Building Support for Locally Relevant Climate Tech
Climate Innovation Centers can promote clean technologies but need backing with a coordinated effort
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Titan Holds Clue to Faint Young Sun Paradox
Earth should have been an ice cube in the very early days of our solar system, when the sun was cooler than today. Yet the primordial Earth was a watery sphere. This “faint young sun” paradox has puzzled researchers for decades, but now a look at the atmosphere of one of Saturn’s moons suggests a…
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Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack at TEDxSantaCruz
Joel Primack is a professor of physics and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His wife, Nancy Abrams, is a specialist in the history and philosophy of science. Together they deliver this motivational TEDx talk, which calls for a cosmological, Big History perspective as a means to solving some of our most difficult…
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Jason Silva and the Six Epochs of Evolution
When it comes to futurists, there are pessimists and there are enthusiasts. Jason Silva brings a new meaning to the latter.
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What Mars Would Look Like With Life
What if instead of dust and rocks, our planetary neighbor Mars were a bit more lush? What if it had oceans, an Earth-like atmosphere, and green life coating its land? These are the questions Kevin Gill, a software engineer living in New Hampshire, sought to answer with his project, A Living Mars.
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100 Billion Alien Planets Fill Our Galaxy
Our Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 100 billion alien planets, and possibly many more, a new study suggests. “It’s a staggering number, if you think about it,” lead author Jonathan Swift, of Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. “Basically there’s one of these planets per star.” Swift and his colleagues arrived…
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Rock Is New Class of Mars Meteorite
A dark lump of rock found in the Moroccan desert in 2011 is a new type of Martian meteorite, say scientists. Weighing 320g, the stone has been given the name Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034. Its texture and chemistry set it apart from all previous objects picked up off the surface of Earth but known to…
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Newborn Star Study Reveals Never-Before-Seen Stage of Planet Birth
Astronomers studying a newborn star have caught a detailed glimpse of planets forming around it, revealing a never-before seen stage of planetary evolution. Large gas giant planets appear to be clearing a gap in the disk of material surrounding the star, and using gravity to channel material across the gap to the interior, helping the…
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Bacterial Traces From 3.5 billion Years Ago Called Oldest Fossils
Scientists analyzing Australian rocks have discovered traces of bacteria that lived a record-breaking 3.49 billion years ago, a mere billion years after Earth formed. If the find withstands the scrutiny that inevitably faces claims of fossils this old, it could move scientists one step closer to understanding the first chapters of life on Earth. The…
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The Most Exciting Alien Planets of 2012
From massive bodies that fell just short of becoming stars to the tiniest solar systems known, 2012 has brought an array of intriguing exoplanets to light. And double-star systems that once seemed unlikely to host planets have produced a wealth of them this year. Here’s a look at some of the most exciting alien planets…