ROCKY PLANET

The Hidden Volcanoes of Central Oregon

A river channel filled with cliff swallow holes carved into the Desert Spring Tuff. Image by Erik Klemetti

Earlier this month, I spent a little over a week exploring one of the biggest mysteries in then Cascade Range. These volcanoes span from Northern California into British Columbia and host such well-known peaks as Mount St. Helens, Hood and Shasta. Yet, some of the largest eruptions over the past million years in the Cascades may have come from volcanoes that are totally hidden from view …

DEAD THINGS

Cambroraster: Ancient Predator Looked Like Millennium Falcon

Artist rendering of Cambroraster, a predator from half a billion years ago. (Credit: Lars Fields © Royal Ontario Museum)

Half a billion years ago, Cambroraster falcatus was a bizarre predator of the Cambrian seas. As it moved through the water, enormous mouth and rake-like claws at the ready for its next meal, it cast a shadow on the seafloor reminiscent of the most famous bucket of bolts in the entire Star Wars galaxy: the Millennium Falcon.

Cambroraster grew to about a foot long. T …

THE CRUX

Looking to Have a Lucid Dream? There’s a Pill for That

(Credit: Jakub Grygier/Shutterstock)

It’s possible to choose between being the captain or the co-pilot of your dreams. Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon that sees people taking control of the narrative of their dreams, often with thrilling results. Always wanted to fly? You can lift right off. Hungry for a giant cheeseburger? Dive right in.

Practitioners say that the technique requires discipline and patience to master. But there are also chemical shortcuts: supplements that seem to bring  …

D-BRIEF

The Crab Nebula Just Sent Earth the Highest-energy Photons Ever Recorded

This image of the Crab Nebula in x-rays shows the pulsar clearly spinning at the nebula’s center. (Credit: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al.)

Astronomers using the Tibet AS-gamma Experiment have discovered the highest-energy light ever measured from an astrophysical source. Photons streaming from the Crab Nebula were recently measured at energies well over 100 tera-electronvolts (TeV). That’s a trillion electron volts, or some 10 times the maximum energy that the Large Hadron Collider sees when …

D-BRIEF

Scientists Uncover Genetic Links to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

(Credit: Master1305/Shutterstock)

Military missions can expose service members to horrible and life-threatening situations. As a result, 20 to 30 percent of combat veterans experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – ongoing feelings of guilt, anger, and shame that surface as outbursts, reckless behavior and intense flashbacks. But despite PTSD’s prevalence among vets and other survivors of traumatic experiences, scientists know little about the condition’s biological roots, a gap …

THE CRUX

To Save the Internet, Silicon Valley is Sending it to Space

The internet could one day reach every corner of the Earth courtesy of satellite constellations. (Credit: sdecoret/Shutterstock)

For decades, the basic principles governing how the Internet works have remained pretty much unchanged. But with massive growth on the horizon — thanks to everything from AI to blockchain, and from the 5G rollout to the ubiquitous Internet of Things — the amount of data we produce could eventually outpace physical storage capacity.

The solution? Look to spac …

THE CRUX

If Wormholes Exist, Could We Really Travel Through Them?

Wormholes could offer a path to the most distant places in the universe. (Credit: dimonika/Shutterstock)

Wormholes make the best shortcuts in the universe. That’s true in a literal sense, since the theoretical things can connect distant corners of the cosmos (or even different universes), allowing a traveler to go someplace without having to visit everywhere in between.

But wormholes also present the perfect way for writers to get around that pesky speed of light, the universe’s speed l …

D-BRIEF

Screen Time Might Not Be As Bad For Mental Health As We Thought

Reports of screen time’s harms may have been greatly exaggerated. (Credit: aslysun/Shutterstock)

Today, our phones can seem less like friends and more like the other half of a toxic relationship. We rely on them for our daily activities, even as concerns over the effects of screen time on well-being mount. The phobia has even prompted the development of a new consulting gig: screen-free parenting coaches. But now researchers argue the terror surrounding screens lacks evidence and they say t …

IMAGEO

A whale of a tail: humpback Morse code, and a phytoplankton bloom so intense it’s visible from space

While I was on a whale-watching trip out of Akureyri, Iceland in late June, a humpback whale approached our boat and began vigorously slapping its tail and pectoral fins on the water. The humpback was breathtakingly close to us, and the dramatic behavior lasted for more than five minutes.

Check it out in the video I shot above. (Please accept my apologies for the distracting wind noise — I was not equipped at the time with an external mic and windscreen.) …

CITIZEN SCIENCE SALON

Behind the scenes of INVENTING TOMORROW with the WaterInsights™ Team

The documentary INVENTING TOMORROW follows several young scientists on their journey to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), a program of Society for Science & the Public, with projects that tackle complex environmental issues affecting water, air, and soil quality.

INVENTING TOMORROW Broadcast on July 29, 2019

You can catch this documentary tonight on POV Docs, television’s longest-running showcase for nonfiction films on PBS.

https://www.you …