lacking. Using a special interferometer and data from the 1990s, two Can ...read more

“Waste not, want not.” The origin of this proverb traces back centuries, but time has hardly tarnished its relevance. It’s a warning every generation would do well to heed: Mismanaging precious commodities today will lead to an impoverished future. It’s so simple. It’s so true. It’s so often ignored. Case-in-point: global industrial fishing operations. Over the past decade, fishing fleets simply threw away more than 10 percent—enough to fill 4,500 Olymp ...read more

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This enhanced-color image of Jupiter was created by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt /Seán Doran) After a bit of an absence for vacation, and to finish work on a feature article on Arctic climate change and geopolitics for bioGraphic magazine, I’m back to blogging here at ImaGeo. And when I spotted this arresting imag ...read more

Excerpt from the Apollo 11 transcript. NASA. One hundred and 31 hours, 42 minutes, and 30 seconds into the mission, the crew of Apollo 11 was reunited and preparing for the trans earth injection burn that would send them out of the Moon’s orbit and on a path back home. Command Module Mike Collins was still in his pressure suit — mission rules said the astronauts much be suited when redocking the Command and Lunar modules — and was getting ready to take it off for the TEI burn ...read more