Imagine you are in a soccer match, and it’s tied. Each team will begin taking penalty kicks. The crowd is roaring, and whether or not your team wins the game depends on your ability to hit the shot. As you imagine this scene, are you able to picture the scenario with colors and details?Scientists are hard at worktrying to understand why some people can visualize these kinds of scenarios more easily than others can. Even the same person can be better or worse at picturing things in their mind a ...read more
As humans alter the planet’s climate and ecosystems, scientists are looking to Earth’s history to help predict what may unfold from climate change. To this end, massive ice structures like glaciers serve as nature’s freezers, archiving detailed records of past climates and ecosystems – including viruses.We are a team of microbiologists and paleoclimatologists who study ancient microorganisms, including viruses preserved within glacier ice. Along with our colleagues Lonnie Thompson, and V ...read more
About one-third of the global population, around 3 billion people, don’t have access to the internet or have poor connections because of infrastructure limitations, economic disparities, and geographic isolation.Today’s satellites and ground-based networks leave communications gaps where, because of geography, setting up traditional ground-based communications equipment would be too expensive.High-altitude platform stations – telecommunications equipment positioned high in the air, on uncr ...read more
As the summer wraps up, it is also time to wrap up my tour of the Cascade Range volcanoes as seen from space. The modern Cascades extend into Northern California and is the home of likely the largest volcano of the chain ... but the Earth's plates are plotting the end of the Cascades, starting from California.The ocean plates that spawn the magma that forms the Cascade volcanoes are young and small. The Juan de Fuca plate is responsible for the volcanoes from Oregon to British Columbia (save for ...read more
When you look at a crocodile, it’s easy to feel like you’re staring into the distant past. These ancient-looking reptiles, with their scaly skin and fearsome teeth, seem like living fossils — creatures frozen in time, unchanged for millions of years.But despite their prehistoric appearance, animals like crocodiles are not truly evolutionary relics. In fact, they’ve been evolving all along, just not in ways that are immediately obvious.The Illusion of Living FossilsThe concept of living f ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine