By: Marc J. Kuchner
Eighty-seven years ago, this week, Clyde Tombaugh was poring over a pair of photographic plates, hoping to change the world. He was staring hard into an arcane device called a blink comparator, which allowed him to rapidly switch from viewing one image to the next. In those days before computers, that was the best tool he had for finding the faint, moving dot he was seeking, a new planet in our solar system.
When Tombaugh discovered Pluto in those photographic plat ...read more
(Credit: Subbotina Anna/Shutterstock)
What’s in a handshake? If the widespread scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s characteristic “yank and grab” is any indication, a lot.
If anything, however, the recent spate of armchair psychology surrounding his handshakes says as much about us as it does about him. A handshake, done well, sets a precedent for collaboration and trust. Executed incorrectly, a sloppy handshake is a cringeworthy affair to witness. W ...read more
Large storm waves crashing on the rocks near Santa Cruz, California. (Credit: Christine Hegermiller, U.S. Geological Survey)
Beaches and shorelines are locked in an eternal battle between land and sea.
The struggle usually comes out to a draw — the rate of erosion is offset by the amount of new sediment deposited. But as weather patterns grow more erratic and storms intensify, our shores could begin yielding ground to the waves.
The most recent El Niño event was one of the most en ...read more
Earth, seen as the faint dot in a sunbeam, is 4 billion miles away in this image from Voyager 1. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
We first glimpsed Earth’s curvature in 1946, via a repurposed German V-2 rocket that flew 65 miles above the surface. Year-by-year, we climbed a little higher, engineering a means to comprehend the magnitude of our home.
In 1968, Apollo 8 lunar module pilot William Anders captured the iconic Earthrise photo. We contemplated the beauty of our home.
But on Valentine’s D ...read more
What do I love most about this artist rendering of a pregnant Dinocephalosaurus? Is it capturing the marine reptile’s epic neck-to-body proportion? Is it the tasteful allusion to the offspring in her belly? No, it’s the freshly chomped fish in her mouth, and the bloody cloud around it. Nom nom nom. Don’t mess with Mom when she’s hungry. Credit: Dinghua Yang & Jun Liu.
Here’s some egg-citing news: for the first time in the fossil record, researchers have discove ...read more
Last week Retraction Watch covered a case of a psychology paper that was retracted after it emerged that the graduate student who collected the data had faked the results.
Here’s the retraction notice:
The retraction follows an investigation by the University of Alabama’s Office for Research Compliance. That investigation found that a former graduate student in William Hart’s lab altered the data in strategic ways. The investigation found that William Hart was unaware wh ...read more
A crater at Northeast Syrtis, one of the shortlisted landing sites for the Mars 2020 rover. (Image: NASA/HiRISE/University of Arizona)
The Curiosity Mars rover is in the prime of its robotic life, approaching dramatic layered deposits on the slopes of Mt. Sharp. But even as the four and a half year-old mission reaches the features it was initially sent to investigate, scientists and engineers are feverishly planning for the next rover mission, Mars 2020.
2020 is shaping up to be a busy year on ...read more
An animation of satellite images taken about a year apart shows a huge difference in the amount of water flowing through waterways in California’s Sacramento River Delta. (Images: NASA Worldview. Animation: Tom Yulsman)
This animation of satellite images shows in dramatic fashion just how far California has come following one of its most devastating droughts on record.
To get the full effect, make sure to click on the animated GIF.
On Feb. 9, 2016, California was still in the grips of th ...read more
