A gravitational wave and a flash of light open up a new field of astronomy.
For hundreds of millions of years, two city-sized stars — each outweighing our sun — circled one another in a fatal dance. They were neutron stars, the collapsed cores left behind after giant stars explode into supernovas. Then, 130 million years ago, the dance ended. Their collision was fast and violent, likely spawning a black hole. And a shudder — a gravitational wave — rippled across the ...read more
As Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath dumped rain on the Houston area in August, the staff at the National Weather Service (NWS) knew they were watching history. And as the rain totals were tallied, the agency added not one, but two new colors to its rainfall map: purple for 20 to 30 inches and light pink for over 30 inches. “It’s difficult to predict what has never happened,” says Greg Carbin, who leads the NWS Forecast Operations Branch in College Park, Maryland. “I hop ...read more
About 5.7 million years ago, on what’s now the Greek island of Crete, something went for a stroll.
Walking on two legs, its clawless feet left impressions. Instead of its first toe sticking out thumblike, as an ape’s would, this creature’s big toe was in line with the other four. This trait and other features preserved in the ancient prints are unique to hominins, primates more closely related to us than to apes or chimps.
And in an analysis published in August, researchers con ...read more
(Credit: g-stockstudio/Shutterstock)
Lose some sleep over the weekend, and you’re likely to come into work Monday feeling a little off. Whether that’s zoning out in a meeting, missing typos in an email or something more dangerous like drifting off at the wheel, sleep deprivation blunts our cognitive abilities.
But it’s not a level playing field. Some people turn into zombies if they don’t get their eight hours, and others get by on just five or six hours a night. Expert ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock)
Michael Bisping has fought professionally in mixed martial arts since 2004. Last year, the journeyman won his first title. He knocked out Luke Rockhold in the first round to win the middleweight belt in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, the most popular of several MMA organizations.
On Nov. 4 of this year, at age 38, Bisping defended his title for a second time. His opponent was the Canadian Georges St. Pierre, a former UFC champ. The fight, held in New York&rs ...read more
The spattering surface of the lava lake in the Halema’uma’u crater at Kilauea. HVO/USGS
The ballots are in and the votes have been counted. Time to count down to the winner of the 2017 Pliny Award for Volcanic Event of the Year. Last year’s champion was Bogoslof in Alaska and its activity continued into 2017, so can we have our first back-to-back champion or did another volcano’s rumblings take the crown?
First, some honorable mentions from the voting (which was done wi ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock)
The bananas your grandparents ate were different than the ones you eat today. And the bananas your grandchildren know will probably be entirely different as well.
For the moment, we are in the age of the Cavendish, a banana cultivar that accounts for 99 percent of imports to the Western world. But the Cavendish is in trouble. Like its predecessor the Gros Michel, the Cavendish may soon pass from our lives, potentially taking with it an entire industry ...read more
(Credit: Andrew Preble/Unsplash)
When the solar eclipse swept across the continental U.S. in August, it carved a subtle, but noticeable path through our atmosphere.
For the first time, researchers confirmed that that moon’s shadow generates a pair of bow waves in Earth’s ionosphere, similar to the wake a boat leaves as it travels through the water. The waves are caused by the sudden drop and rebound in incoming energy from the sun, and they ripple through the atmosphere ahead ...read more
