Blood Falls in Antarctica. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
In the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, pristine glaciers are marred in one spot by a striking feature: a crimson stain on the white cliffs, looking not unlike a gaping wound in the ice.
The five-story gash goes by the unnerving name of Blood Falls, although the color is not at all organic in nature. The salty water that seeps from the glacier is actually stained red by its rich iron content, and harbors a community of extremophile ...read more
Photo credit: Huffington Post
Guest post by Panisa Sundravorakul
Instant noodles are delicious, cheap, and easy prepare. This combination of traits make instant noodles a seemingly perfect solution for college students’ hectic schedules and depleted bank accounts. Let us take a moment to appreciate what made instant noodles possible – let us savor the science behind this culinary delicacy.
Instant noodles are truly a technological marvel – they can last for up to 12 months on ...read more
(Credit: Filip Fuxa/Shutterstock)
For a long time, medieval medicine has been dismissed as irrelevant. This time period is popularly referred to as the “Dark Ages,” which erroneously suggests that it was unenlightened by science or reason. However, some medievalists and scientists are now looking back to history for clues to inform the search for new antibiotics.
The evolution of antibiotic-resistant microbes means that it is always necessary to find new drugs to battle microbes th ...read more
(Credit: Soonthorn Wongsaita/Shutterstock)
Lamb fetuses have been sustained for four weeks outside of their mothers’ bodies with a new system that mimics a placenta.
The system is a step forward for researchers hoping to develop an “artificial placenta” that could allow premature fetuses to continue developing until they are ready for the outside world. It is essentially a fluid-filled bag with ports that allow for oxygen and nutrient delivery, combined with a pump-less oxyge ...read more
Volunteers across the country participate in River Keeper programs. Photo: Virginia State Parks CC BY 2.0
River Keeper. Watershed Keeper. There’s something poetic—maybe a bit Celtic—about these terms, which in the world of citizen science refer to someone monitoring a waterway for soil erosion, contaminants, and loss of biodiversity. Across the United States, with sonorous names like Willamette River Keepers and Chattahoochee River Keepers, citizen scientists are keeping watc ...read more
A chunk of plastic after 10 worms spent about 30 minutes feasting. (Credit: CSIC Communications Department)
A caterpillar that can eat plastic and produce an industrially useful compound while doing so could take a bite out of the global scourge of plastic trash, a new study finds.
Plastics typically resist breaking down, and as plastic use has risen exponentially over the past 50 years, plastic garbage is piling up in landfills and could wreak havoc on wildlife and the environment for centuri ...read more
An animation of images from the new GOES-16 weather satellite shows the progression of a day for 12 hours starting on April 21, 2017. (Source: CIRA/RAMMB/NOAA)
With Earth Day just behind us, I’ve been inspired to start a new series here at ImaGeo: semi-regular posts showcasing the truly dazzling imagery now being produced by the GOES-16 weather satellite.
It’s now on its shakedown cruise, so to speak. Scientists are still testing everything out and evaluating the data being returne ...read more
A visual celebration of the home planet, starting with a view from Earth as seen from Saturn — 870 million miles away — and zooming in close
In this image, acquired by the Cassini spacecraft just this past April 12th, the rings of Saturn dominate the view. But see that little white dot? That’s home — 870 million miles away.
On the morning of the first Earth Day, on April 20th, 1970, a friend and I boarded the IRT subway line in Brooklyn and headed for Manhatta ...read more
As the March for Science has drawn near, scientists and science-lovers across the country have pontificated at length on why they are—or aren’t—marching. But while today’s 400-plus demonstrations around the nation will hopefully resonate with lawmakers, it takes more than rallies to accomplish lasting change. The following is a guest post from Dr. Kira Krend, a biology teacher in Honolulu, HI, on her March for Science—one that she does ever ...read more
