Go ahead. Try this at home.

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

There are so many ways to engage in Citizen Science Day on April 13. Participate in any SciStarter affiliate project to earn a personalized certificate. Start with the Stall Catchers Megathon, a gamified, online inter-generational game to accelerate research on Alzheimer's! Join the virtual SciStarter Megathon team or organize or join an in-person Megathon meet-up. Find all you need on CitizenScienceDay.org . Citizen Science Day and the Stall Catchers Megath ...read more

A Beautiful Look at a Hostile Planet

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

One of the great challenges in searching for life on other planets is that we still have so much to learn about life on our own Earth. Amazingly, that is true not only at the micro level of biochemistry and genetic codes, but at the macro level as well. You would think that there would be little left to learn about elephants, bears, penguins, and jaguars--the creatures sometimes lumped together by jaded zoologists as "charismatic megafauna"--but you would be wrong. The new series "Hostile ...read more

The Human Brain Has been Getting Smaller Since the Stone Age

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

I don’t mean to alarm you, but the average human brain size is shrinking. And we can’t blame reality T.V. or twitter. No, this decline began tens of thousands of years ago. It’s something of a well-known secret among anthropologists: Based on measurements of skulls, the average brain volume of Homo sapiens has reportedly decreased by roughly 10 percent in the past 40,000 years. This reduction is a reversal of the trend of cranial expansion, which had been occurring in hum ...read more

Analysis of 4 Million Pitches Reveals Umps Really Do Suck at Calling Strikes

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Baseball is back, and fans can anticipate another season of amazing catches, overpowering pitching, tape-measure home runs – and, yes, controversial calls that lead to blow-ups between umpires and players. Home plate umpires are at the heart of baseball; every single pitch can require a judgment call. Yet ask any fan or player, and they’ll tell you that many of these calls are incorrect – errors that can affect strategy, statistics and even game outcomes. Just how many mistak ...read more