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
Category Archives: Science Magazine
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
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
Matching Scientists with Adventurers
Gregg Treinish, a man whose hiking credentials include a stroll along most of the Andes, took part in the Appalachian Trail Days event last weekend with an unusual sense of purpose. On a previous hike, he “felt selfish and … realized that was a shared feeling amongst hikers and mountaineers,” Treinish says. That feeling, together with a stint studying wildlife biology at Montana State University, gave him an original idea: to offer adventurers the opportunity to share with scientists something that even those who travel light routinely take with them on their adventures: their eyes and ears. Now, wherever he goes, Treinish recruits fellow adventurers for his new organization, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC). Continue reading Matching Scientists with Adventurers
Australian Government Silent on Synchrotron Budget While Scientists Plan Expansion
One might think that the managers of the Australian Synchrotron would be panicking given the news that neither the federal government nor the Victoria state government has addressed in their just-released budget proposals how the facility will be funded beyond June 2012, when its original 5-year financial plan ends. After all, the two governments currently provide most of the synchrotron’s annual funding. Yet, at least publicly, those running the synchrotron are thinking not about how to save the young facility but how to grow it. “We are now in the process of wanting to expand,” says Andrew Peele, a physicist at La Trobe University in Victoria who has been head of science at the synchrotron since late last year. Continue reading Australian Government Silent on Synchrotron Budget While Scientists Plan Expansion