This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2023 issue as "Floating in the Clouds" Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.Stepping onto one of the Uros islands in southern Peru can feel like walking on a bouncy castle. Your feet sink a bit into the mushy floor, which trembles slightly when a motorboat speeds past. That’s because this land is actually floating — on the largest lake in South America, located 12,500 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains.Hundr ...read more
This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2023 issue as "Moth to a Flame." Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.Robert Hoare first spotted the elusive Izatha psychra, an endangered moth in New Zealand, on a warm night in 2005. At the center of the country’s South Island, amid the fenced flats and sloping hills of the Pukaki Scientific Reserve, the entomologist erected a generator-powered light trap. Then, an hour before midnight — just as the generator’s f ...read more
Over the past few years, we've seen multiple volcanic eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland at Fagradalsfjall. These eruptions have been a tourist boon, with lava fountains and lava flows pouring out over a mostly barren landscape not far from the nation's capital city. A third eruption might be starting soon, but the playing field is suddenly much different. The focus of earthquakes, cracks in the landscape and inflation is underneath the town of Grindavík, a fishing village with a p ...read more
This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2023 issue. Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.Astronomical websites and press releases brim with pictures of swirling gas giants, watery terrestrial worlds, and strange planetary systems with exotic suns. But just how realistic are these artist’s concepts? Do they truly show newly discovered worlds, or are they simply fanciful pictures meant to draw you into reading about the latest addition to the exoplanetary mena ...read more
Water pollution is a growing concern globally, with research estimating that chemical industries discharge 300-400 megatonnes (600-800 billion pounds) of industrial waste into bodies of water each year.As a team of materials scientists, we’re working on an engineered “living material” that may be able to transform chemical dye pollutants from the textile industry into harmless substances.Water pollution is both an environmental and humanitarian issue that can affect ecosystems and ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine