By carrying pollen from plant to plant in their quest for nectar, bees help to facilitate plant reproduction, giving bees an essential role in the sustainability of our agriculture. Bee populations have been threatened over the last decade by a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder, where the bees leave their hives and never return. This year, however, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released positive … Continue reading Bees
Have you ever seen the image of a face in a seemingly random set of objects or an unexpected place? This phenomenon is known as pareidolia, it’s the perception of a familiar pattern when none exists in reality. No one really knows why we see these faces, but many theorize that it results from a common cognitive mistake that we are prone to make: we … Continue reading Faces
Plants grow in interesting ways. You may have noticed that your houseplants “lean” towards the window, seeking the sunlight. This movement towards light is called phototropism. Tropism is a general term referring to any instance of growth or movement of an organism in response to the environment. Vines display another kind of tropism known as thigmotropism, meaning they respond to touch. In this set of … Continue reading Vines
On February 6th, 2017, four detectors surrounding a nuclear power station in Niigata, Japan simultaneously observed a striking signal. An hour before dawn, the detectors recorded a short burst of light from a lightning strike, which quickly decayed in intensity, and was followed by an afterglow of radiation that lasted for about a minute. These unique signals caused by lightning strikes have been predicted for … Continue reading Lightning Strikes Trigger Atmospheric Nuclear Reactions
by Colleen Golja figures by Brad Wierbowski Articles with dystopian titles like “Is it OK to Tinker With the Environment to Combat Climate Change?” and “To Curb Global Warming Science Fiction May Become Fact” have begun to surface regularly in prominent news sources like The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, The Economist, and many others. Just this past October, a cinematic portrayal of a climate-modified … Continue reading Solar Geoengineering: Is controlling our climate possible?
How many mysteries are buried within Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza? Whatever the answer, we know of one more. Scientists recently discovered an unknown void in the heart of the pyramid. Over the past centuries, archaeologists have unveiled many features of the pyramid’s interior. If you get a tour today, you can venture along its Grand Gallery, into the king’s chamber, and touch the 4,500-year-old walls … Continue reading Particle Physics Revolutionizes Archaeology
The world is currently experiencing its sixth mass extinction event. Species are disappearing at an estimated 1000x the expected normal rate of extinction (roughly 5 species per year). Conservation efforts around the world are trying to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss, but they are hindered by the lack of hard evidence linking conservation spending to biodiversity improvements. A team led by University of Oxford researchers … Continue reading Conservation spending proven to make a difference
by Franklin Wolfe figures by Franklin Wolfe and Kimia Mavon Earlier this year, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the richest man on Earth, wrote an essay online at “The blog of Bill Gates,” to college students graduating worldwide in 2017. He stated, “If I were starting out today… I would consider three fields. One is artificial intelligence (AI). We have only begun to tap … Continue reading How Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize the Energy Industry
It is widely believed that humans first arrived in the Americas around 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. Discoveries at archeological sites such as Mesa Verde in Chile and Meadowcroft, PA have long supported this view. At a dig in Southern California, possible traces of human activity from over 130,000 years ago have been discovered. Researchers at the site recovered the partial skeleton of a mastodon, an … Continue reading When did the Americas encounter the first human?
Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are decimating coral populations along the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists have sequenced COTS genomes in the hopes of turning their own biology against them. Researchers think they have found the peptides the COTS use to communicate with each other. These peptides are released into the water to help the starfish aggregate before spawning events. If true, it’s possible to use these peptides to build several mechanisms for controlling the COTS pests. Continue reading Using your own DNA against you: Bio-control of coral reef pest might be possible