Citizen Scientists Donate Data for Online Price Personalization Research

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Citizen scientists learn how algorithms affect their online shopping and help researchers break open the “black box” of price-personalization By Chelsey Meyer Have you ever wondered whether you see the same online prices as other consumers? If not, you may want to after hearing about price personalization. While many Internet users may understand that algorithms affect their social media feeds, few realize that algorithms also personalize their online shopping experiences. Researcher ...read more

How Tree Rings Solved a Musical Mystery

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Dendrochronologist Henri Grissino-Mayer and colleagues study the tree rings in the Karr-Koussevitzky double bass. Their analysis ultimately determined that the instrument was built much later than previously thought. (Credit: Henri Grissino-Mayer) Modern science is full of surprising analytical techniques that can be used in a wide variety of remarkable circumstances. My favorite technique is dendrochronology—the study of “tree time.” By assigning calendar-year dates to growt ...read more

With An Injection, Mice Nearly Double Their Endurance

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: EJ Hersom/Department of Defense) It’s a familiar scene that played out most recently at the London marathon: An exhausted runner staggers and falls in the home stretch, unable to will their legs forward another step. It’s an extreme example of a phenomenon endurance athletes come to know intimately, often called “hitting the wall,” or sometimes by the more offbeat term “bonking.” The proverbial wall appears when our bodies have run out of store ...read more

Here's what Cassini heard as it made its daring dive between Saturn and its rings

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A Simon and Garfunkel song comes to mind—and that has scientists scratching their heads as the spacecraft heads today for a second dive. In this illustration, the Cassini spacecraft is shown diving between Saturn and the planet’s innermost ring. (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech) As the Cassini spacecraft swooped between Saturn and its innermost ring on April 26th, one of its instruments listened for the sounds of its passage through the heretofore unexplored region. What it heard was of g ...read more

Tea Trees Have Giant Genomes, and That's Good

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A Camellia sinensis shrub. (Credit: LiZhi Gao Lab) The first draft tea tree genome is revealing how the world’s most popular beverage developed its unique flavors and soothing properties. Despite the wide variety of teas that adorn store shelves today, there is just one species of plant that produces tea leaves. Two varieties of Camellia sinensis, a type of evergreen shrub, are responsible for everything from Masala chai to oolong teas, with small variations in the way the leaves ar ...read more