A 2-kilometer-wide asteroid named 1998 OR2 just flew past the Earth, driving home one of the most common popular and enduring space myths: that the solar system is a crowded place, packed with flying rocks that constantly menace the Earth. This past week, many scientists and science journalists (including myself) on Twitter were bombarded with […]
A giant cluster of thunderstorms known as a Mesoscale Convective System, or MCS, as seen on April 29, 2020 by the GOES-16 weather satellite. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA) Meteorologists have a dry name for the feature seen in the satellite image above: a mesoscale convective system, or MCS. But as I think you’ll agree, particularly after you […]
I’ve long been writing about problems in how science is communicated and published. One of the most well-known concerns in this context is publication bias — the tendency for results that confirm a hypothesis to get published more easily than those that don’t. Publication bias has many contributing factors, but the peer review process is […]
One emerging trend in chip design is a move away from bigger, grander designs that double the number of transistors every 18 months, as Moore’s Law stipulates. Instead, there is growing interest in specialized chips for specific tasks such as AI and machine learning, which are advancing rapidly on scales measured in weeks and months. But […]
Virtually every galaxy bigger than our Milky Way has a supermassive black hole at its center. These supermassive black holes can weigh tens of millions of times more than our sun. How do black holes grow so gigantic? And why are supermassive black holes at the heart of so many galaxies? A citizen science project called […]
Editor’s Note, April 30, 2020: Joy Harjo, the first Native American writer to hold the title of United States poet laureate, has been reappointed for a second term, the Library of Congress announced Thursday. “Joy Harjo is such an inspiring and engaging poet laureate,” says Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in a statement. “I’m thrilled […]
The tornadoes that swept across the Southeast this spring were a warning to communities nationwide: Disasters can happen at any time, and the coronavirus pandemic is making them more difficult to manage and potentially more dangerous. The next six months could be especially challenging. Forecasts show widespread flooding is likely again this spring from the northern Plains […]
Several days ago something strange has happened in deep space. A sky-watcher has captured multiple pulsating beams with its infrared camera / telescope that seemingly came from the planet Venus. The sky-watcher refers to a gigantic object (second video – jump to the 8 minutes mark), that looks like it is as long as Oumuamua, […]
Even though the tornado was not as powerful as others spawned by a supercell storm system in the South, it scoured out a path visible to the Landsat-8 satellite.
Comfort food was made for times like these. Gained a pound or two? Don’t be hard on yourself; after all, there’s a pandemic going on. Shamelessly sinking into a big bowl of macaroni and cheese (the boxed variety, of course) is one of the few pleasures we have left. This train of thought might sound […]
Humans might be stuck at home, but at least the year-round residents of national parks are free to roam more than usual. From bears in Yosemite to lions in Kruger National Park in South Africa, wildlife living in these protected ecosystems are moseying into places normally filled with humans and cars. As strange as it […]
“…former Pentagon intelligence officer Lue Elizondo told us very straightforwardly, “The phenomenon is quite real.” Millions of people all over the world have watched and re-watched three videos captured by Navy pilots during dramatic encounters with spectacular, but unknown, aircraft. Black Aces commander David Fravor, one of the U.S. Navy pilots who chased […]
“Do Not Drink/Do Not Boil” is not what anyone wants to hear about their city’s tap water. But the combined effects of climate change and degraded water quality could make such warnings more frequent across the Great Lakes region. A preview occurred on July 31, 2014, when a nasty green slime — properly known as […]
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tweeted Monday that Americans “deserve to be informed” about UFO information following the Pentagon’s official release of three Navy videos showing “unidentified aerial phenomena.” By Ursula PeranoAxios4-27-20 Why it matters: Reid devoted funding in 2007 to a $22 million program to investigate unidentified flying objects. The Pentagon […]
What’s worse than a train of Starlink satellites cutting across an astro-photo? Two trains of Starlink satellites cutting across an astro-photo. In the Czech republic on April 19th, amateur astronomer Zdenek Bardon captured perhaps the first picture of two orthogonal Starlink trains in a single image. Image left: Credit Zdenek Bardon showing the astonishing image […]