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The smell of decaying cedar and brine wash over me in slow, undulating waves. A light rain, falling from a mosaic of low-lying slate-grey clouds, coats my neck and arms in chilly dampness. I can taste the 100 percent humidity. Thick and metallic, I roll it over my tongue like a sommelier tasting a fine […]
Light Not Shock Restarts Heart; Bees Nest in Sandstone; 5 Second Rule
Using Light Instead of Electric Shock to Restart a Heart A defibrillator is a device used to restore the normal operation of a heart after a life-threatening cardiac episode such as dysrhythmias and ventricular fibrillation. The machine delivers a powerful electric shock that stops the heart and allows it to reset itself to function normally […]
August 2016 Science Images
The air down there
To keep an eye on our changing climate, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Division (GMD) operates six atmospheric baseline observatories around the world. They stretch from high in the Arctic Circle to the South Pole. Each facility collects similar data, and uses near-identical instruments and operating procedures to do so. By standardizing […]
Oxygen on Exoplanet; Smaller Universe; Intergalactic Tan
Nearby Exoplanet’s Atmosphere May Contain Oxygen In November 2015, scientists discovered a Venus-like planet that’s only 39 light years away, called Gliese 1132b. The planet is thought to have an atmosphere, despite having a blistering temperature of more than 230° degrees Celsius, since it orbits its red dwarf star from a distance of only 2.25 […]
Black Hole Back Doors?; Io’s Atmosphere; No New Stars in Galaxy Center
Do Black Holes Have Back Doors? Most people describe a black hole as a cosmic object with gravity so strong that it sucks in any kind of material that comes close to it. What happens to stuff that is pulled into a black hole? Some scientists think that matter that enters a black hole gets […]
Space Snow Spotted; Frankenstein Galaxy; Fewer Allergies for Thumb Suckers
Astronomers Spot Snow Circling New Star For the first time, astronomers have been able to get a glimpse of a water “snowline” in a protoplanetary disk, which is the material surrounding a new star that may later form into planets. This water “snowline” marks the point within these left overs of star formation where the temperature […]
Jupiter’s Auroras; Distant Universe in Detail; Severe Fire Season For Amazon
NASA’s Hubble and Juno Probe Study Jupiter’s Auroras As NASA’s probe Juno buzzes closer and closer for its 4th of July rendezvous with Jupiter, astronomers are using the good ole Hubble Space Telescope to study the planet’s auroras, which are just like our own northern and southern lights. These spectacular light shows in the Jovian […]
How to Layer Up to Survive Frigid South Pole Temperatures
There are few places on earth that are as cold, as dry and as uncomfortable as the South Pole. We rarely see temperatures above 0 Fahrenheit (minus 17 Celsius) during the summer, and it’s not uncommon to have a week of minus 90 F (minus 67 C) during the winter. When you factor wind and […]
One Third of the World’s Population Unable to See Milky Way
Among my fondest memories of being a kid back in the 1960’s was taking a week or so of summer vacation to visit relatives at my grandfather’s farm in Herman, PA (about 65 km northeast of Pittsburgh). During my stay I would spend evenings lying on the freshly cut grass of my grandpa’s back yard, just looking up into […]