There are oceans on Mars – but they’re too deep to get to.
PhysOrg says there’s liquid water on Mars (great!) but (aw!) it’s too far underground to tap: The data from NASA’s Insight lander allowed the scientists […]
Science
Science Art: The Turney Vario Variable Condenser, 1913.
This is from a photographically illustrated advertisement in Hugo Gernsback’s magazine The Electrical Experimenter. The description of this item is as follows: For extreme measurements […]
The real “paleo diet” was mostly vegetarian.
CNN has reported on prehistoric remains found in North Africa that reveal more evidence that our primordial ancestors didn’t really eat a meat-heavy diet, but […]
Prevent AIDS with a couple shots a year.
NPR reports on a big step forward in keeping a deadly disease at bay, with a new treatment for preventing AIDS transmission that, rather than […]
“Hobbits” got smaller on their island.
Scientific American has new information on very old remains of Homo floresiensis, the diminutive prehistoric humans who lived on the island of Flores around 700,000 […]
Science Art: Ball-shaped blob of California black worms, 2023.
This is a biological photo that is also a mathematical photo. It’s a ball of worms that Georgia Tech researchers were studying, because, as it […]
Smells can arm your gut defenses.
PhysOrg gets funky with research that demonstrates how off-putting smells that can signal the presence of disease-causing critters can also tell your gut it’s time […]
Science Art: Smithsonite, from the Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History.
This is a glowing hunk of rock, lit from within. The rock was found in the Kelly Mine in Magadela, New Mexico. Smithsonite is a […]
Shingles vaccine fights dementia.
Forbes has a strange but true example of unintended (but welcome) consequences. It seems like Shingrix, the new shingles vaccine, also offers protection against developing […]
Science Art: Saturn V-Shuttle-Ares IV comparison, by Bchan.
Some rockets are bigger than others. I think this illustration (which I found here, on Wikimedia Commons) is maybe a better depiction of how space […]
Climate change affects the Earth’s rotation more than the Moon does.
PhysOrg shares research from ETH Zurich that demonstrates something that should be obvious to anyone who’s played pool. But as the warming Earth makes the […]
Curiosity finds some exciting times on Mars.
Mashable reports on the Mars Rover Curiosity, which has just found evidence of some major flooding and splishing and splashing on the surface of Mars […]
Science Art: Collection of various birds from A History of the Earth and Animated Nature, 1820.
This is an educational poster, retouched by Wikimedia Commons user Rawpixel, of birds. It’s taken from Oliver Goldsmith’s book A History of the Earth and […]
Being a night owl is a mental-health risk.
I can’t tell if this is either totally obvious or the gravest of insults … or, more likely, both… but Stanford researchers have found that […]
Why did some folks never get covid, and others *always* got it?
The Conversation finds a scientific reason for an often-observed phenomenon – that some people seemed strangely immune to COVID-19, while others would come down with […]