When conservation isn’t enough: rewilding lost ecosystems
Last week, a new study reported that the Antarctic’s second largest colony of emperor penguins continues to decline, after warming weather and high winds led to the loss of over 15,000 eggs in 2016. With reports like these becoming depressingly commonplace, environmental biologists are thinking of out-of-the-box solutions to fight the destruction of ecosystems around the world. One popular solution: Rewilding. Rewilding involves active and … Continue reading When conservation isn’t enough: rewilding lost ecosystems
River Dolphins Have a Surprisingly Large Vocabulary
Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is home to a dizzying array of life, from colorful poisonous frogs to deadly jaguars. One resident is the Araguaian river dolphin, which was only recently discovered by scientists in 2014. Unlike playful ocean dolphins, the Araguaian river dolphin is relatively solitary. Mother dolphins interact frequently with their baby calves, but rarely do adults interact with each other. Because of the river … Continue reading River Dolphins Have a Surprisingly Large Vocabulary
The Computer Science behind DNA Sequencing
by Alex Cabral figures by Sean Wilson In 2003, with the completion of the Human Genome Project, the entire human genome was sequenced for the first time. The sequencing cost nearly $1 billion and took 13 years to complete. Today, the human genome can be sequenced for about $1000 in less than two days. Industry leaders hope to bring that cost down to just $100 within … Continue reading The Computer Science behind DNA Sequencing
May 8 – Cities Resting on Slush: Impacts of Climate Change on Earth’s Frozen Regions
Time: 7:00-9:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 8th Location: Pfizer Hall at Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge (link to directions) Speakers: Jordan Wilkerson Graphics: Nick Lue The Arctic Circle has been getting slushier over the past century. The culprit is climate change. From Russia to Canada to Alaska, roads and buildings are beginning to collapse under the melting soil on which they rest. But humans aren’t the only ones … Continue reading May 8 – Cities Resting on Slush: Impacts of Climate Change on Earth’s Frozen Regions
Predicting the Next Big Earthquake
by Franklin Wolfe figures by Abagail Burrus Over the past half-century, earthquakes have been the leading cause of death from natural disasters and have imposed dramatic cultural, economic, and political impacts on society. Compounding their inherent physical hazard is how they strike suddenly without obvious warning, and how they possess a ‘fatal attraction‘ for humans—most of the world’s largest cities lie in areas of major … Continue reading Predicting the Next Big Earthquake
Need to jog your memory? A zap to the brain could help
As you read this article, you may not be consciously trying to memorize each sentence, but the words do need to stick around temporarily. After all, you have to remember what you just read to understand the full article. This is your working memory, sometimes called “short-term memory,” and it allows us to remember things just long enough to complete a task. Its decline is … Continue reading Need to jog your memory? A zap to the brain could help
Photographing the Darkest Objects in Existence: The First Image of a Black Hole
Black holes are super dense objects that hypothetically exist in our universe. They have a gravitational pull so strong that any object that gets close enough falls in and can’t escape, including light. These objects often have a mass tens to millions of times greater than the mass of our sun. While we have predicted their existence for a hundred years, only recently have scientists … Continue reading Photographing the Darkest Objects in Existence: The First Image of a Black Hole
Evidence of an Ancient Human Species Unearthed in the Philippines
In 2007, during an excavation on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, archeologist Armand Salvador Mijares discovered a 67,000-year-old foot bone that led scientists to rethink the history of human evolution. The bone had features resembling hominins—a subfamily of primates comprised of modern Homo sapiens and others closely related human species. The finding provided the earliest direct evidence of human presence in the Philippines, … Continue reading Evidence of an Ancient Human Species Unearthed in the Philippines
Clean Corn? Study Measures Effects of Air Pollution in Corn Farming
Air pollution conjures up images of dirty factory smokestacks or crowded traffic-clogged cities. A recent study, however, revealed that one significant source of air pollution in America is actually associated with corn. The researchers found that the fertilizer used to increase crop yields can cause a kind of air pollution called PM2.5 (Particle Matter 2.5 micrometers thick), resulting in negative health impacts for people living nearby. … Continue reading Clean Corn? Study Measures Effects of Air Pollution in Corn Farming
Fossil Fuel Companies Invest in Removing Carbon Dioxide Directly from Air
In the Canadian town of Squamish, there’s a small building with a massive fan on its purple roof. The fan is rapidly pulling outside air into the facility. The air enters the outdoors again, but it’s not quite the same. About 75% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) is gone. Run by the company Carbon Engineering (CE), the building is the pilot plant for their technology … Continue reading Fossil Fuel Companies Invest in Removing Carbon Dioxide Directly from Air