1462 Items Tagged

Science

A mockup of the ExoMars rover rolls off its landing platform at the Rover Operational Control Centre near Turin, Italy. The facility is designed to simulate what conditions will be like on Mars when the actual rover, named Rosalind Franklin, arrives in 2022.

Europe's New Mars Yard Is Like a Playground for Planetary Engineers

Thanks, in part, to 150 tons of soil belched out by Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago.

A. J. Oliveira July 8, 2020

Stephen Hawking's personal <I>The Simpsons</i> figurine.

For Sale: Proof That Legendary Scientists Were Real People, Too

Letters and trinkets show off the personal sides of Einstein, Hawking, and Schrödinger.

Matthew Taub July 1, 2020

Grand, indeed, but also full of microplastics.

The West Is Being Won by Tiny Bits of Plastic

Natural landscapes are seeing huge amounts of microplastics tumbling from the sky.

Jessica Leigh Hester June 26, 2020

Please don't taste this rainbow.

The South Carolina Forest That Looks Like Melted Ice Cream

When conditions are right, the waters of Congaree National Park can look like bright scoops pooling on a sidewalk.

Jessica Leigh Hester June 25, 2020

Ever a dutiful student, Isaac Newton took notes to learn about the plague.

Sold: Isaac Newton’s Notes About the Bubonic Plague

His scribbles—which mention the curative power of toad vomit—sold for $81,000.

Jessica Leigh Hester June 15, 2020

Stockholm, Sweden

Lyells Ek (Lyell's Oak)

This tree was once used to calculate the decrease of the Baltic Sea.

Atlas Obscura Tries: Magnet Fishing

Replica of the 12,000-year-old Chimalhuacán Man and the mammoth mural.

Acolman, Mexico

Museum of Tepexpan

A museum built around the site where the most controversial human remains in the country were found.

Scientists Need Your Sourdough to Solve a Microbial Mystery

For North Carolina researchers, every starter is more data.

Hannah Thomasy June 1, 2020

Inside the library.

Montreal, Québec

Osler Library of the History of Medicine

One of the world's largest collections of rare medical texts and ephemera.

Plastics appear in water and on shorelines all over the world. Microplastics—shards less than five millimeters long—are even turning up in the cases that some aquatic larvae make to protect themselves.

These Bugs Armor Themselves in Tiny Shards of Colorful Trash

Caddisfly larvae are adapting to polluted waterways, but their recycling strategy has its drawbacks.

Jessica Leigh Hester May 13, 2020

When studying hail, time is of the essence.

The Slippery Problem of Measuring Enormous Hunks of Hail

They’re huge, rare, and melting all the time.

Jessica Leigh Hester May 12, 2020

Once the experiments are set up, humans can hang back for a while. This cage was placed in peaceful Cedar Lake, British Columbia, in 2015.

In the Era of COVID-19, Fieldwork Is Scrappy and Socially Distant

And sometimes involves storing dead fish in your in-laws’ freezer.

Jessica Leigh Hester May 7, 2020

A glacier researcher at work in the Himalayas.

Glacier Research Is Particularly Treacherous at the 'Third Pole'

Scientists in the Indian Himalayas deal with low oxygen, zip lines, and paths blocked by giant boulders.

Mahima A. Jain May 5, 2020

Northern Greenland is covered in rock and ice. The longest and deepest canyon on the landmass is buried miles below.

Greenland Has a Grand Canyon Beneath Its Ice, Carved by Ancient Floods

Ancient topography lurks beneath the white expanse.

Isaac Schultz May 1, 2020

Scientists and soldiers were evacuated from two Antarctic research bases to a Spanish Navy vessel.

The Great Antarctic Escape

How Spanish scientists and soldiers made an epic journey home as the world locked down around them.

Robin George Andrews April 29, 2020

The planetarium's Saturn-shaped building measures nearly 70 feet in diameter.

Indira Gandhi Planetarium

Inside the dome of this gigantic, Saturn-shaped building is one of the largest planetariums in Asia.

The apocalypse scene in the central apse

Cripta di San Magno

The “Sistine Chapel” of the Middle Ages merges 11th-century science and religion in wondrous hues.