Category archives for Science
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Saturn and Earth will pose for a snapshot next month for a NASA orbiter while the gas giant puts its best face forward this week and next for evening skywatchers . Armchair astronomers can also catch this celestial lord of the rings through a special high definition, live SLOOH web broadcast June 18 from…
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As National Geographic’s annual Explorer’s Symposium came to an end, NG Weekend revisits some of our favorite adventures from the previous classes of Emerging Explorers. In the coming weeks and months, we will introduce the 2013 class of Emerging Explorers on the show. Here are some of our favorites from over the years…
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The top stories on National Geographic’s radar today: An exotic new form of matter may have been discovered in subatomic particles, a new subduction zone between Europe and America is slowly pulling the continents together, and…
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The legal and cultural battle over wind turbines on a small island off the coast of Maine has its implications for communities across the United States.
The top 10 stories on our radar today: Inbreeding led to rare albino gorilla, a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica may contain building blocks for life, and…
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On Wednesday, Frank Santana, a researcher at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, released 65 froglets into a Southern California creek. The small amphibians represent new hope for an endangered species, the mountain yellow-legged frog. (We wrote about how specimens of this frog were refrigerated for preservation in 2010, part of the restoration…
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In the “morning” of the never-ending daylight, as the sun has swung round to the east and climbs the sky once more, we awaken in our windowless cabins. We’ve spent the short night at anchor in Hallo Bay. We head shoreward, trying to beat a dropping tide. We partially succeed. Enough of the half-mile mudflat…
In Her Words: Sylvia Earle on Women in Science
Posted by Jane J. Lee on June 14, 2013 National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle reflects on her scientific career and on gender obstacles she faced along the way.
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Researchers in Australia have found a lake that has defied the odds by showing a remarkable resilience to climate change. Blue Lake, the second largest lake on North Stradbroke Island just off the coast of Queensland, has been relatively untouched by changes in climate for the past 7,000 years, and has so far also resisted…
The top 10 stories on our radar today: A prehistoric fish fossil reveals world’s first abs, the Supreme Court rules some genes cannot be patented…
Life in the Field: Building Things in the Land of Crows
Posted by Corina Logan of SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara in Explorers Journal on June 14, 2013 Logistics in the field always take longer than expected. Before I can start running my crow cognition tests there are a ton of things to build!
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We believe these funky individuals to be a rare morph of the common meadow grasshopper Chorthippus parallelus. I certainly hadn’t and didn’t even know you could have a pink grasshopper, let alone actually see one for real in the wild!
Posted by On our radar today: 1) A black hole bonanza is discovered in a galaxy next door; 2) Nails may be necessary in the process of regenerating limbs, researchers find; 3) A new method of moving the moai on Easter Island emerges, and…
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Before making changes to ocean management, it helps to know something about the status of living creatures and ecosystems you’re trying to use sustainably. So, nine marine biologists* (plus me makes ten) descended on Barbuda in May to conduct an ecological assessment of the fish, coral, lobster, conch, and water quality within 3 miles of…
The top 10 stories on our radar today: Researchers have identified a previously unknown layer in human eyes, mobile phone apps that mimic birdsongs may harm birds, and…
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Imagine visiting the subtropical paradise of The Bahamas. Instead of holding a drink, you’re grasping a net. Instead of sand between your toes, you’re navigating sharp limestone in boots. Instead of admiring beautiful sunsets, you’re searching for beautiful iguanas. You can find drinks, sand, and sunsets in many destinations, but if you’re part of Shedd…
This week, astronomers announced that they have managed to weigh a minuscule galaxy that breaks the record for the smallest ever detected and may help shed light on mysterious dark matter. With only 1000 stars huddled together, this galactic featherweight dubbed Segue 2 has just enough mass for dark matter to act as a…
ODILE’s Magic Desktop Lab – Odile Madden has brought two amazing pieces of equipment from the Smithsonian. One looks like a microscope stand without the microscope. The other looks like a little hand-held vacuum cleaner. Both fit on a desktop, and they’re incredible. The first shoots laser beams and the second generates x-rays. What you…
National Geographic Weekend celebrates the new Age of Exploration by meeting some of the most celebrated explorers of our past. We chat with astronaut Buzz Aldrin about the future of space exploration, American Everest pioneer Jim Whittaker about the past and present of climbing on Everest.
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He’s big. He’s slimy. And he’s … neon pink?! Meet Triboniophorus aff. graeffei, a new species of 8-inch-long (20-centimeter-long) slug.
Posted by Last month I had an opportunity to give a TEDx talk on my home campus at UC Irvine. Mine was called “Can We End the Global Water Crisis?” I’d like to share my views on this topic with our Water Currents readers by posting several excerpts, more or less straight from the talk. “Can we…
Geography in the News: Australia’s Dingos
Posted by Neal Lineback of Maps101.com and Maps.com on June 9, 2013 By Neal Lineback and Mandy Lineback Gritzner, Geography in the NewsTM and Maps.com DINGOES OFFICIALLY BLAMED IN 1980’s INFANT DEATH A doubly tragic story unfolded in Australia in 1980 that’s still making international news 33 years later. Wild dingoes apparently took a 9-week-old baby girl who had been left unattended by her parents during a…
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How do you keep New York’s Harbor clean? At a high school on Governor’s Island just south of Manhattan, the answer has been tested: oysters.
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Yvonne de Jong and Thomas Butynski are National Geographic grantees working to track down what may be Africa’s least understood large animal, the Desert Warthog.
On our radar today: 1) A new robo-raven is so lifelike, it’s fooling real birds; 2) Predatory sea slugs are learning how to avoid dangerous prey; 3) Stalagmites provide a new view of abrupt climate change, and…
