The 1986 Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear meltdown in history. Today, much of the area around the old plant in Ukraine and in bordering Belarus remains uninhabited, including the city of the same name and Pripyat. But that’s only true if we’re talking about humans.Many animals still live in the area. In many cases, wildlife populations have thrived due to the lack of human presence for more than 35 years. But does this mean the animals that live in the area have adapted to the unique ...read more

This is Part 2 of a look at the evolution of women in volcanology, especially at the US Geological Survey. You can read Part 1 here.A Hawaiian eruption was an unexpected destination for Alexa Van Eaton. This was her second stint in the USGS. She had previously worked at CVO as a postdoctoral researcher and felt she didn’t really fit in there as an early-career female scientist. The mostly over-40 male staff of CVO was nothing new to her. Her professors in Florida and her Ph.D. advisor in New Z ...read more

When a surfer paddles out to catch a wave, their silhouette creates an image to a shark swimming below. Against a bright sky in the water, a human could resemble the body of a seal, or a shark's favorite prey. We've commonly heard that this is why sharks attack humans. Recently, however, a new study challenges this theory. Eric Clua, a marine biologist and veterinary doctor based in French Polynesia, and Carl Meyer, a biologist at the University of Hawai’i, published a paper in Behaviour that ...read more

In February of 1997, a small group of friends and relatives went ice fishing on Moosehead Lake in Maine, not knowing what the day would hold for them. According to an old account by the National Weather Service, the friends set to fishing amid the snow, sleet and rain and heard a sound like “freight train cars banging together.” They later realized this to be thunder and as hail began to fall, piled their gear onto their snowmobiles, to leave.As they worked, they saw “flickers or sparkles� ...read more

The trick to a successful search for fossils is finding the proper place. After all, paleontologists rarely select their sites at random. Instead, they consider an assortment of areas — comparing the age and the accessibility of the rock — prior to picking up their trowels.Most important in their considerations is the type of stone at a prospective search site, which is almost always sedimentary rather than igneous or metamorphic. The question is, why?While the formation of sedimentary rock ...read more

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a new psychotherapy method used to treat people’s past trauma — or the painful symptoms caused by distressing experiences. But unlike a regular psychotherapy treatment, the healing process with EMDR is much shorter. Plus, you don’t have to talk extensively about or relive your traumatic experiences.What Is EMDR Therapy and How Does It Work?EMDR therapy is a guided process in which you move your eyes toward the therapist's fing ...read more

If you went back in time and accidentally killed one of your ancestors, what would happen to you?When it comes to hypotheticals about time travel, this is one of the most popular and compelling questions of all, well, time. And it isn’t just a plot device that science fiction writers and filmmakers use to drive a story. The so-called Grandfather Paradox has been weighed by physicists and philosophers alike for nearly a century.What Is the Grandfather Paradox?(Credit: Drawlab19/Shutterstock)Bro ...read more

“Look in a mirror,” begins You Are All Sanpaku, a health book from 1965 written by macrobiotic advocate and anti-war protestor George Ohsawa. There you see the whites of your eyes and, if you have sanpaku, a space between the iris and lower lid. This white crescent indicates “a grave state of physical and spiritual illness […] and an extraordinary susceptibility to disease, accidents and tragic death.”Having stared in their eyes (or pictures) he diagnoses many celebrities of the day, i ...read more

In the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 1910, Mary Hiller awoke inside the Chicago home she shared with her husband and four children. The gas light at the head of their stairway, which she always left running overnight, was out — so she sent her husband to investigate.Upon inspection, Clarence Hiller found an intruder: a recently paroled man named Thomas Jennings. The two struggled briefly before several gunshots rang out, leaving Hiller dead. Prior to this fatal encounter, Jennings had sexua ...read more