For behavioral psychologist Ellen Peters, the COVID-19 outbreak presents a rich opportunity. Back in early February, with the potential extent of the novel coronavirus unclear, the author and researcher sprang into action. Before the virus had even arrived (officially) in the U.S., she had secured funding for a new project to study the public’s response […]
This story appears in the June 2020 issue as “Awe-Struck.” Subscribe to Discover magazine for more stories like this. The first time I ventured to Western Canada’s Selkirk Mountains, I was a tourist. My family and I arrived in a small mountain town via ferry, snapping photos as we passed by stunning vistas of lake, mountain and sky. […]
Journalist Leslie Kean investigates topics that many consider to be beyond the pale Like many long-time readers of The New York Times, I was shocked when the staid old paper published, in 2017, a front-page article on Pentagon investigations of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. This article, plus a shorter sidebar and a […]
What is the most common birth date in the U.S.? According to data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, it’s Sept. 9. In fact, September as a whole is a very busy month in U.S. delivery rooms. And, for those of you doing the math, that makes December a very busy month for, […]
As government officials begin easing restrictions implemented during the early months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, they are looking for new ways to track and slow the spread of the virus. Contact tracing — the practice of identifying those exposed to infected individuals — is part of this effort. For COVID-19, however, public health officials have […]
Plastic pollution in our oceans is a major, on-going global crisis. Researchers estimate that 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. Much of the plastic is dumped carelessly, on land or in rivers, and then carried or blown into the sea. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are already known […]
Pluto’s atmosphere is hard to observe from Earth. It can only be studied when Pluto passes in front of a distant star, allowing astronomers to see the effect the atmosphere has on starlight. When this happened in 2016, it confirmed that Pluto’s atmosphere was growing, a trend that astronomers had observed since 1988, when they noticed […]
In Venice, on the square in front of the grand Dominican Church of Saints John and Paul (Zannipoli, in the Venetian dialect), stands a colossal bronze statue of a 15th-century military leader, Bartolomeo Colleoni, a mercenary who led the republic’s land forces when the city was at the height of its power. If it were […]
After the Indian Wars ended on the Great Plains and in the Black Hills at the end of the 19th century, tribal nations were dispersed, uprooted or confined to reservations, sovereign in name but severed from tradition. In that long twilight, the battle feats of the Oglala, Apache, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Crow and scores of other […]
A lot happens during pregnancy. In the months before birth, a baby’s brain forms, their heart thumps for the first time and their fingernails sprout. At some point, a baby’s gut, skin and other organs will be populated with trillions of beneficial bacteria — the microbiome. But does that happen before birth, or after? For […]
Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The history of the UFO field has many, many examples (some of which I’ve collated below) of predictions of imminent official disclosure of the existence of alien visitors. Headlines claiming By Isaac KoiATS5-20-20 that UFO “Disclosure” is coming soon have been […]
The emotional attachment to the feral horses, says Gornish, is disastrous for both the horses and the environment. These horses are destroying vulnerable habitat very quickly, especially native plant communities. “However, people really dislike the ideas of killing horses, so they push back against control measures,” she says. The result is too many horses in […]
On May 4, 2020 Linda Miller using a Nikon P1000 Super-telephoto digital camera captured, besides a lot of bats and birds, something that looks like it lifts off the surface of the Moon. Although it difficult to judge what the object could be because of the distance, the object clearly has a triangular shape and […]
Even as they struggle to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people in India and Bangladesh are bracing for Amphan. The dangerous tropical cyclone is bearing down on the border between the two countries and is expected to come ashore on Wednesday evening, not far from Kolkata. The Indian city of 14 million people […]
Guest Randall Nickerson discusses the future release of his long-awaited film, Ariel Phenomenon. Special guest, Ariel School Incident witness, Francis Chirimuuta joins us for a few minutes. Randall further discusses some of the hundreds of interviews of the Ariel School experiencers, and of recently connecting to a witness he has looked for since the beginning […]