Plate Number 191. Dancing (fancy) by Eadweard Muybridge, 1887

The Intersection of Dance and Science

Lynn Matluck Brooks dives into the ever-evolving relationship between movement and technology.
Mammal bones protrude from pit 91 at the La Brea Tar Pits on August 17, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

La Brea and Beyond

Pits and seeps full of tar and asphalt offer new insights into old ecosystems and cultures.
These colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up Mercury's surface.

The Mystery of Mercury’s Missing Meteorites

And how we may have finally found some.
A demonstration of Radiovision in Charles Francis Jenkins’ laboratory in Washington, D.C., 1925

Phantoscopes, Radiovision, and the Dawn of TV

After creating a projector called the Phantoscope in 1895, C. Francis Jenkins successfully tackled the problem of transmitting motion pictures through radio.
These fossilized foraminiferan shells, dating back 35 to 45 million years, were found in Tanzania. They all belong to species that are now extinct. The largest are about half a millimeter in diameter.

The History of the Ocean, as Told by Tiny Beautiful Fossils

Bountiful remains of foraminifera reveal how organisms responded to climate disturbances of the past. They can help predict the future, too.
Vannevar Bush

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF

The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.
Ectomycorrhizal fungi

The Fungi in the Carbon Jigsaw

Out of sight, below the soil’s surface, fungi play a vital role in the existence and health of our forests, woodlands, jungles, and prairies.
Hellas Chaos on Mars

Mars Time Machine

Researchers are creating advanced simulations that will provide a deeper understanding of Mars’s climatic history and help to determine whether it was once able to sustain life.
Joseph Russell Smith

He Spoke for the Trees (and Also the Soil)

A champion of agroforestry, J. Russell Smith argued for the restoration of forests as key to sustainable agriculture in his seminal work Tree Crops.