Decade-Long Geology Project Rewrites Origins of Earth’s Methane

Turkey’s Mount Chimaera is on fire, and has been for millennia. Dozens of campfire-sized flames burst straight of the mountain’s rocky, sea-facing slope. These eternal flames are fueled by methane, the odorless, colorless substance that provides much of our natural gas for fuel, as well as a potent greenhouse gas.

Most methane (a single carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogens) forms from the decay of ancient plants, animals and other life. But the Earth itself can create methane, too …

D-BRIEF

Crew Dragon Test Mishap Could Delay First SpaceX Human Flight

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule experienced an “anomaly” during a rocket test on Saturday that sent smoke drifting high over its launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Elon Musk and SpaceX have been short on details so far, but unconfirmed video footage shows the spacecraft being destroyed. The same Crew Dragon capsule completed a flawless flight to the International Space Station in March.

The event raises concerns that SpaceX may not be able to fly humans to space for th …

THE CRUX

How Does the Impossible Burger Look and Taste Like Real Beef?

This is a guest post from Mark R. O’Brien, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. This piece reflects the views of the author.

People eat animals that eat plants. If we just eliminate that middle step and eat plants directly, we would diminish our carbon footprint, decrease agricultural land usage, eliminate health risks associated with red meat and alleviate ethical concerns over animal welfare. For many of us, the major hurdle to executing this plan is that meat tastes goo …

CITIZEN SCIENCE SALON

Inventions that show why accessible tools matter for scientific discovery

What if everyone had access to powerful tools for scientific learning and problem solving? Scientific discovery tools — from telescopes to magnetometers — help us answer questions and generate knowledge. But many powerful tools are too expensive or too difficult for non-experts to use.

Tool Foundry by Luminary Labs

Earlier this month, Luminary Labs launched Tool Foundry to advance scientific discovery tools that anyone can use. The initiative is funded by grants from the Go …

CITIZEN SCIENCE SALON

Celebrate Earth Day with Citizen Science

Earth Day is April 22, 2019 so take a moment to celebrate our environment and learn more about the biodiversity around us. The first Earth Day was in 1970, and was started to bring attention to environmental protection and preservation.

We’ve selected a few projects related to environmental protection and a global event to participate in, the City Nature Challenge, to encourage focusing on the details and appreciating local biodiversity by taking pictures with the iNaturalist app!

Have a w …

D-BRIEF

NASA Announces Upcoming ISS Crews, Which Won’t Fly Commercial

Ever since the space shuttle retired in 2011, NASA has been paying Russia for rides to the International Space Station. They’d hoped that dependency would finally end in 2019. But with its new lineup of flights and launch dates released this week, the space agency acknowledged they’re not quite done needing Russia’s Soyuz rockets yet.

NASA will remain dependent on Russia for the next round of space station rotations. Thanks to delays in commercial launches by SpaceX and Boeing, which NASA …

THE CRUX

H.M.S. Challenger: Humanity’s First Real Glimpse of the Deep Oceans

We know more about the surface of the moon than about the ocean floor. Scientists estimate that 91 percent of life under the sea hasn’t been discovered yet and more than 80 percent of the ocean has never been explored. What we do know about the ocean makes it almost more mysterious. It’s an alien landscape, complete with undersea mountain ranges and trenches deeper than Mount Everest is tall, home to a glorious nightmare carnival of weird, often glowing animals.

And most of what we kn …

D-BRIEF

Two Neutron Stars Collide, Forming a Magnetar

In October 2017, astronomers announced the first detection of gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars earlier that year. The event also rung in the era of multi-messenger astronomy, as more than 70 telescopes observed the event’s afterglow in optical light, X-rays, gamma rays, and more. Now, an X-ray signal dubbed XT2 from a galaxy 6.6 billion light-years away has revealed another neutron star merger, which left behind a single, heavier neutron star with an incredibly powe …

D-BRIEF

How Passing Asteroids Reveal the Secrets of Distant Stars

Stars in the night sky appear as tiny points of light because they are too far away for your eyes to resolve. But even through powerful telescopes, stars still appear as mere points because they are too small to see their true physical size at vast distances. Now, a group of astronomers from over 20 different institutions has found a way to combine a unique telescope array with passing asteroids to measure the diameter of two distant stars, including the smallest star directly measured to da …

NEUROSKEPTIC

Premature Commercialization in Suicide Prediction

A Swedish company called Emotra make a device to detect someone’s risk of suicide based on measuring the body’s autonomic responses to certain sounds. It’s called EDOR®.

I’ve been blogging about this machine for the past 18 months (1, 2, 3) because such a product, if it worked, would be very important. It could help save countless lives. Unfortunately, I don’t think EDOR® has been proven to be effective. As I’ve argued in my previous posts, the evidence just isn’t there yet.

Now, …