Here’s my overview story about the Malaspina expedition for Nature’s news section. See the original at Nature’s website [html] or as it appeared in print: [pdf].
In the age of networked buoys and remote-sensing satellites, a global oceanographic cruise might sound like a relic from the golden era of exploration.
But the seven-month trek of Spain’s BIO Hespérides, which concludes next week when it docks in Cartagena, aims to deliver a global, comprehensive portrait of the ocean and how it is changing that the project’s backers say could not be assembled in any other way.
When biochemist Anthony Norman earned tenure at the University of California (UC), Riverside, he thought he’d never have to apply for a job again. But that was before he retired.
Norman, a professor emeritus, continues to run the laboratory he started in 1963. But he recently became a professor of the Graduate Division, a title reserved for retirees who “are fully engaged in research and/or other departmental and campus activities,” his new appointment letter says. Norman, who will draw his pension instead of a salary, believes the new position will help his post-retirement research career. “It used to be that when you retired your title became X emeritus. That doesn’t help you when you write up a grant application,” Norman says. In contrast to professor emeritus, professors of the Graduate Division prove their value every 3 years by passing the same departmental merit review used to grant pay raises to regular faculty members. “We have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else,” he says.
Whipping around the moon in the solar system’s loneliest spaceship, Apollo 8 astronaut James Lovell saw something in 1968 that he shouldn’t have: a gentle illumination, like a sunrise or sunset on Earth, hovered where the sun’s light cast its sharp shadow on the moon’s surface. Yet the moon has no atmosphere to catch the sun’s rays and create such a spectacle. Continue reading Apollo Physicist Launches Noisy Dustup Over Old Moon Data→
Pikas in the Pacific Northwest, kiss your privacy goodbye. This spring, Gregg Treinish, wildlife biologist, founder, and director of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC), recruited 22 hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail from Campo, California, to Manning Park, British Columbia, to spy on the small, furry mammals. The hikers are recording pika sightings, straw nests, and even urine stains as part of a pilot project to track the impacts of climate change on the creatures. Continue reading Matchmaker, Matchmaker→
Journalist covering global development by way of science and technology.
