For most in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is a time for building snowmen, skiing, and hoping for a snow day. Although many of us are counting down the days until holiday break, there is still time to investigate a few winter science questions! Grab some cocoa and your favorite blanket, and investigate winter from the comfort of somewhere warm.
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Ghost bats, witch fish – it seems like animals all over the world are permanently dressed up for Halloween! Thanks to the Encyclopedia of Life, supported by the Smithsonian, we found seven of these ghoulish creatures in honor of October 31st. If you thought this holiday was just for bats and spiders, think again!
“I’m working with our app, Leafsnap,” the scientist said.
I hesitated before joining her. Visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for a before-hours event, I had wandered into the room hoping the butterfly pavilion would be open early. (It wasn’t.) Instead, I found a lone scientist working with her iPhone and a few plants.
“Leafsnap is a free app based on facial recognition software,” she elaborated, gesturing to her phone. “You take a picture of a leaf, and it tells you what kind of plant it is.”
I stopped. It did what?
Sometimes, a blue crab and a handful of Popsicle sticks can teach you more than a textbook.
This June at our Science Education Academy for Teachers on biodiversity, educators from across America discovered how scientists are learning from Mother Nature's engineering. As it turns out, many of the world's greatest technologies were invented long before humans figured out fire. Copying the designs and processes of life, or biomimicry, may hold the key to the science of the future -- and to a few amazing classroom lessons.
Biomimicry: Copying Designs from Life
Brain freeze, sunburns, and bug bites -- welcome to summer! While summer in the Northern Hemisphere often conjures up images of swimming pools and beach umbrellas, it also comes with a few pains. While scientists can't make them go away (yet), they can at least tell us why we have to suffer through them! Maybe brain freeze, sunburns, and itchy bug bites can somehow be a good thing?
What causes brain freeze?
At 140 million miles from Earth, Mars isn't exactly a stone's throw away -- in fact, it takes about nine months (and several billion dollars) to reach the Red Planet via rocket. Although rovers and satellites can teach us a lot, scientist have found a cheaper, more convenient place to study Mars: the Earth.
On America's first Fourth of July celebration in 1777, fireworks were one color: orange. There were no elaborate sparkles, no red, white, and blue stars -- nothing more than a few glorified (although uplifting) explosions in the sky.
As it turns out, although we've been lighting fireworks for the last 2000 years or so, modern fireworks were only invented in the 1830s -- so, what were they like before then? When Henry VII had fireworks at his wedding in 1486, how did they look? How have fireworks and the science behind them evolved throughout history?
Featuring Dr. Alan Stern
Poor Pluto is finally getting a visit! To the disappointment of stargazers everywhere, the icy space rock, only 1/6 the size of Earth, was downgraded to a "dwarf planet" in 2006 as we learned more about our solar system. While we may not quite be over Pluto's "ex-planet" status, we have at least one thing to celebrate: Almost 90 years after its discovery, we're finally visiting Pluto!
Meet New Horizons
