Connected Learning Summit

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

On August 1, 2, and 3, MIT Media Lab and several other sponsors hosted the first iteration of the annual Connected Learning Summit. I attended this conference to supporter my SciStarter colleague, Lea Shell,who absolutely ROCKED her “ignite” talk at the close of the conference.  But as I attended each successive day of the conference, I also fell in love with principles of connected learning and became deeply impressed with the thoughtfulness of conferen ...read more

Europa Is Whistling. Finding The Cause May Solve A Magnetic Mystery

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Jupiter’s moons put out “whistler” radio waves. Future spacecraft could help unravel their cause. (Credit: ESA/NASA, Artist M. Carroll) Jupiter’s moons “hum” — and researchers are trying to figure out why. New research published Tuesday in Nature Communications details the discovery of “whistler” radio waves coming from two of the moons: Ganymede and Europa. The other two large moons, Io and Callisto, aren’t subject to this phenomena. ...read more

The Microlaunch Space Race Has Begun

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The ELaNa IV launch, containing 11 Cubesat missions, on November 19 , 2013. (Credit: NASA) In the vastness of space, unfathomable size is generally the norm. But when Jordi Puig-Suari, an aerospace engineering professor, began looking at the stars, he started thinking small. Together with Bob Twiggs, a professor at Stanford University, they developed the CubeSat, a tissue box-sized satellite that has intensified interest in space and revolutionized satellite communication. When Puig-Suari work ...read more

Astronomers Watch a Dying Star Enjoy One Last Spark of Life

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Astronomers watched a dying star, dubbed HuBi 1, get a brief second lease on life. (Credit: Nature Astronomy (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0551-8) Often when stars die, they go out with a bang in the form of a supernova, leaving a small, dim stellar corpse in the center of a gaseous nebula. But sometimes, these leftover stars can get a new spark of life. Astronomers used a telescope in the Canary Islands to watch a dying star, dubbed HuBi 1, get a brief second wind. And as they observed, the ...read more

Women Heart Attack Patients Do Much Better When Treated By Female Doctors

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: Alexander Raths/Shutterstock) Male doctors, you’re doing great, but you may want to take some notes from your female colleagues. That’s because more and more studies are coming to the same conclusion: Female doctors produce better outcomes than men. Back in 2016, Harvard researchers showed that elderly patients treated by female doctors were less likely to die or return to the hospital than if they were treated by a man. They extrapolated their findings a bit, and conclude ...read more