Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey is one of many made using the famed Lincoln County Process, which takes its name from the area where Jack Daniel's was first made. (Credit: monticello/shutterstock) Champagne is only champagne if it’s made in its namesake region in France, Scotch is exclusively distilled and matured in Scotland, and a “bourbon” label is reserved for products from the United States. And there’s one variation on the bourbon recipe — Tennessee Whiskey & ...read more

I'm a longtime fan of cosmic disaster scenarios. Not because I'm particularly gloomy (according to my friends and family, I'm actually more of a goof), but because they are fabulous ways to illustrate the workings of the universe. They are also great for making you appreciate the delicate set of contingencies that allow us to exist right now, right here on Earth. I wrote one of the first Armageddon-science articles, entitled "20 Ways the World Could End," which was published for the 20 ...read more

But the stop-gap measure, now before Congress, includes a provision that some regard as a major step backward For the 40 million people who depend on water from the Colorado River Basin, including me, there’s no escaping this stark reality: Our thirst for water exceeds what’s actually available. That’s mostly because rising temperatures are sapping moisture from the environment even as demand for water resources in the region is going up. The result: a run on the banks &mda ...read more

Dickinson, Janis L. & Bonney, Rick. (eds). Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research. Cornell University Press, 2012. 279 pages. Paperback $US 29.95. Though it was published in 2012, Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research is relevant to our present moment. As discussions of environmental research increase in frequency and urgency, institutions at all levels will continue to raise questions about the public’s scientific liter ...read more

After a year of downtime to perform hardware upgrades, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is ready for action and will turn on its twin detectors, one in Washington state and the other in Louisiana, on April 1. This time, it will also be joined by the Virgo collaboration based out of Italy, and possibly also by the KAGRA detector in Japan later in the year. Combined with the hardware upgrades, scientists expect these updates to allow LIGO to spot more observations ...read more

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are two of the most stunning naked-eye sights you can spot in the southern sky. Over the past few billion years, these two satellite galaxies of the Milky Way have been locked in a complex dance that has led to numerous interactions between them. And each time they get close, their gravitational forces disrupt the gas clouds within them, spawning the formation of thousands of new star clusters. Now, astron ...read more

The last and only time astronomers got a close look at Neptune’s moon Triton was in 1989, when Voyager 2 sped by, taking images of just one side of the moon. But that brief encounter revealed plumes of material shooting out from a world so distant and cold that any activity was immediately fascinating. Scientists now think the moon has an underground ocean. This makes it a prime target for finding potential alien life in a frozen zone of the solar system well outside the standard ...read more

A few weeks ago, a spending bill passed by Congress included $100 million earmarked for NASA to develop nuclear thermal rocket engines. In spite of the ever-present backlash to nuclear material, it’s not uncommon when it comes to space exploration. The Curiosity rover is just one of many NASA missions powered by nuclear material, in this case, a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) that converts heat from decaying plutonium-238 into electricity. But that's ...read more

With the warm weather upon us and the once-frozen plants coming back to life, springtime feels like a long-awaited oasis for most people. But for some, the resurgence of trees and grass can trigger seasonal allergies, and turn springtime into a sneezy, snotty mess. Instead of just popping your allergy meds and hoping for the best, a group of researchers think they may have just enabled a new approach to allergy relief. Research published on March 19 in the journal Cornea shows how con ...read more

Antibiotics save us from all kinds of unfortunate ailments, from strep throat to ear infections. But the bacteria that cause these and other ailments are gaining an edge. Antibiotic resistant bacteria are on the rise around the world and spreading in people as well as the environment, making it harder to treat infectious diseases. Antibiotic resistant bacteria grow in places that humans interact with, like our water systems. Urban wastewater treatment plants teem with antibiotic ...read more