A piece of the moon for sale: only $2.5 million Can be sure that it’s in the moon after comparing it with rock Called NWA […]
Category: Science and Nature
‘One of the Toughest Jobs’ on Earth: Studying Melting Ice
Extreme Field WorkExtreme Field WorkA series about how science gets done in Earth’s weirdest, wildest environments, from the bottom of the ocean to erupting volcanoes.Spring is looming in the northern hemisphere. It is habitually a key and busy time for environmental science fieldwork, no more so than for the select community that travel great lengths…
The US Army’s Virus Research Lab Gears Up to Fight Covid-19
The cinder block hallways inside the US Army’s top virus research lab are punctuated every few feet with windows that peer into tiny offices and laboratories crammed with scientific equipment. On each doorway, orange placards with that Vulcan-looking biohazard symbol keep visitors alert. Through one window, you can just make out the heads of two…
We Can’t Tackle Climate Change Without You
One afternoon in December, I took the 4 train from my home in the South Bronx to an apartment near Union Square. I had been invited to lead a conversation with a handful of artists about the climate crisis and their place in it.What I found was an intimate gathering of six or seven people.…
The Battle Against Global Warming Is the New Cold War
The first huge renewable-energy revolution—the one that dotted the US with hydroelectric dams and ultimately made power ubiquitous in every American home—started at a bankruptcy sale. In 1877, Jacob Schoellkopf went to an auction for a waterway owned by the Niagara Falls Canal Company. A succession of entrepreneurs had tried and failed to harness the…
How We Will All Solve the Climate Crisis
Not long ago, in more innocent times, I was driving with my three sons back from trying to ski on a mountain that doesn’t really have snow anymore, and we were talking about climate change. This was before the pandemic, and before our conversations shifted to discussions of what viruses are and why soap, miraculously,…
A Truly Green Electric Grid Will Need Very Big Batteries
Sometimes the sun just shines too brightly on California. The state is such a glutton for solar energy—a million solar-paneled rooftops, hundreds of enormous solar stations—that it routinely harvests more megawatts than people can use or the grid can handle. During a couple of cloudless weeks in March 2017, California actually had to pay Arizona…
This Pandemic Is Perilously Boring
When the city of Cleveland instituted a partial lockdown in October 1918, shuttering nearly all businesses after 8 pm, a writer for a local newspaper observed that life had become “ just a big vacuum, a great monstrous wad of nothing.” To curb the Spanish Flu, Cleveland was not nearly as aggressive as cities like…
UCSF app want to use your biometric data to track the spread of coronavirus
To participate and download the app, you’ll have to sign up for the project through UCSF’s Eureka Research platform using your phone number. Upon installing the app, it will ask you to complete a 10-to-15 minute initial survey about your health and daily habits. After that, you’ll get follow-up questions via push notifications and text…
Chiropractors Told to Stop Pretending They Can Treat Covid-19
Someone receiving a chiropractic adjustmentPhoto: Aleksander Chaibi (Wikimedia Commons)Chiropractors in Canada and elsewhere are being told to stop advertising their services as a treatment for covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.In Canada, organizations such as the College of Chiropractors of Ontario have sent dozens of warning letters to clinics and practitioners in the…