Imagine a time when people feel like they're inside their favorite video games, or can travel the world without leaving home. This will become possible as virtual reality, or VR, continues to develop, enthusiasts say VR was a hot topic at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held January 6-9 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Of the approximately 3,900 exhibitors at the show, more than a dozen showed off their takes on VR technology.
Oculus VR gave a preview of its Oculus Rift Crescent Bay. This device will send users through a wide range of experiences -- from ducking out of the way of a raging Tyrannosaurus rex to looking down on a town and being able to peer inside homes. "The first step is making a device that can make you believe you're in a different place," said Oculus VR founder and chief executive officer Palmer Luckey, 22, during a presentation.
Virtual Life, Real Life
VR technology started with games, but developers say it has the potential to transform other aspects of our lives. "I can imagine a time when your doctor is doing a checkup on you and will be able to use this technology to access data about you," Nick Nassiri told TIME For Kids. He is the Software Development Manager for Razer, which produces VR game technology.
Manuel Gutierrez-Novelo, co-founder of ImmersiON-VRelia, says VR can be a great tool for education. "We can create an animation of the solar system or the molecular structure of water," he says. "I believe you will be able to learn about these things faster and better if you see them in a virtual reality environment, rather than reading about them in a book or watching a video."
The companies that attended CES did not focus solely on the future. They also showed off VR options available today. ImmersiON-VRelia unveiled The GO, a smartphone-powered Head Mounted Display (HMD) that turns most iOS and Android smartphones into VR devices.
The Virtuix Omni is designed like a 360-degree treadmill. It transforms real-life movements into game movements -- and even enables players to get exercise. They stand on the device's platform wearing special flat-soled shoes, and enter virtual environments through which they can walk and run, using their own feet. According to information released by Virtuix, during one hour of gaming, a player can walk the equivalent of 3 to 4 miles and burn more than 350 calories.
According to Nick Nassiri of Razer, innovations in virtual reality will keep coming. to He believes they'll happen first in gaming, then extend to other areas including medicine and education. "The core is getting it right in gaming," he says. "And then the rest will come."
Better late than never! On Monday, the International Space Station received a shipment of late Christmas gifts and groceries. A company called SpaceX sent the supply ship, called Dragon. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully boosted the cargo ship into space on Saturday. It reached the orbiting lab two days later. "Hurrah! A #Dragon is coming to visit bringing gifts," Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti tweeted while in orbit.
Station commander Butch Wilmore used a robot arm to grab the capsule, which contained 5,000 pounds of important cargo. The space station's six astronauts were getting a little low on supplies. That's because the previous supply ship, owned by another company, was destroyed in a launch explosion in October.
NASA scrambled to get replacements aboard Dragon, which was delayed a month by rocket problems. It should have been at the space station well before Christmas. But all's well that ends well. "We're excited to have it on board," Wilmore said. "We'll be digging in soon." He's especially eager to get more mustard. The station's condiment cabinet is empty.
Close, But No Cigar
Although the cargo shipment was a success, the second goal of the flight was not. SpaceX has been working to develop a rocket that can be easily restored and flown again, which would reduce launch costs. But the booster came down too hard on the trial run and broke apart in the ocean. "Close, but no cigar this time," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter shortly after.
Despite the flop in the dark ocean, Musk said he was encouraged. The 14-story booster managed, at least, to fly back to the floating platform from an altitude dozens of miles high. Until Saturday, no one had ever tried anything like this before. Musk said the trial run looks good for the future. The company is planning another rocket-landing test next month.
There's good news for people hoping that Earth is not the only inhabited world in the universe. A team of astronomers announced on January 6 that they have identified eight planets beyond our solar system. The scientists say three or four of those planets orbit in their stars' "Goldilocks Zone" -- the region where temperatures are not too hot and not too cold for water to exist in liquid form. Water is a necessary ingredient for life as we know it. 
The scientists, led by Dr. Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, made the discoveries using data collected by the planet-seeking Kepler telescope. 
Eye on the Stars
NASA launched Kepler in 2009. Since then, the telescope has identified more than 1,000 planets outside of our solar system. Torres and his team analyzed the data about the eight newly discovered worlds to determine which ones are most likely to be similar to Earth.
Among the new discoveries, the scientists say the planets called Kepler 438b and 442b are the closest to Earth. Kepler 438b is just about 10% larger than our planet, and gets 40% more of its energy from its star than Earth receives from the Sun. Temperatures there would be about 140 degrees. Kepler 442b is about 33% larger than Earth, but receives 30% less energy from its star. That would make it a potentially chillier world than our own. Torres says it is possible for life to exist and survive in either of those temperatures. But for that to happen, these planets would need to have another key ingredient for life: a heat-trapping atmosphere like Earth's.
A Lot Left to Learn
While these findings add to the possibility that life exists beyond Earth, Torres cautions against drawing conclusions. "We're not claiming they're inhabited," he says. In fact, these planets are so far away that scientists cannot observe them directly. For now, it remains unknown whether these planets contain life. But the discovery of planets in their stars' habitable zones suggests that somewhere out there, some form of alien life may have taken hold. 
There are no signs of little green men on Mars. But new discoveries offer a bit more hope that some form of life existed there in the past -- and perhaps is still there in the present. Methane gas and water have been found on the Red Planet. The presence of both suggests at least the possibility of life.
According to a new report in the journal Science, the Mars rover Curiosity has detected spikes of methane in the Martian atmosphere. This gas is also found in Earth's atmosphere, and comes from animal and plant life, and from the environment itself. If there's methane in Mars's atmosphere, where is it coming from? Scientists aren't sure. But it marks a big change. In September 2013, Curiosity found almost no traces of methane in the Martian air. Just weeks later, however, the rover picked up a whiff of the gas.
"It took us by surprise," says Christopher Webster of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California. He is the lead scientist for the instrument on the rover that detected the methane. Over the next two months, Webster says, "every time we looked there was methane." Six weeks later, however, the methane was gone, and hasn't been sniffed since. "It's a fascinating episodic increase," he says.
A Martian Mystery
The scientists don't know whether the methane spikes are caused by some form of biological matter or by the geology of the planet. Christopher Chyba, a professor of astrophysics and international affairs at Princeton, says it's best not to be too hopeful about biology on the Red Planet. "Hopes for biology on Mars have had a way of disappearing once Martian chemistry has been better understood," he says. "But figuring out what's responsible for the methane is clearly a key astrobiological objective -- whatever the answer turns out to be."
Watery World
The discovery of water on Mars is nothing new. For decades, scientists have had evidence that it flowed across the surface of the planet billions of years ago. But according to another new report in Science, while the surface water on Mars seems to be long gone, there's a lot more of it left than most people realize.
This report is also based on findings from Curiosity. Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Maryland, led the study. He says there is enough water on Mars "to cover the surface to a depth of [about 165 feet]."
It is not easy to reach this water. Most of it is locked up in ice at the planet's poles. Some of it is part of the clay Curiosity dug into when it was roaming an area of Mars's large Gale Crater.
But where there is (or was) water, there could be (or could have been) life.
Liftoff! After NASA called off three countdowns on Thursday, December 4, the Orion spacecraft successfully launched into space early this morning. The craft orbited Earth twice and traveled a distance of 3,600 miles before it landed in the Pacific Ocean around 11:30 a. m. on Friday, December 5. "The flight is designed to test many of the most vital elements for human spaceflight," said NASA in a statement. "[It] will provide critical data needed to improve Orion's design and reduce risks to future mission crews."
Takeoff and Touchdown
The original launch was set for December 4. To successfully take off, a spacecraft requires a rocket. Orion traveled to space aboard the Delta IV rocket.
Several valves are used to fill and drain Delta IV with propellant prior to liftoff. Due to valve issues that could not be fixed before the launch time was scheduled, Orion's takeoff was put on hold. The NASA team also worried strong winds would hinder the craft's ability to take off. But winds stayed below the limit of 24 miles per hour, and the Orion capsule lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida, at 7:05 a. m.
The capsule reached a peak altitude more than 14 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station. No spacecraft designed for astronauts has gone so far since the Apollo 17 mission 42 years ago. NASA is now "one step closer" to putting humans aboard Orion, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. He called it "Day One of the Mars era."
Orion landed in the ocean about 270 miles west of Mexico's Baja peninsula at approximately 11:30 this morning. The U. S. Navy was there to recover the spacecraft, where it will be brought to land. Mission Control commentator Rob Navias called the voyage "the most perfect flight you could ever imagine," calling the spacecraft's landing in the Pacific Ocean "a bulls-eye."
A Mission for the Future
Orion's voyage is an experimental mission, with no astronauts onboard. The goal of the mission is to someday take astronauts to Mars. The experimental flight was intended to test the capabilities of the spacecraft to ensure it is suitable for a future manned mission to the Red Planet.
The Orion spacecraft will not carry astronauts until 2021 at the earliest. But NASA hopes that some day the capsule will be able to take people back to the moon or to Mars.
Orion wasn't entirely unmanned, however. Some familiar objects rode aboard the spacecraft. As part of a public outreach effort with Sesame Street, NASA made room for Ernie's Rubber Duckie, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm Slimey, and one of Cookie Monster's cookies aboard Orion.
On November 12, a small probe helped scientists take a big step forward in space exploration. The probe, called the Philae lander, is the first spacecraft to set down on a comet. It will take photos and dig up samples from the comet's surface.
The Philae lander is about the size of a washing machine. It dropped from the Rosetta spacecraft and landed on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as 67p. This mission could give researchers valuable information about the origins of our solar system and how it evolved.
A Long Journey
Rosetta traveled for 10 years, and across 4 billion miles, to reach its destination. The craft was launched in 2004 by the European Space Agency to observe comets. In 2011, Rosetta was powered down to conserve energy. Early this year, scientists brought it back to life to study 67P.
Philae separated from Rosetta about 14 miles above the comet. At first, the lander failed to fire anchoring harpoons into the surface. It bounced three times before coming to a stop, said Stephan Ulamec, the lander project manager.
The Philae lander will travel the surface of 67p and conduct a variety of scientific experiments. It could reveal secrets about the makeup of comets, the formation of our solar system, and even the origins of life. Researchers consider comets the remains of the ancient solar system. Their contents are preserved in a deep freeze because they spend much of their time far away from the sun. "What we believe is that we will study the most primitive material in the solar system," says scientist Gerhard Schwehm. He served as Rosetta's mission manager at the ESA from 2011 until his retirement earlier this year.
In the Dark
Scientists have not yet been able to determine exactly where Philae landed. Based on the first images the lander has sent back, they believe it is partially in a shadow of a cliff. That could be a problem, because it would prevent the lander from using its solar panels to collect energy from the sun. Currently, the scientists are updating their plans to get Philae out of the darkness.
Despite any initial concerns, the team is in good spirits -- and so is Philae. On the night of its arrival, the lander tweeted a photo to its mother ship @ESA_Rosetta. "The view is absolutely breathtaking ESA_Rosetta! Unlike anything I've ever seen #CometLanding," the tweet read.
Though it took a decade to get to 67p, Philae's stay on the comet will be a short one. As soon as it landed, a 64-hour countdown began. When it ends, Philae's on-board battery will run down. But Rosetta will continue to travel with 67p, sending information about the comet back to Earth for as long as it can.
Two astronauts from the Expedition 41 crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took their first spacewalk on Tuesday. American Reid Wiseman and German Alexander Gerst worked outside the space station -- 260 miles above Earth -- for more than six hours. Their main job was to move an old, broken pump to permanent storage.
The job was NASA's first routine maintenance outside the ISS in more than a year. U. S.-based spacewalks were halted in July 2013 after an Italian astronaut's helmet flooded with water. The Italian spacewalker, Luca Parmitano, survived and is back on Earth. But to prevent a similar incident, NASA delayed routine walks to improve helmet requirements. The helmets used by Wiseman and Gerst for Tuesday's spacewalk contained absorbent pads and makeshift snorkels in case of water leakage.
While NASA allowed critical repairs, the agency further delayed maintenance spacewalks over concerns about spacesuit batteries. New batteries arrived in September on the latest SpaceX cargo ship and Russian Soyuz capsule. This allowed NASA to finally schedule long-overdue maintenance jobs for the Expedition 41 crew.
Working with an Incredible View
During the spacewalk, Gerst collected the 780-pound pump, which is about the size of a double-door refrigerator. He made his way with the pump to the end of the ISS's big robot arm, which swung him to the pump's new, permanent location. It took about 12 minutes. "You should see my view right now," Gerst told Mission Control. He was looking at the expansive space station, lit up like gold in the darkness.
With Wiseman looking on, Gerst slid the pump into its permanent slot outside the ISS, and then bolted it down. "Nice work," said Mission Control over the radio.
The spacewalkers had other tasks to complete. They replaced a camera light and installed a power-relay device for the station's robot-arm railcar during the six-hour excursion.
As their work for the day drew to a close, Wiseman thanked all the people who worked on NASA's spacewalk recovery team over the past year so that they could resume EVAs, or "extra-vehicular activities" like spacewalks. "[Gerst] and I, we'd like to express just our huge gratitude for getting us back into planned EVAs, safely outside, safely back in," Wiseman said, adding "It's a good day for NASA" and the European Space Agency.
On Monday, three neuroscientists won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the brain's navigation system. This inner GPS helps us find our way in the world.
The research was done by John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard Moser. Their work is an important finding in neuroscience. It could help researchers understand memory loss related to Alzheimer's disease, the Nobel Assembly said.
O'Keefe, 75, of University College London, discovered the first part of this system in 1971. He found that a type of nerve cell was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. O'Keefe proved that these "place cells" were building up a map of the environment, not just registering visual input.
Thirty-four years later, in 2005, married couple May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser identified another type of nerve cell -- the "grid cell." The cell creates a system for positioning and path-finding, the assembly said.
Spreading the News
May-Britt Moser said her 52-year-old husband didn't immediately find out about the prize because he was flying to Munich, Germany, on Monday morning to demonstrate their research. Edvard Moser told the Norwegian news agency NTB that he learned he was a Nobel Prize winner when he landed in Munich. "I didn't know anything. When I got off the plane there was a representative there with a bouquet of flowers who said 'congratulations on the prize,'" he said.
Hege Tunstad, a spokeswoman at the university in Trondheim, said May-Britt Moser "needed a minute to cry and speak with her team" when she first heard the news.
"This is such a great honor for all of us and all the people who have worked with us and supported us," she said. "We are going to continue and hopefully do even more groundbreaking work in the future."
Moving Forward
The Nobel Assembly said the discoveries will help scientists' understand how specialized cells work together to perform complex tasks. It opens doors for understanding memory, thinking, and planning.
"Thanks to our grid and place cells, we don't have to walk around with a map to find our way each time we visit a city because we have that map in our head," said Juleen Zierath, chair of the medicine prize committee. "I think, without these cells, we would have a really hard time to survive."
Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel created Nobel Prizes to celebrate cultural and/or scientific advances. The first ones were first awarded in 1901. Each year the winners collect their awards on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
All three Nobel laureates for medicine will split the Nobel prize money of 8 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million U. S. dollars). The Nobel awards in physics, chemistry, literature, and peace will be announced later this week and the economics prize will be announced next Monday. 
Many people already feel handcuffed to their cell phones, but starting in 2015, they actually will be. On Tuesday, Apple's CEO Tim Cook announced the Apple Watch. The new smart device is worn on the wrist, just like a normal watch, but it can do all the things a cell phone does -- and more.
At $349, the Apple Watch is pricey. Some experts doubt that they will become as successful as smartphones. It does seem likely, though, that the gadget will open yet another door in personal computing. The watch is the smartest computer yet. It taps you on the wrist whenever a new message or alert comes in. It prepares answers to questions you receive from friends. It reminds you where you parked your car. It tracks your health. It even allows you to send your heartbeat to others. "It's the most personal product we've ever made," Cook said in a press release.
When it goes on sale early next year, it will be Apple's first item in a new, popular category of technology -- wearable computers. If the Apple Watch becomes popular, it will change the way the world interacts with computers. People may depend on the smart jewelry even more than they already depend on their cell phones.
"[It] might not only be a game changer for Apple, but for the entire industry," says technology expert Daniel Ives. "A lot of major technology players around the globe are taking notes on what Apple is trying to do here."
How Does It Work?
The Apple Watch is specially designed for a smaller device. An entire computer fits onto a single chip. Users will be able to scroll and zoom just like they would on an iPhone. It will have a built-in speaker for alerts that users can both hear and feel. Pressing the side button brings up contacts so you can communicate with people quickly and easily.
Apple Watch also introduces health and fitness apps that can help people lead healthier lives. The built-in heart rate sensor and GPS will track calories burned and workouts. The watch allows you to zoom in and out and scroll, just like an iPhone. It will be available in different sizes, styles, and colors.
A Hands-On Test Run
According to Matt Vella, a writer for TIME Magazine, the watch is "the most exciting gadget since the iPad, from Apple or any other company."
After actually trying the watch, he says: "There's a lot we don't know about the Apple Watch. How long will its battery last? How much will the most elaborate version cost? How exactly will it interface with the iPhone?"
But physically wearing the watch answered some other questions. "It sits on the wrist very naturally. You could easily forget you are wearing the Apple Watch, and you will."
What's 30 feet tall, 85 feet long, and heavier than seven elephants? The answer is a massive dinosaur more than 75 million years old. Called Dreadnoughtus, meaning "fearing nothing," this newly discovered creature is believed to be one of the largest land animals that ever lived. And when it died, Dreadnoughtus was still growing.
Prehistoric Puzzle
Dreadnoughtus was a leading beast in the titanosaur family, a group of dinosaurs with long necks, small heads, and tall, thick legs. A familiar member of this family is the brachiosaurus, which, at 75,000 pounds, seems like a peanut compared to its new family member.
Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, a paleontologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, found the specimen in Argentina in 2005. His research was published on September 4, 2014, in the journal Scientific Reports. Though Dreadnoughtus was discovered in small pieces, Lacovara and his team put the puzzle together to find some big answers. From more than 200 uncovered bones, this fearless dino was revealed to have had a long neck and a powerful 29-foot tail. By calculating the weight of its upper arm and thigh muscles, the team determined Dreadnoughtus to have weighed about 130,000 pounds. All the collected fossils make up 45 percent of the dinosaur's total skeleton, which is plenty of information for scientists to draw some exciting conclusions.
A Growing Investigation
Lacovara and his team used their collections to create a computerized reconstruction to determine how Dreadnoughtus looked and moved. 3D printing technology is allowing researchers to produce replicas of bones for a more detailed analysis. "We're getting a more complete picture of this giant animal than we have for any of the other big titanosaurs that are out there," said paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. These discoveries can help scientists investigate other large, prehistoric beasts, and what allowed them to grow so large. From studying its bones, Lacovara found that Dreadnoughtus had more growing to do.
Scientists can apply what they have found from studying Dreadnoughtus to learn more about the current animal population. Today, the largest living land animal is the African Elephant, which can weigh up to 15,000 pounds. At a frightening 400,000 pounds, the Blue Whale is the largest animal on the planet. But have no fear; this enormous creature shows no signs of leaving the ocean.
All the time you spent memorizing multiplication tables may have made you a better mathematician, according to a new study. A team of scientists from Stanford University, in California, have shown how the brain reorganizes itself as kids learn math.
After a certain amount of time spent practicing math, kids can put away the calculator. They don't even need to count on their fingers. They simply know the answers to subtraction, addition, and multiplication facts. The quicker kids can recall basic math facts, the easier it is for them to solve more complicated math problems.
Busy Brains
The Stanford University researchers observed the brain activity of 28 students, ages 7 to 9, for the study. They took scans of the students' brains as the students solved math calculations without the help of a calculator, pen or paper. A calculation -- three plus four equals seven, for example -- flashed on a screen. The students pushed a button to say if the answer was right or wrong. The scientists also recorded the response speed, and what parts of the brain became active as the kids pushed the button.
These observations showed a process called fact retrieval. Rather than using their fingers to count, or scrawling out equations on a piece of paper, the students pulled the answers from memory. It's as if the answers to basic subtraction, addition, and multiplication problems are kept in a long-term storage compartment in the brain. The storage compartment was built from repetition. "Experience really does matter," said Dr. Kathy Mann Koepeke of the National Institutes of Health.
Quick Response
Children make the shift from counting to fact retrieval when they are 8 to 9 years old, the study says. This is the time when most students are learning basic addition and subtraction. When kids have basic math facts memorized, the brain has more free space to learn more complicated math.
This process has benefits for the future. The study showed, as kids got older, their answers relied more on memory and became quicker and more accurate. Less brain activity was devoted to counting. Some children make this shift quicker than others.
Scientists hope to use this research to develop new strategies to help kids learn math at all levels. One strategy the study suggests is for students to quiz themselves in different orders -- solving five times three before five times two, for example. Mixing up the order keeps the brain active. Keep these drills up, and you may be a math whiz in no time.
Planet Earth would be a scary place for humans if dinosaurs still ruled the world. Though there are still some traces of life from the Jurassic period, like certain mollusks and types of reptiles, the Age of Dinosaurs ended more than 65 million years ago. Dinosaurs and many other creatures died off, never to return again. 
This mass extinction is believed to be the result of an asteroid hitting Earth. A new report by the journal Biological Reviews called 'The Extinction of Dinosaurs" concludes that this impact was, indeed, the cause of the dinosaurs' demise. But the space blast wasn't the only reason these creatures aren't still around today.
A Break in the Food Chain
Dinosaurs depended on each other to survive. Meat-eating monsters like the Tyrannosaurus Rex were at the top of the food chain, and fed off of plant eaters like the horned Triceratops. These herbivores were decreasing in population at the time of the asteroid, which left the carnivorous species less food to survive on. "In any ecosystem where you remove links to key species, that community has problems," Richard Butler, one of the review's authors, told National Geographic.
While the herbivore population was going down, Earth's temperatures were rising. Years before the impact, the planet began experiencing a period of volcanism. These eruptions caused climate changes that affected both dinosaur and plant life, and further disrupted the food chain. Hot vapors and gas emitted by the volcanoes began wiping out some of the dinosaur population and weakening the survivors.
Deadly Climate Changes
These environmental factors made the asteroid's impact especially powerful. It caused more volcanoes to erupt, heated up Earth's atmosphere, and led to a sharp drop in the level of oxygen in the oceans. For an already weak population, dinosaurs were helpless at the time of collision. "If the asteroid hit a few million years earlier, when dinosaurs were more diverse, or a few million years later, when they had a chance to recover as they often had done before after diversity losses, then dinosaurs probably wouldn't have gone extinct," said University of Edinburgh paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Brusatte, who led the study.
The ancient collision triggered more than a thousand years of destruction. With the dinosaurs gone, mammals began to evolve into bigger and more diverse species. Many animals we see today, like birds, sharks, and even some cats and dogs, emerged after the asteroid. But none rule the Earth quite like the dinosaurs did.
Looking up at the sky on a clear night, the moon may seem like it is a universe away. At a distance of more than 238,000 miles from our little blue planet, it practically is. But there was once a time the Earth and the moon were not so far apart.
A new analysis of moon rocks, published in the journal Science, is revealing some interesting clues about the ancient history of the Earth. These clues support the theory that the Earth and moon may, in fact, be family.
The Impact Theory
Researchers have long speculated that a planet called Theia collided with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. Theia was destroyed in the crash, but Earth survived with just a few broken parts. Theorists believe that the remains from the collision joined together and eventually formed the moon. However, no hard evidence to confirm this theory has been found until now.
Previous studies of these specimens, collected by NASA's Apollo missions, have shown little to support the collision theory. But according to this recent study, an examination of different types of oxygen, called isotopes, found in the moon rocks, reveals traces of both the moon and Theia. They also contain elements of a rare form of meteorite not found on Earth, suggesting they must have come from another celestial body. "We have now discovered small differences between the Earth and the Moon," Dr. Daniel Herwartz, lead author of the study, told BBC news. "This confirms the giant impact hypothesis."
When it first formed, the moon was just 14,000 miles away from us. Although the two celestial bodies are locked in orbit, the moon is slowly inching away from Earth at a rate of about 3.8 cm a year. Though it may be moving farther from us in distance, this new evidence makes the origin of the moon feel very close to home.
We tend to think of plants as the furniture of the natural world. They don't move, they don't make sounds, they don't seem to respond to anything -- at least not very quickly. Grass doesn't cry when you cut it, flowers don't scream when they're picked. But as is often the case, our human view of the world misses quite a lot. Plants talk to each other all the time. And the language is chemical.
Over the years, scientists have reported that different types of plants, from trees to tomatoes, release compounds into the air to help neighboring plants. These chemical warnings all have the same purpose -- to spread information about one plant's disease or infestation so other plants can defend themselves. But exactly how plants receive and act on many of these signals is still mysterious.
In this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in Japan offer some explanations. They have identified one chemical message and traced it all the way from release to action.
The scientists looked at tomato plants infested by a common pest, the cutworm caterpillar. To start out, they grew plants in two plastic compartments connected by a tube. One plant was infested and placed upwind and the other was uninfested and placed downwind. The downwind plants were later exposed to the cutworm caterpillar. The results showed that plants that had previously been near sick neighbors were able to defend themselves better against the caterpillar.
Friendly Warnings
The researchers also studied leaves from exposed and unexposed plants. They found one compound showed up more often in the exposed plants. The substance is called HexVic. When the scientists fed HexVic to cutworms, it knocked down their survival rate by 17%. The scientists identified the source of HexVic, and sprayed it lightly over healthy plants. Those plants were then able to start producing the caterpillar-killing HexVic. Researchers confirmed that uninfested plants have to build their own weapon to fight off bugs and diseases. How do they know when to play defense? They are warned first by their friendly plant neighbors.
It is a complex tale, and it may be happening in more plant species than tomatoes. It may also be happening with more chemical signals that are still unknown to us. For now though, we know that plants not only communicate, they look out for one another.
NASA put the first human on the moon in 1969. Should America's space agency ever set its sights on landing an astronaut on a moon of Saturn, there are plenty to choose from. The ringed planet has 53 known moons. And another one may be on the way. NASA's Cassini-Huygens space probe has spotted a small shape in Saturn's outermost ring. It suggests the existence of a new moon. The moon has not been directly spotted yet, but scientists have already given it a nickname: Peggy.
Moon Maker
The probe's findings were just published in the journal Icarus. Cassini has been observing the ringed planet and its surroundings since 2004. Saturn is a big and powerful world. With a diameter of 74,732 miles, it is 9 1/2 times the size of Earth. It spins very quickly, and takes only 11 hours to rotate fully on its axis. The planet is located about 885.9 million miles from the sun and has an average temperature of -285 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrrr!
Peggy will be joining a large community. Saturn has thousands of rings. The outermost ring, called the A Ring, is the largest and brightest. It measures 750 miles long and 6 miles wide. Saturn's rings are made up of rock, dust and ice, and are constantly gathering space matter. As this material gathers and clumps together, moons are born.
Room to Grow
If Peggy is a new moon, it is also a tiny one, measuring only 0.5 miles in diameter. But there is no telling how big this baby will grow over time. "We've never seen anything like this before," said astronomer Carl Murray in a statement. He is the lead author of the Icarus report. "We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right." Once that happens, it will be given a formal name.
However, this mini moon may be one of Saturn's last. The formation of all its moons, new and old, big and small, has used up much of the rings' raw material. After 4.5 billion years, Saturn may have finally revealed all its babies.
Attention all sky gazers: get ready for a beautiful moon to grace the night sky. Tonight, the first total lunar eclipse in more than three years will be visible throughout North and South America. And, it's in color.
According to NASA, the total lunar eclipse will take place on the night of April 14C15. Most of the United States will be able to view it, National Public Radio reports. It will last 78 minutes, beginning at 3:06 a. m. Eastern Daylight Time and ending at 4:24 a. m. The U. S. Naval Observatory's page has a handy link that allows you to input your city and figure out exactly when you'll see the eclipse. People in the United States will not be able to witness a full lunar eclipse in its entirety again until 2019.
What You Need To Know
In a total lunar eclipse the Earth blocks the Sun's light from reaching the Moon. The moon becomes dimly lit in an orange or red glow for about an hour, NASA says. Because of its color, it is often called a "Blood Moon." That's from light around the edges of the Earth -- essentially sunrises and sunsets -- splashing on the lunar surface and faintly lighting up the moon, says Alan MacRobert, senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine.
While a lunar eclipse last for a few hours, a total solar eclipse lasts for only a few minutes at any given place. Unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are completely safe to watch. So, stargazers do not need special glasses to protect their eyes.
Over the next 18 months, there will be three more blood moons: October 8, 2014; April 4, 2015; and September 28, 2015. But scientists say blood moons are not common. Astronomers have a name for four complete lunar eclipses in a row that happen in six-month intervals -- it's called a tetrad, NASA says. The tetrad has happened only three times in over 500 years. Before the dawn of the 20th century, there was a 300-year period when there were no tetrads at all.
"The most unique thing about the 2014C2015 tetrad is that all of them are visible for all or parts of the U. S. A.," longtime NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak said in a statement.
NASA's Mission
There's one downside to Tuesday's lunar eclipse -- it could damage a NASA spacecraft that's been circling the moon since fall. The robotic orbiter is called Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer or LADEE (la-dee) for short. The science-collecting part of the mission was planned to finish in March but it went overtime. The orbiter was not designed to handle a lengthy eclipse. Scientists don't know if it will be able to withstand the cold temperature in the long eclipse. Even if it freezes up, LADEE will crash into the far side of the moon the following week as planned, after successfully completing its science mission. Scientists expect LADEE's final day to occur on or before April 21.
NASA has set up a live web chat starting at 1 a. m. Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday to answer questions about the eclipse.
There have been thousands of studies published on climate change. The basic message of all those studies is: climate change is real, it is happening, and unless we're very lucky, we're not doing anywhere near enough to adapt to it.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released a large-scale study that focuses on the impacts of climate change, ranging from the effects on endangered species to changes in agriculture. The new report demonstrates just how wide-ranging the effects of a warming world will be. "We have assessed impacts as they are happening in natural and human systems on all continents and oceans," said Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC. "No one on this planet will be untouched by climate change.
Sounding the Alarm
The report predicts with high confidence that the negative impacts of warming will be widespread. According to the study, glaciers will continue to shrink as the climate warms. Species on land and in the sea are shifting their range in response to warming, and some will face an increased risk of extinction. Health impacts will be felt from heat waves and from floods in low-lying areas. The seas will continue to become more acidic, destroying coral reefs.
But the report does not try to predict the exact extent of those effects. The world's scientists are learning just how difficult it is to predict precisely how the planet will respond to rising carbon emissions and rising temperatures. The report makes clear what can and cannot be known about a changing climate. And it puts climate change in the context of the countless other risks humans face.
A planet that is home to some 7 billion people is already a place that's on the edge -- and unchecked warming could help push us over.
You may have seen a friend drop food the on the floor, pick it up, and eat it, while declaring, "Five-second rule!" The old adage says that food dropped on the floor for five seconds or less is still likely to be clean. But is that true?
Students at Britain's Ashton University, led by microbiology professor Anthony Hilton, tested the rule and found it to have some scientific basis. The study's results show that food dropped for five seconds is less likely to contain bacteria than if it sits there, according to Hilton. Some of the results were published in a news release on Ashton University's website.
The students also found that the type of flooring where the dropped food lands has an effect. Bacteria are least likely to transfer from carpeted surfaces. It's most likely to transfer from laminate or tiled surfaces when moist foods make contact with them for more than five seconds.
There is still a risk of infection if certain bacteria are present on the dropped surface, so consumers should still be cautious. "However, the findings of this study will bring some light relief to those who have been employing the five-second rule for years, despite a general consensus that it is purely a myth," Professor Hilton said in a statement.
Will You Eat That?
To test out the rule, the Ashton University students dropped toast, pasta, biscuits, and candy onto a variety of indoor floor types that had been exposed to two common bacteria, Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus. They measured how much of the bacteria transferred to the food when it was left on the floor for durations that ranged from three to 30 seconds. The university has not yet released the complete study.
The research team at Ashton also surveyed 500 people to find out who employs the five-second rule. Of the people surveyed, 87% said they would eat food dropped on the floor, or have done so in the past. Of those people, the majority were women. "Our study showed... [people] are also more likely to follow the five-second rule, which our research has shown to be much more than an old wives' tale," Hilton says.
Still, scientists say you should be careful about eating food dropped on the floor, especially if you don't know the cleanliness of the surface. A video about the five-second rule embedded on npr.org from the Smithsonian's website features molecular biologist Eric Schulze, who points out that one in six Americans get sick from food poisoning every year. "Eating food off the floor is a bit like playing Russian roulette with your gut," Schulze says in the video.
It's International Polar Bear Day today, so if you live near the Arctic Circle, hug the closest polar bear. Actually, do not do that -- an adult male polar bear is nearly half a ton of hungry predator, and they are extremely dangerous. Still, the beasts deserve a little tenderness.
The polar bear is now considered a vulnerable species, under threat from the loss of its sea ice habitat. To draw attention to their plight, Google is now offering glimpses of polar bears in their native environment, via its Street View program. Cameras in Cape Churchill and Wapusk National Park in northern Manitoba, Canada, captured images of polar bears doing their polar bear thing during an annual gathering in the region in October and November. You can see pictures of polar bears sparring, and a mother nursing her cub, all against the flat white and brown background of the Arctic. The footage was taken with Google's Street View Trekker -- 15 cameras mounted on a backpack -- from aboard the off-road vehicles known as tundra buggies.
Krista Wright is executive director of the conservation group Polar Bear International. She spoke to the CBC, a Canadian broadcaster, about Google's program. "It provides an opportunity to document what it looks like now, the potential to document what it looks like next year, five years from now, 10 years from now," she said.
Disappearing Sea Ice
Many scientists and conservationists fear that there may be far fewer polar bears in even the next 10 years, thanks mostly to the effects of climate change. Polar bears use sea ice as a platform to reach their prey -- mainly seals -- and summer sea ice is melting fast. Despite a rebound from a record low in 2012, the extent of Arctic sea ice is generally trending downwards, often dramatically. As the ice vanishes, polar bears are forced to swim longer and longer distances to reach those hunting platforms, which is taking a toll on the species.
Exactly how vulnerable polar bears are is not clear, partially due to the fact that they live in such a forbidding climate to humans and that polar bears are not exactly friendly. That makes getting a proper count challenging. But Google is helping with this as well: researchers are using Google Earth satellite images to count polar bears from space.
Still, most experts agree that there are about 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears alive, scattered around the Arctic -- a perilously small number -- though some subpopulations have rebounded, in part because of restrictions on hunting. There's also evidence that polar bears are changing their dietary habits, possibly to adapt to the loss of sea ice. They are shifting from seals to snow geese, caribou, and berries. But polar bear subpopulations are still trending downward in many areas of the Arctic, and if climate change keeps vaporizing sea ice, the pressure on the bears will only increase.
Of course, that's true of many, many species; in fact, a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change just found that global warming dramatically increases the risk of extinction for amphibians and reptiles. Yet how many other species are so popular that Coca-Cola will change the color of its cans just to draw attention to their plight, as the company did for polar bears in 2011? Last year a policy paper in Conservation Letters laid out an ambitious plan to save polar bears in the face of global warming, even going so far as to suggest feeding starving bears directly -- an amazing thought, given the obvious risks. Why go to such great lengths to save the polar bear, and not, say Mexico's critically endangered pygmy raccoon?
The truth is there's no perfect reason. But as seen in Google Street View and those candid shots of polar bears in their element, there is something majestic about a polar bear against the backdrop of the Arctic, something wild and worth saving. And the polar bear dearly needs saving.
Do you like math? Do you like science? Celebrity chef Anne Burrell asked these questions to a crowd of more than 300 kids from Boys & Girls Clubs on February 1. "When I was your age, I didn't like or understand math or science at all," Burrell admitted to them, "but that was also because I couldn't understand how all of this plays into life as you get older."
Burrell, along with New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, spoke to the group as hosts of Connect a Million Minds (CAMM) Day at the Time Warner Cable Studios in New York City. The event was part of the company's five-year, $100 million program to encourage kids' interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). CAMM events have taken place across the country since 2009.
Cooking Connections
Burrell and Cruz joined the kids as they took part in several science and math activities related to television programming. Volunteers from the New York Hall of Science cooked up a chemistry lesson at an activity inspired by the Food Network. Kids used dough to explore electricity and how it moves.
"There's tons to learn about cooking and science, and what's really fun is that there's something to eat at the end!" Burrell told TFK. Burrell also shared that her first class in cooking school was culinary math. "There's almost more about science in cooking than math but they're really pretty equal," she says.
Hands-On Learning
Kids got a behind-the-scenes look at science and math connections in history, sports, and preschool programs too. At a History Channel activity, kids learned about catapults. Warriors first used the machines in ancient times to hurl objects at enemies. Kids learned how the machines work, and used catapults made with Popsicle sticks to launch marshmallows into cups.
Instructors at the ESPN activity directed kids in an experiment. Kids insulated, or protected, plastic eggs to understand how padding protects athletes. At the Sprout preschool channel activity, kids identified shapes used to make the cardboard props for the Sunny Side Up Show. They also learned how to make cardboard docking stations for cell phones and iPods, and how these tools make sounds louder.
You can learn more about CAMM and search for science and math events near you at connectamillionminds.com. Says Cruz: "If I can get all of you guys having fun doing math and science, then I've accomplished my goal."
Have you ever wondered what it is like to be the President's Science Advisor or to travel in space? How about designing and building prototypes or finding a way to reduce carbon emissions? On January 28, 2014, 15 scientists gathered in Washington, D. C., to share their experiences with kids at SoSTEM -- State of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Their goal: to educate kids about the importance of STEM fields and inspire them to pursue a career in STEM.
"Technology opens doors of new opportunities and ways of doing things we may have never have imagined possible," said Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer, "and you [kids] are the ones who will keep America innovating for discoveries we can't even dream of today and towards solutions to the world's most important problems."
What is SoSTEM?
SoSTEM, an annual event begun last year, gives kids the chance to question those in charge of science and technology as well as to talk to the special guests who sat in the First Lady's Box at the President's State of the Union address, delivered the night before. This year, the topics ranged from robotics to solar energy to marshmallow cannons. Panelists even covered ways to incorporate the movie Gravity into science lessons.
Among the guest panelists at SoSTEM 2014 were Dr. John P. Holdren, President Obama's Science Advisor; Joey Hudy, "Maker" and Inventor; Tyrone Davis, Environmental Advocate; Joe Acaba, NASA Astronaut; the 2013 NASA Astronaut Class; and other prominent figures in science. I had the opportunity to speak with some of the guests before the panel and ask them about their STEM careers, their plans for the future, and their advice for kids.
Advice from an Astronaut
Joe Acaba remembers developing an interest in space as a young child. "It was probably when I was a little kid, and my grandfather would show me the old film of the Apollo missions to watch the astronauts walking on the moon, so that was pretty cool," Acaba told TFK. "I always loved to read science fiction books, so I always thought about going to different planets, and that kind of sparked my interest and made me want to become an astronaut someday."
In 2004, Acaba began working for NASA and his dream of being an astronaut came true. During his NASA career, Acaba visited space twice -- first on the space shuttle Discovery in 2009 and then on the International Space Station in 2012, logging a total of 138 days in space.
Over the years, Acaba has received a lot of guidance that has helped him in his career. But he credits his success to his parents' words of wisdom. "The biggest piece of advice I've received is from my parents, and it's one I try to share with people. It is that your education is the most important thing you can do. It doesn't matter what you study, but the more education you have, the more opportunities you'll get. So I think that if you study hard and take advantage of those opportunities, good things will happen."
An Inspiring Environmental Advocate
Tyrone Davis has been legally blind since the age of 9, but that hasn't stopped him from reaching his goals. In high school, he ran track and cross-country, and he went on to graduate from North Carolina State University with a degree in political science. But perhaps his most noteworthy accomplishment was his work with Elizabeth City State University, in North Carolina: he showed the school how to save $31,000 per year by reducing its carbon emissions by 200 tons. Still, Davis doesn't want to stop there. In fact, he has gone back to school once again to earn a degree in law and already has plans for after graduation.
"I hope to pursue a career in environmental law and environmental policy," Davis told TFK. "I want to continue to address environmental issues in a common sense type of way and in a problem-solving type of way, trying to figure out ways to solve our nation's and our world's issues in a balanced approach."
At SoSTEM, Davis wanted not only to share his experience in a STEM field, but he also wanted to share one life-changing lesson he learned from his past: the importance of perseverance.
"Never give up on something that you want to do," Davis said. "Set goals for yourself. There may be roadblocks in your way, but try to find a way to get around those roadblocks so that you can accomplish your goal. Always evaluate where you are so that you know where you have to go, how far you have to go, and who you have to talk to to achieve those goals."
Later in the panel, NASA Astronaut Anne McClain added to Davis's remark. "The biggest thing you can do is believe in yourself. And that's not gender-specific or background-specific. If you believe that you can do it, and you continue to raise your hand to go towards your goals, then you're going to get there. Keep moving forward. Don't self-eliminate yourself before you try."
If there is one thing that people who live and work in Antarctica say they miss, it is fresh fruits and vegetables. "Freshies," as they are called here, are hard to come by and always a treat. That's especially true for the people who live and work in field camps, which are often far from major research stations. This is why, when we learn our helicopter flight to a field camp is approved, an old hand in the group suggests we bring fresh apples as a present.
The camp we are visiting is Lake Hoare, named for the lake that it overlooks. We are in an unusual area known as the Dry Valleys. The camp sits in front of a towering wall of ice called Canada glacier. The rest of the valley is completely ice-free and at first seems barren. When we land and climb down from the helicopter, we are greeted by Rae Spain, who manages the day-to-day activity at the camp. That includes coordinating helicopter flights and cargo drop offs, opening and closing the camp each season, and cooking and baking, too. Spain has been at Lake Hoare for 16 seasons and has worked in the U. S. Antarctic Program for 32 years.
Mike Gooseff is a researcher at Lake Hoare who has spent nine seasons on the ice. Gooseff is a hydrologist, which means he studies the way water moves through an environment. For several weeks in the Antarctic summer, the 24-hour sunshine and warmer temperatures are enough to melt a tiny amount of ice from the surrounding glaciers. The runoff is enough to create small temporary steams that feed nearby lakes. Adam Wlostowski, a student of Gooseff's, explains how the glacial stream flow is measured. In recent years, the flow has increased, which is causing Lake Hoare to rise. There are many things affecting this system that scientists want to understand better, says Gooseff.
We eat a delicious carrot cake and researchers talk about their favorite camp foods. It starts to lightly snow and each of the nine people at the camp heads to his or her tent to sleep. There is a main building which houses the kitchen, communication center and work desks, plus smaller buildings for labs, bathrooms, and storage areas. Tents for sleeping are arranged in a large area around the camp.
The next morning Spain is on the radio confirming our helicopter ride to another location and updating weather conditions at the camp. "Winds are calm, view is unrestricted," she reports. We get ready to head out to meet researchers in a nearby valley. Gooseff and his student, along with another researcher and a mountaineer, will take measurements on Canada glacier. They strap on special climbing harnesses. "Today we will be roped in for safety," explains Gooseff, "because we are going higher up on the glacier." We can hear a helicopter from far away. Gooseff identifies the model even before we see it because of the deep and distinctive thump-thump-thump it makes.
Sampling a Stream
After 15 minutes in the air, the helicopter pilot spots three figures in the distance. Diane McKnight and two of her students are waiting for us. The researchers are part of the group known as the "stream team." One of the students, Aneliya Sakaeva, will be taking samples of the water that flows in the temporary streams. She will also take samples of the orange and black mats of microorganisms that live on the bottom of these shallow streams. The organisms that live in the streams survive being freeze-dried most of the year. And yet they spring back to life within 15 minutes when water enters the stream again.
Sakaeva is studying a group of organisms called diatoms. The water is freezing cold but she is patient and careful, taking samples and recording measurements at certain points along the stream. Another group of researchers called the "wormherders" sample the organisms that live in the soils surrounding the streams. And still other research teams study the lakes into which the streams flow. The research being conducted in the Dry Valleys is part of a much larger project called Long Term Ecological Research (LTER), which has 25 sites worldwide.
We hike with McKnight and her students to a small nearby field camp next to another lake. We have tea and coffee, and some of the researchers eat lunch. The Lake Hoare camp will be open for another couple of weeks, but this camp is closing for the season today. Life in the field camps is clearly a challenge, but one that researchers and the people who make their work possible also love. "You don't really think you'll never come back," says Spain. "There may come a time when I'm not coming down here. But his place will never leave me."
"We call it the penguin rodeo," says Jean Pennycook. It's only a 20-minute helicopter ride away from McMurdo Station, but the place we are flying to, Cape Royds, is also a doorway into two other worlds. The first is the world of penguins. The second is the historic world of the first explorers to Antarctica.
There are eight of us flying above the snow and ice and rocky peaks. The volcano Mt. Erebus looms above us. Our crew consists of the penguin research team, which includes Pennycook, Scott Jennings, and Annie Schmidt. There is Peter West of the National Science Foundation (NSF), teacher and NSF Einstein Fellow Lynn Reed and myself. And there is also helicopter pilot Keith Cox, crew member Taylor Smith, and mechanic Seth McCallister.
When we reach Cape Royds, we all climb out, and head down the rocky hill to where the penguins nest. As we walk, we all marvel at the beautiful landscape, the ice, the water, and most of all the penguins.
Banding Penguins
The purpose of our trip is to band penguin chicks. This means we will put a small metal band with an identifying number on the chick's left wing. We will then weigh the chick and measure the length of its wing. Being able to identify individual chicks will help researchers answer important questions. Why does the size of penguin colonies vary so much? Why would one colony have 4,000 breeding pairs of penguins, when nearby colonies have 36,000 and 130,000 pairs? What are the benefits to the penguins of living in a small or large colony?
We use low movable fences to quietly corral, or surround, a group of penguin chicks. The chicks are about a month old and still stay pretty close to the nests in which they hatched. Pennycook invites everyone to help out, including the helicopter crew, explaining to us how to make sure we don't hurt the penguins. Pennycook loves to share her excitement about all things penguin! We get started around 8:00 pm (remember it's light 24 hours a day here this time of year). For more than three hours we carefully move the corral and gently band, measure, and weigh fuzzy gray penguin chicks.
After we are done banding, Pennycook collects samples of penguin waste she will later analyze. She is looking for the tiny disk-shaped earbones (called otoliths) of the fish the penguins eat. A penguin's diet is a combination of krill, the tiny shrimp-like crustacean that is food for so many other animals in the Antarctic, particularly whales. Sometimes penguins eat mostly fish and sometimes they eat mostly krill. It was a puzzle, says Pennycook. Why would they change their diet? It turns out that penguins eat mostly fish when groups of Minke whales are feeding on krill in the same area. Those whales don't eat penguins, but penguins still like to give them plenty of room!
It is the last day of Pennycook's field season and so she also lowers the flag that flies above the camp. Pennycook invites classrooms to send her homemade flags that she flies over the camp and then returns to the class. She also posts photos and stories each day during the research season that students can read at the penguin science website.
Early Explorers
It was after midnight when we finished banding the chicks. But the evening was beautiful and we weren't ready to go home yet. We all visited the nearby historic hut of the British explorer Ernest Shackleton, who first explored Cape Royds in 1908. The hut has very carefully restored with the help of the Antarctic Heritage Trust. Pennycook has seen the hut many times, but says "it still takes my breath away." In the hut you can see socks hanging out to dry, shoes by the stove, clothes laid out on the bed, and cans of food neatly lined up on pantry shelves.
After we are done, we board the helicopter. But we still aren't quite ready to go home. We have one more stop, at Cape Evans, the home of another historic hut. This hut, built in 1911, was from the expedition of Robert Falcon Scott, the British explorer who made it to the South Pole in January, 1912, just a month after the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached it first. Scott's hut at Cape Evans was larger than Shackelton's and even had a stable for the Siberian ponies that he brought on the expedition.
We fly from Cape Evans and get back to the helicopter pad at McMurdo at 2 a. m. It is definitely late! But everyone agrees that it has been an extraordinary journey into the world of penguins as well as the heroic age of early Antarctic explorers.
The largest ice-free region in Antarctica is a barren but beautiful area known as the McMurdo Dry Valleys. When the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott first came across the valleys more than 100 years ago, he described them as lifeless: "... we have seen no living thing, not even a moss or a lichen; all that we did find... was the skeleton of a Weddell seal, and how that came there is beyond guessing. It is certainly a valley of the dead..."
Scientists have since found that Scott was wrong. The Dry Valleys are one of the driest deserts in the world -- they average less than half an inch of precipitation a year. But they are not lifeless. In that dry habitat of sand and rocks, there are entire ecosystems of microscopic organisms that spring to life when water is added. For a few weeks each summer, the temperatures are warm enough -- and the sun strong enough -- to melt glacial ice, which can create streams. Colorful mats of bacteria grow along the streambeds and tiny organisms live in the damp soils surrounding the streams. But the streams dry out completely, so the organisms must be able to withstand freeze-drying, often for many years.
Survival of the Fittest
The organisms that survive -- and thrive -- in such harsh conditions can withstand freeze-drying. Most are microscopic, but a few are visible (barely) to the naked eye. The largest organisms in the Dry Valleys are the collembola, commonly known as springtails. (In the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, there is an insect called a midge that is larger.) But what about penguins? Like sea birds and seals, penguins aren't considered truly terrestrial, even though they spend time on the ice and land. Researchers joke that springtails are the "elephants" of the continent (30 springtails lined up would be about an inch long). Other common, but uncommonly tough, organisms include tiny worms called nematodes. There are also rotifers, mites, and tardigrades (also called water bears, which look like potatoes with eight bear-like claws).
Byron Adams of Brigham Young University and Eric Sokol of Virginia Tech are two researchers in the group of scientists who call themselves "The Wormherders." They study the relationships between the organisms and the soils they live in. Many teams of scientists study the Dry Valleys as part of a worldwide project called LTER, for Long Term Ecological Research. As Sokol explains it, "a common thread among all of us is our effort to understand how the biota [living organisms] and the environment are connected, and how they will change as the climate changes. Some scientists focus on nutrients in the soil or water, others study glaciers. Many study the biota that live in the soils, streams, and lakes, others study geology."
Preserved Pieces of the Past
But what about that mummified seal that Scott and his team of explorers found so many miles from the sea? Good question! It turns out that a lot of seals end up in the Dry Valleys, but not on purpose. It's clear the seals got lost, but not clear why. Once a seal ends up there, its body can be preserved by the dry cold for a thousand years, which is why there are so many seal mummies scattered around the valleys. Paul Koch of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Brenda Hall of the University of Maine, are two researchers who have been studying the seal mummies to find clues about the conditions in which the seals once lived hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago. Their findings help scientists know what questions to ask about how animals lived, their diets, and how they responded to changing climate. According to John Nye, a researcher on the team, more than 300 seal mummies were found this season.
Koch and Hall have also found mummified elephant seals in areas where the animals are very rare today. They believe that a warmer climate thousands of years ago enabled animals such as the elephant seals to live along the Ross Sea coast. By studying the mummified remains of seals, researchers might be able to anticipate the effects of climate change on wildlife.
We were headed to the South Pole! Travelers were told to report to the passenger pick up in McMurdo at 6:45 am. But passenger-service staffer Kristy Queen informed us that because of a mechanical issue, our flight would be delayed. Nearly 12 hours later we would finally take off from McMurdo and head south. Because of weather and the complications of flying in Antarctica, our experience wasn't unusual, explained Queen. This is her fourth season at McMurdo. She is considering "wintering over" this year, which means she will stay to work during the dark Antarctic winter. Queen grew up in Granville, Michigan, and read TFK in school. She says she was inspired to seek adventure and look for a job in Antarctica after talking to a friend who served in the Peace Corps.
Pilot Dave LaFrance of the New York Air National Guard has been flying to and from the Pole since 1997. He piloted the plane that took us to the Pole and back. I was lucky to sit next to him in the cockpit. As we fly over the spectacular Transantarctic Mountains, LaFrance points down to the extraordinary view. "This is our milk run," he says. "I've flown this hundreds of times." As remarkable as the view is, LaFrance says he prefers the views he sees on flights to the "deep camps" way out in the middle of nowhere. He has taken research teams that look for meteorites and others that look for dinosaur bones to these deep camps. Flights to deep camps are not routine.
From the window, I observe large "wrinkles" far below the plane in the snow. LaFrance explains that the wrinkles are large cracks in the ice called crevasses. They are one reason flights to deep camps are not routine. Glaciers move fast -- some move more than three feet in a day. When they rub and push against each other or against mountains, the result can be cracks and tears in the ice. "Back in 1998, one of our planes landed on a crevasse that was covered by snow," says LaFrance. "It was big enough for the plane to get stuck in it and we lost an engine. But it was actually lucky we ran into it. Two hundred yards further, there was a crevasse that would have swallowed the plane."
Scientists at Work
While I was waiting for the flight to take off, I had the opportunity to talk to Jason Gallichio. He is a physicist who worked for nearly a year at the South Pole Telescope. The telescope is used to look at the universe far beyond what can be seen with the naked eye. Visible light is just a narrow portion of the electromagnetic energy that fills the universe. Electromagnetic energy of different wavelengths can tell astronomers things about the universe that visible light can't.
The South Pole Telescope isn't the only large science experiment at the Pole. There is a project called Ice Cube that consists of a large grid of detectors buried deep into the ice. The detectors are designed to "catch" particles called neutrinos that constantly bombard the Earth from space. Neutrinos are produced by nuclear reactions in space, including those that take place in the Sun. These particles are much smaller than even atoms. They are so unimaginably tiny that they pass right through the Earth. That's what makes them so incredibly hard to detect.
A third major project at the South Pole Station is the Atmospheric Research Observatory, which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is referred to as the "Clean Air" Observatory and is responsible for collecting information on changes in the global atmosphere, particularly the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. (Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas produced by human activity that scientists believe is responsible for climate change.) Antarctica is a perfect place on the planet to sample air and detect changes in the atmosphere. That's because the continent's air is so clean and not affected by the pollution from the rest of the world.
An Epic Journey
What's more difficult than getting to the South Pole? Building a research station there! The current research station was completed in 2008. LaFrance said it took five years to build it. "Crews were making five flights a day to the pole," he says. The planes carried construction materials, equipment, and workers.
It's possible to drive to the South Pole. But vehicles only make the trip a two to three times a year. The trip is done for one very special reason: to bring fuel to the Pole. In Antarctica, all equipment -- from power plant generators to bulldozers that travel at a speed of four miles per hour -- use jet fuel. It doesn't freeze or thicken at low temperatures like other fuels do. A plane can bring only a relatively small amount of fuel. This is why a few times a year, a special expedition called the South Pole Traverse is mounted from McMurdo to the Pole. Heavy tractor-like vehicles drag large thick bladders of fuel that sit on thick plastic sheets. The bladders look like huge, super-tough balloons. One traverse can drag 120,000 gallons of jet fuel to the Pole.
The South Pole Traverse is an epic journey. It takes four weeks to drive to the Pole. That's about 45 miles each day, driving 12 hours a day. A special vehicle goes ahead with a radar instrument on a long boom, which is used to detect crevasses. "The first traverses were done back in the 1950s. It was very dangerous and there were accidents," says McMurdo Station Area Manager Steve Dunbar. "Aerial images helped map out a route." He explains that the jet fuel that Antarctica runs on is a special blend that not many refineries make. This year's supply comes from a refinery in Athens, Greece. It will be delivered by ship to McMurdo in the next two weeks.
More than a 100 years ago, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole. Just a month later, the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott also reached the Pole, but tragically died on the return trip. Reaching the South Pole was an extraordinary achievement. Traveling to the Pole today, as well as living and working there, may have become more routine, but it is every bit as remarkable.
Coldest, emptiest, iciest, awesomest. The continent of Antarctica deserves many superlatives. McMurdo Station, the largest of the three U.S. research bases, can claim a few superlatives of its own, including "most fascinating small town on the planet.
A sign posted outside the dining hall at McMurdo tracks the exact number of people living there. During the summer months (November to February), McMurdo has a population of around 800 people. In the summer, the sun never sets and temperatures are often above zero and can sometimes reach 40 F. In the winter months, when temperatures plunge to -50 F and the sun never rises, the population is less than 200. Most residents stay for only part of the year, some spend two or three months, while others stay six months. A few spend the entire year. Many Antarcticansas the most enthusiastic residents call themselvescome back year after year.
Many things make McMurdo a fascinating community. For starters, the scientific researchers, who study everything from penguins to meteorites to the tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called krill, are an amazing group. They are constantly adding to the wealth of knowledge about the continent and its creatures, as well as changes in climate and ocean ecosystems. But Antarctica also attracts a diverse and talented community of people who don't look through microscopes or collect specimens from the wild. Carpenters, cooks, and plumbers live at McMurdo. There are also cargo and fuel specialists, helicopter pilots, heavy-equipment mechanics, and logistics experts. Many people specialize in planning and coordinating the complicated schedules that keep everything running as smoothly as possible at the station. All these people share a deep desire to work and live in an environment that is both extreme and extraordinary.
Its a 24-hour Town
While the scenery is breathtaking, don't expect to see gleaming buildings or beautiful architecture in McMurdo. The buildings are strictly functional and most look like industrial warehouses, garages, or storage trailers. It's impossible to tell from the outside what goes on in the inside of many buildings. Is that the laundry or the crafts room or the coffeehouse? McMurdo operates round the clock. Some people work during the day and others work during the night. Of course, in the summer, night looks the same as day. People live in dorms. Nothing fancy. On the doors of many rooms are signs that say "daysleeper," which lets neighbors know that this person works at night and sleeps during the day.
Hard work and respect for each other and the environment are standard. But resourcefulness and imagination seem to be as well. Just in the few days that I've been here, McMurdo has featured its annual art show, the McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery, and thrown a huge party with a terrific live band. That same night, an enthusiastic group raised more than $2,000 for charity by auctioning off the right to creatively shave off the beards or mustaches of hairy volunteers. The next morning, McMurdo hosted its marathon, for runners as well as skiers. The participants circled out to one of the runways and back. The research base also hosts regular science lectures as well as recreation and sporting events.
Being at McMurdo and writing about science and life on the ice for readers of TFK is a once-in-a-lifetime privilege for me. For so many people here, however, it is a way of life. Some researchers have been coming to Antarctica for 20 or 30 years! There are a great many people in a wide range of jobs, however, who count their "ice time"thats the amount of time they have spent on the continentin decades. No wonder people consider McMurdo home and are fiercely proud to be Antarcticans.
In tomorrows post, I tell you how the base manages energy, water, and waste, as well as how it gets supplies and takes care of the needs of the people who live and work there.
In Antarctica, you learn not to take anything for granted.  Not even things as basic as food, water, or energy. The reason? Everything people depend on has to be shipped or flown into the continent. Why? There are no farms in on the icy continent. The only plants are mosses and lichens. There are certainly no cows, pigs, or chickens. Whether your favorite food is pizza or burritos, all of the ingredients have to come from other continents. As for drinking water, special systems and a great deal of energy are needed to take to salt out of seawater to make it useable.
Then there is the matter of waste. The U.S. Antarctic Program is committed to reducing its impactor footprinton the Antarctic environment. That means that every bit of garbage a person might produce in a day has to be transported off the continent. That's true whether it's the wrapper from your candy bar or the green beans you didn't want to eat or the paper towels you used to wipe your hands.
McMurdo Station managers remind community members to adopt the values and habits of conservation. The station has put into place technology that helps it reduce its footprint. It starts with energy. The U.S. research base has partnered with its nearby neighbor, New Zealand's Scott Base, to share energy produced from three large wind turbines. Scott Base Kiwisas the New Zealanders are calledget 100% of their power from wind, says power-plant manager Ron Blevins, while the American base gets about 35% of its energy from wind. The much larger U.S. base uses oil-fired generators to supply the rest of its energy needs. The waste heat produced by the generators is then used to warm many of its buildings.
Water-plant manager Paul Jones says it takes energy and special technology to remove the salt from seawater to produce drinking water. McMurdo uses about 45,000 gallons of water a day. People are encouraged to conserve water. At the South Pole Station, where snow and ice must be melted for drinking water, people are limited to two-minute showers twice a week!
The McMurdo base also has a wastewater treatment plant that takes care of sewage. Yubecca Bragg, who is an organic farmer in West Virginia during the Antarctic winter, manages the treatment plant. Bragg explains that sewage treatment depends on allowing microorganisms to break down the wastes until the liquid part of the waste can be safely released into the ocean. Between 150,000 and 180,000 pounds a year of the remaining solid waste, called sludge, is packed into containers and sent back to the U.S.
Whats on the Cargo Ships?
The people who live and work in McMurdo fly into and out of the continent along with their luggage and scientific equipment. But the food and fuel, machinery and supplies that keep the town running come in by cargo ships. There is one ship that brings fuel and another ship that brings cargo. The cargo ship takes back all of the waste, from construction materials to glass, paper, plastic, and metal that has been carefully recycled. Both ships will be arriving at McMurdo in the next two weeks.  It takes 10 days to unload and reload the cargo ship, and about 40 hours to unload the fuel. All fuel and supplies must be delivered during the short Antarctic summer. Nothing comes in or goes out during the long, dark Antarctic winter.
To live and work at the bottom of the world, whether you are there to study penguins or bake bread, requires very careful planning. And as visitors to Antarctica quickly discover, every plan always requires a backup planand a backup plan to the backup plan.
Plans can change very fast in Antarctica. The U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) usually schedules two days for visitors to prepare in Christchurch, New Zealand, before they fly to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. But the runways in McMurdo are made of ice, and warmer weather this week had melted away one runway and was turning another into slush. That meant that the group TFK was part of would have to fly on an aircraftthe LC-130 Herculesspecially outfitted with skis. Skis are required because the wheels of a regular aircraft's landing gear would cut deep ruts into the soft ice of the runway. The crews who fly the Hercules with skis are from the New York State Air National Guard. The Guard has 10 planes and 26 crews who take USAP staff, scientists, and visitors to and from Antarctica. Our two-day prep time was shortened to one day because a Hercules with skis was available right away.
On the morning of our departure, we headed to the USAP's Christchurch center where we put on our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW)overalls, parkas and bunny bootsand stuffed our hats and gloves or mittens in our parka pockets. We packed the rest of our gear into a checked bag along with our regular luggage. We also packed what is called a "boomerang" bag in case our flight "boomeranged" and had to turn back to Christchurch because of bad weather around McMurdo.
At the center, we watched videos on recycling, which is extremely important in Antarctica, and safety. Cold weather accounts for only 2% of injuries on the continent. Slips and falls account for most injuries. After the screening, each visitor was weighed with his or her luggage and carry-on bags. It's important to know exactly how much weight will be on the plane. How important? About 30 minutes after we had all checked in, the flight coordinator announced, "Well, folks, three people are not flying today because we have exceeded our load limit." Those three passengers would have to catch the next flight out in a couple days.
The View from the Cockpit
Our group of about 30including scientists, technical specialists, two newly hired cargo workers, and an eight-person film crew from New Zealand TVcrammed into a bus that took us to the USAP runway. Flight loadmasters Mike Goldman and Nick O'Neil explained flight rules and safety equipment.
We boarded the plane and picked spots along the red nylon bench seats that lined the sides of the plane. It's not a fancy craft. There are only a few small porthole windows. During the eight-hour flight, the passengers stretched out, slept, and read books. We all had to wear earplugs or protective headgear because of the noise. The temperature in the military plane ranged from comfortable to sweltering to downright cold. We each received a hearty bag lunchtwo large sandwiches, several muffins, cookies, granola and candy bars, plus two bags of chips and an apple. I sat next to Elana Hawke, who is traveling with the New Zealand group. Elana won the 2013 Antarctic Youth Ambassador Environmental Award given by The Sir Peter Blake Trust.
In the cockpit, pilot Paul Breton, co-pilot Paul Benintenole, navigator Ernie Grey, and flight engineer Brandon Guthinger stayed in contact with ground control in Auckland, New Zealand. At the flights halfway point, they tuned in McMurdo ground control to decide whether conditions would permit the plane to land. If not, we had enough fuel to fly back to Christchurch. Breton said that the decision to turn back happens in about one in 20 flights. He has been flying USAP flights for 18 years. This is my last time down here, he told TFK. Im going to miss it. Because of the noise, it was difficult to hear each other. One of the crew loaned me his headset to make it easier to converse with the pilot. While we talked through our headphones, I could hear the crackle of ground radio conversations.
As we approached the coastline of the continent, Breton invited me into the cockpit to see the dramatic white coastline of Antarctica come into view against the deep dark blue sea. As it did, we smiled at each other and shook our heads in awe of Antarctica.
What did you think when your dad first suggested building a hand for you with a 3D printer?
LEON McCARTHY:
It seemed like it would be very hard to achieve. But it wasnt. It was actually a lot of fun to make.
How often do you wear the hand?
I dont wear it all the time. I use it like a tool. I only use it when I need it.
What does the hand allow you to do that you couldnt do before?
It really helps me do things better. I can carry more than one thing now. Im able to hold two grocery bags and help my mom carry them. Without the hand, I can rest a grocery bag on my left arm, but because that arm is shorter than the other one, theres not a lot of room for the bag to rest on.
How does the hand work?
The fingers close when I bend my wrist, and they open up when I release my wrist.
How does it feel when youre wearing it?
Its pretty comfortable. But there are still some edges that we need to smooth out because they dig into my skin.
What was the reaction of the kids at your school when they saw the hand?
They wouldnt leave me alone! They all wanted to touch it and they asked me a lot of questions about it.
What are some changes youd like to make to the design?
Its made of plastic, so its kind of slippery. I cant get much of a grip. So Id like to add some rubber to make it easier to grasp things. Id also like the fingers to close completely. They cant do that right now, so Im not able to hold thin objects like a pencil. And Id like to add a laser pointer.
Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and emptiest place on Earth. It is home to penguins and teeming sea life along its coast. But it was only 120 years ago that the first human ever set foot on the continent. Deep freeze conditions over millions of years have created an enormous ice sheet that covers Antarcticathe ice is nearly three miles thick in places! Yet the continent is also the driest desert on the planet. 
Tourists visit the coast of Antarctica during the summer, which is from November to February in the southern hemisphere. They get to see penguins, seals, whales, and a spectacular icy landscape. But the people who live and work on Antarctica are mostly scientists and those who help them carry out their research. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the U.S. agency that funds this research through its Polar Programs, which supports scientists in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. The NSF also makes it possible for journalists and photographers to visit Antarctica to report on research being conducted there. Thanks to one of these grants, TFK has the pleasure and privilege of visiting the icy continent this month. The NSF also makes it possible for artists, filmmakers, and poets to visit Antarctica.
Peter West of the NSF will be accompanying TFK on its adventure. He has been a spokesperson for the Office of Polar Programs for the past 12 years and has had the opportunity to stand at both the North Pole and the South Pole. Each year, we send about 125 teams of scientists to our three research stations in Antarctica, says West. Some scientists study the movement of glaciers or the activity of volcanoesone, Mt. Erebus, is rumbling right now! Others study whales, seals, birds, fish, or tiny microorganisms in the soil. There are even scientists who look for meteorites and ancient dinosaur bones. At the South Pole station, adds West, there are astronomers and other researchers who monitor changes in the atmosphere. The NSF makes it all possible, from outfitting the scientists with special cold-weather gear, which includes extra-warm parkas, gloves, and sleeping bags, to getting them into and around the continent on planes, helicopters, and snow tractors.
Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, following Asia, Africa, North America, and South America.
The 1961 Antarctic Treaty calls the continent a pristine laboratory of worldwide significance.
The lowest known land point in Antarctica is in the Bentley Subglacial Trench. It is the worlds lowest elevation not under seawater.
Antarctica holds about 70% of the Earths fresh water.
Precipitation is so sparse on the continent that it is classified as one of the worlds driest deserts.
Although the sun shines continuously in the summer months, the rays hit the land at too sharp an angle to melt the ice.
At the South Pole, the average temperature is -56.2 degrees F and the record high is 7.5 degrees F.
According to findings from a NASA satellite, temperatures in East Antarctica dipped to -135.8 degrees F in August 2010. That is the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. On July 31, 2013, that mark was almost reached again when the temperature plummeted to -135.3 degrees F.
U.S. explorer Admiral Richard Byrd called Antarctica the last continent of silence.
When Ernest Shackleton packed for his trip to Antarctica in July 1914, he seemed ready for anything. Among the items he and his crew stowed in his ship were cans of meat, a miniature pool table, a banjo, lanterns, a bicycle, and soccer balls. Shackleton hoped to become the first person to travel across the frozen continent at the bottom of the world.
But nothing could have prepared Shackleton or his crew for what did happen. Instead of crossing Antarctica, they made history in one of the most incredible survival stories ever.
Stuck in Miles of Ice
Shackleton was already famous when he prepared for the 1914 trip. In 1908 he had come within 100 miles of the South Pole but had turned back because of bad weather.
By 1914, he was eager for another adventure. Nearly 5,000 people volunteered to go with him. Shackleton chose a crew of 26 sailors and scientists, plus a photographer, Frank Hurley. On the way to Antarctica, Shackleton picked up at least 69 sled dogs to pull the explorers on the long trek across land.
Shackletons last stop before heading for Antarctica was a whaling station on South Georgia Island. Norwegian whalers told the crew that it was a bad year for ice.
They were right. Upon entering the Weddell Sea, Shackleton was forced to zigzag through dangerous ice sheets, sometimes passing more than 400 icebergs a day. On January 18, 1915, the ice closed around the ship. It was stuck, as one sailor put it, like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar.
Although he was less than 100 miles from Antarctica, Shackleton soon realized he could not possibly cross the continent that winter. The crew would just have to wait.
Fighting Boredom and Cold
As the ship slowly drifted with the ice, the sailors played cards, listened to records, held singing contests, or got silly haircuts. On the snow outside, the men built fancy dogloos with porches and domes. Some even slept with the dogs for warmth. Meanwhile Hurley kept busy taking photos. He often braved the cold while others stayed inside.
The ship was locked in ice for 10 months. By October 1915, the ice was crushing its thick wooden walls. It was a sickening sensation, Shackleton wrote in his diary. He ordered the crew to leave. They grabbed what they could, including 150 of Hurleys precious photos.
A Heroic Rescue
The sailors struggled to reach land on three lifeboats they dragged across ice and rowed through frigid waters. They shivered in their thin coats, which often froze solid. At times they had to crawl through slush to avoid sinking. While killer whales swam around them, Shackleton and his men ate penguin and burned seal blubber for fuel. Sadly, when they ran out of food for the dogs, the crew had to shoot them.
Eventually, the crew landed on Elephant Island. But it was deserted. So Shackleton bravely set out again with five of his strongest men. They sailed and rowed 800 miles in a tiny boat, battling high waves, winds, and severe thirst. Finally they landed at South Georgia Island, where they almost died climbing jagged peaks for three days before reaching the whaling station. The thought of those fellows on Elephant Island kept us going, said Shackleton.
Four months after Shackleton sailed away, one of the men on Elephant Island spotted a ship offshore. When it came closer, the crew recognized Shackleton. They began to laugh and hug. They were rescued!
To the worlds amazement, all 28 members of the Endurance expedition arrived home safely. How? Many say it is because Shackleton was a true hero. As the explorer said, "If you're a leader, you've got to keep going."
On December 24, the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian research ship carrying 52 passengers and 22 crew members, became trapped in the Antarctic ice. In the following days, three different rescue attempts by icebreakers failed. Finally, on January 2, a Chinese helicopter swooped in to take the passengers off the ship. Scientists and tourists who were onboard the ship were flown in groups to a nearby Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis.
Climate scientist and expedition leader Chris Turney spoke to the Associated Press by satellite phone about the long-awaited rescue. I think everyone is relieved and excited to be going on to the Australian icebreaker and then home, he said.
A Shortened Expedition
The research ship had departed New Zealand for Antarctica on November 28. It became locked in thick sea ice on Christmas Eve after strong winds pushed the ice around the ship, freezing it in place. The ship is trapped about 1,700 miles south of the Australian island of Tasmania.
Three icebreakersships designed to create passages through icewere sent to try to reach the ship, but all three failed. The Aurora Australis came within 12 miles of the ship on December 30, but severe weather forced it to return to open water.
Blinding snow, strong winds, and ice conditions thwarted all the rescue attempts, which were organized by the Australian Maritime Safety Authoritys Rescue Coordination Centre. On January 2, the group identified a large patch of sea ice near the Aurora Australis that could be used as a landing spot for a helicopter.
A helicopter from a Chinese icebreaker named the Snow Dragon was then able to begin flights to the stranded Russian ship. The helicopter carried the passengers in groups of 12 to a landing spot, where a small boat ferried them to the Australian ship.
The Aurora Australis will take the 52 passengers to Tasmania. The journey is expected to last two weeks. The Akademik Shokalskiys 22 crew members have remained on board. They plan to wait until the ice that surrounds the ship breaks up. The ship has plenty of supplies on board and is not in danger of sinking.
Turney and his team of researchers were aboard the research ship as part of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. They had hoped to recreate Australian explorer Douglas Mawsons 100-year-old voyage to Antarctica to study how the environment has changed since the original journey.
The scientists used the time before their rescue to gather research near the ship, including counting birds and drilling through ice to photograph sea life. The expedition has been cut short, but Turney said his spirits remain high. Im a bit sad its ended this way, he said. But we got lots and lots of great science done.
For decades, U.S. astronauts traveled to space and back aboard NASA space shuttles. But in 2011, NASA retired its shuttles, and U.S. astronauts were left without a ride of their own.
NASA astronauts still travel to the International Space Station (ISS), a floating space lab in the sky. But to get there, they have to hitch a ride aboard a Russian craft called a Soyuz. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars sending our astronauts to space this way. The price per ride is more than $60 million for one astronaut.
NASA wants to be able to fly people to space from U.S. soil once again. In order to make that possible, the agency wants to pay U.S. companies to build spaceships that it can use. The plan is known as the Commercial Crew Program.
The government is asking Congress to set aside $821 million for the program this year. The money would be used to help a few different companies develop new spacecraft that NASA hopes to use for rides to the space station by 2017.
But some lawmakers do not think it would be money well spent. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby thinks that more funding should instead go to the development of NASAs Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS is a powerful rocket that NASA is designing to one day send astronauts on much longer tripseven to Mars.   
According to Shelby, giving companies money to build spaceships for travel to the space station diverts critical resources from NASAs goal of developing human space flight capabilities with the SLS.
What do you think? Should NASA pay companies to fly astronauts to the International Space Station? Or should NASA use its funds to develop its own spacecraft, such as the SLS?
Mars was the first planet that humans attempted to reach. Since the 1960s, scientists have been working to learn about the Red Planets past. We now know that Mars was once a warm, wet place with great oceans and deep rivers. We also know that about 3.7 billion years ago, all that water disappeared when the planet lost its air. But why did the atmosphere on Mars change so dramatically?
This week, NASA launched the MAVEN spacecraft in hopes of answering that very question. MAVEN will study the remains of Marss air and help scientists figure out what became of the rest of it.
Marvelous MAVEN
The spacecraft launched on Monday, November 18, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The trip to Mars takes about 10 months, and MAVEN is scheduled to go into orbit in September 2014. It is the first spacecraft created exclusively to study the Martian upper atmosphere. Its wingspan measures 37.5 feetnot quite the length of a school busand it weighs 1,991 poundsabout the same amount as a small car.
MAVEN is equipped with eight different tools to measure and study the planets atmosphere. To collect information, it will fly in an orbit as fast as 3,278 miles per hour, and as slow as 93 miles per hour.
Once it arrives at the Red Planet, MAVEN will have plenty of company. The rover Curiosity is still zipping around the planets rocky surface, studying the geology, chemistry and possible biology of Mars. India launched its first unmanned mission earlier this month. NASA currently has a number of orbiters capturing unique views of Mars with powerful cameras and telescopes.
These missions are all slow, steady steps forward to unveil Marss secret past. While the end results may not be revealed for some time, an exciting exploration lies ahead.
Big cats have roamed the earth for millions of years, though scientists arent sure exactly how long. But a new study reveals that a skull of a snow leopard relative that was recently unearthed is 4.4 million year old. That makes it the oldest big cat fossil ever found.
A team of U.S. and Chinese paleontologists unearthed the skull of the newly-named Panthera blytheae in Tibet. The new specimen is not a direct ancestor to big cats, but it is closely related to the snow leopard, study leader Jack Tseng told the Associated Press. The fossil lends evidence to the belief that big cats evolved in Asia and spread out from there.
Origin of Big Cats
Big cats are apex predators, which means that they are at the top of the food chain and have few predators of their own. Also called pantherines, big cats include snow leopards, clouded leopards, tigers, lions, and jaguars. Based on genetic estimates, most scientists believe the felines first evolved in Central Asia. But previously, the oldest known big cat fossil was 3.6 million years old and found in Africa.
The new fossil findings were published in the November 13 issue of the science journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Tseng and his team were fossil hunting in the Himalayas in 2010 when they discovered scattered bones, including the buried cat skull. The researchers were able to determine its age by studying the surrounding rocks and soil. The new fossil is about the size of a large grapefruit, with a broad forehead similar to snow leopards and front teeth that were heavily worn. The skull indicates that the animal was about the size of a clouded leopard, which can grow up to 50 pounds. In 2012, the team returned to excavate more cat bones.
Paleontologist David Polly from Indiana University, who did not work on the study, told the Associated Press that the fossil is convincingly older than the current record holder. He added that there could be even older big cat fossils in the Tibetan plateau to uncover. Maybe the mystery of big cats origins will soon be solved.
Steller sea lions have a reason to celebrate today. The eastern population has been taken off the threatened species list. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided that the population no longer meets the criteria to be considered endangered. In 30 years, the population has grown by more than 50,000.
The Steller sea lion, also known as the northern sea lion, is the largest member of the Otariid (eared seal) family. The eastern populations habitat ranges from the coast of Alaska to California. It is the first animal to be delisted by NOAA since the eastern North Pacific gray whale. That creature was taken off the list nearly 20 years ago, NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle said.
Experts at NOAA recommended delisting the Steller Sea Lions earlier this year.
"We're delighted to see the recovery of the eastern population of Steller sea lions," Jim Balsiger said in a statement. He is the administrator of NOAA Fisheries' Alaska Region. "We'll be working with the states and other partners to monitor this population to ensure its continued health."
To Protect and Preserve
The delisting of the eastern population does not affect the Steller sea lions western population. That groups habitat ranges from Cape Suckling, Alaska, to Russia. The western population remains on the endangered list.
NOAA estimated there were about 18,000 sea lions in the eastern population in 1979. The group was listed as threatened in 1990. The decline was blamed on fishermen and other people killing the animals because they were eating fish and considered a nuisance. In 2010, the most recent year a count was available, the agency estimated just over 70,000 sea lions.
Although the species is being removed from the list, it will still receive protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Speegle said by phone from her office in Juneau.
When an animal is delisted, the Endangered Species Act requires a monitoring plan that covers five years. NOAA has decided to double that length of time to monitor the sea lions over a 10-year period. "We are just proceeding carefully and cautiously to ensure that this species can be maintained in the recovered status," she said.
When things go wrong and were to blame, were supposed to feel guilty. Right? Not necessarily.
It turns out that when we do something that causes a negative outcome, we actually feel less responsible for our actions. And, we see the entire situation differently than we would have if things had turned out well.
The blame game is nothing new. Behavior experts have long known that people push responsibility to others, or to outside factors, when things dont work out. But new research from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London shows that this response is more than about wanting to escape blame  we actually dont believe that what happened is our fault.
Who Me?
To learn more about the blame game, researchers conducted a study. They asked 34 participants to press keys that randomly produced three different noises. The noises were positive (amusement, laughter), negative (fear, disgust, or anger), or neutral.
The volunteers were asked to estimate the time that it took between when they pushed the button and when they heard the sound. Volunteers felt there was a longer lag time between their actions and the negative sounds than between their actions and the positive ones. In their minds, the negative outcomes were separate from their actions. Therefore, they were able to feel less responsible for them.
Taking the Blame
The researchers say that when it comes to assigning blame, we cant always trust our own judgment. Just because you dont feel responsible, doesnt mean youre actually not, says study author Patrick Haggard.
The findings suggest that perhaps more of us need to realize that unpleasant or negative situations may actually be our faultCeven if we dont see it that way. And taking more responsibility for our actions could lead to better relationships with others.
September is an exciting month. It marks the end of summer, and the beginning of the school year. It is also an active time in nature. September is the midpoint of the Atlantic hurricane season, the period when storm activity is at its strongest.
But this year, things in the sky have been unusually quiet. We have seen a few tropical storms, but not a single hurricane. What does this hurricane drought tell us about our planets unpredictable and changing climate?
Storm Season
Hurricanes are large, swirling storms with high winds. The Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30. Some hurricanes take place at other times, but most fall within this period. In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a tropical storm season with between seven and 11 hurricanes. In August, they lowered the prediction to between six and nine hurricanes, but still expected some would become storms with winds exceeding 100 m.p.h.
Though monster storms can hit at any point during this season, like Sandy in late October of 2012, September is historically the biggest month for hurricanes. So the lack of activity this month demands an explanation. Theres an intense scientific debate going on here, wrote science journalist Chris Mooney at Mother Jones. The hurricane picture under climate change may be more complicated than previously supposed.
A Mystery in the Atlantic
For hurricanes to gain speed and power, they must collect warm and moist air. Therefore, they are strongest when theyre over water. Over the summer, the Atlantic Ocean experienced large amounts of warm, dry air. This shift in climate has made Earths atmosphere more stable, and difficult for these strong storms to develop. There has also been a lot of wind shear recently. Wind shear is a rapid change in wind speed and direction. This change also makes it difficult for tropical storms to grow.
Though these theories provide some explanation, scientists are not entirely sure why an intense hurricane has not yet slammed the U.S. In a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), experts speculated that human activity was contributing to global warming, and increasing the amount of storm activity. Now, the absence of a major hurricane has complicated that theory and left storm experts scratching their heads.
However quiet September may be, hurricane season still has another two months to surprise us with a tropical storm. Until then, all we can do is watch, and wait.
No one ever pretended outer space is a welcoming place. The human body seems to revolt at the very idea of being there. No sooner do astronauts arrive in space than up to 40% of them begin throwing up. Most of them adjust soon enough, but they may continue to feel dizzy and tired. Theres also back pain, increased blood pressure, and long term health risksall a result of trying to adjust to zero gravity.
But how much can you blame exclusively on space? NASA now has a way to begin investigating the mystery, in the form of Scott and Mark Kelly, identical twins who just happen to be astronauts.
Oh, Brother!
Mark Kelly has completed four shuttle missions and spent a total of 54 days in space. Scott Kelly has completed two shuttle flights, including a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Mark has since retired from NASA, but Scott is still flying. Scott is set for a full-year aboard the ISS, beginning in March 2015. And that has provided NASA with an unprecedented opportunity to run a nifty experiment.
Twins can be extremely valuable to scientists trying to understand the human body. Because identical twins are a perfect genetic match, most differences in how they age and the illnesses they do or do not develop can be linked to environmental factors or life experiences. NASA will run comparison tests on the two men, both during and after the year-long mission.
NASA will use the results of the study to try to reduce the risks for future astronauts. Long-term plans to explore distant places like Mars and Europa, Jupiters moon, will require astronauts to spend long stretches in space, in some cases even years at a time. In preparing to explore deep space, making sure we can survive the trip is a vital first step.
It is no surprise to see why Lindau, Germany, is a popular summer vacation spot. It is a charming, colorful town, filled with cafes, art galleries, and sailboats, located on Lake Constance, which borders three European countries: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A bigger surprise is that each summer Lindau also opens its doors wide to the world of science. During the first week of July, 625 young scientists from 77 countries gathered here for the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting. A Nobel laureate is a person who has been awarded the highest honor in science and the arts for his or her achievements. 
The goals of the Lindau meetings are: Educate. Inspire. Connect. There were many opportunities for all three. This year, 34 Nobel laureates joined young researchers for a week of science lectures, discussions, and special events, which included visits to local schools, international dinners, and traditional music. Because the meeting organizers knew that talking to the some of the most famous scientists in the world might make a young researcher nervous, they told everyone, "Don't be too shy!"
Explaining the World Around Us
Each year, the Lindau meeting has a theme. This years theme was chemistry, which is a large and important field of science. Chemistry is involved in almost everything, from the shoes we wear to the components of our computers to the food we eat, Jon Moerdyk, a student from the University of Texas, who attended the meetings, told TFK. Chemistry helps explain the world around us. Because of chemistry we are able to have enough food to feed [the worlds] people and drugs to treat diseases.
The young researchers who traveled to Lindau were happy to describe how they became interested in science. Laura Mazzaferro grew up in Argentina and studied in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is now working in a lab in Freiburg, Germany. She says what inspired her were the books my mom gave me that explained the why of many things. For instance, why do storms happen? Mazzaferro now studies chemical reactions in microbes, or tiny organisms, and hopes her research will help people live healthier lives. 
Banothile Makhubela, a young researcher who grew up in South Africa, and Pablo Zamora, who grew up in Chile, both say that it was their love of insects that got them interested in science. When I was about 11 years old, Makhubela says, I was amazed at seeing an insect that produced light when it flew. In a class project with other students, she then learned how certain organisms use chemical reactions to produce light, which is called bioluminescence. For Zamora, it was wondering why insects behaved the way they did that fascinated him. I wanted to explain what I couldn't see, he says.
At Lindau, even the Nobel laureates got into the school spirit. They attended and gave lectures. During discussion sessions, the scientists shared their ideas.
For the past few years, photographer Volker Steger has asked the Nobel laureates to draw the discovery that made them famous. Steger gives each scientist a large piece of paper and a handful of crayons. "Scientists love to draw, he says. Some drawings look complicated. Some look simple, and others are playful. One scientist even wrote a poem. All of the drawings follow the Lindau motto to educate, inspire and connect. Are you ready to be inspired by science too?