Thirty years after the first exoplanets were discovered, hundreds of additional exoplanets have been identified within the “habitable zone,” a place where liquid water and maybe even life may exist. The MIT Press Reader asks, could a self-sustaining starship carry humans to distant worlds? https://flip.it/0q093h
#Science #Space #SolarSystem #Planets #Humans #SpaceExploration
science
The durability of forever chemicals comes from replacing hydrogen atoms with fluorine atoms in an eight-carbon chain. The strong carbon-fluorine bond does not break down easily. Why that’s a problem for our health on this week’s Big Picture Science.
Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/some-chemicals-are-forever
#Trump #EPA tells scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say
Staff from the EPA’s Office of #Water were summoned to a “town hall” meeting this week & told to pause the publication of most #research, pending a review.
#PublicHealth #Climate #pollution #science #law #EnvironmentalLaw
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/09/20/epa-scientists-research-publications/
Edited 55d ago
When I post about #science & #history, I tend to highlight the trailblazers we don’t usually read or hear about in #HistoryRemix.
But tonight I want to share this beautifully composed piece about Nikola Tesla.
While his inventions are legendary, you may not know how Tesla’s OCD shaped his approach to science & ultimately led to his world-changing ideas. It also left him isolated & alone. But he still experienced deep connection by caring for birds. https://nautil.us/teslas-pigeon-460446/
Edited 1y ago
Only three humans have ever witnessed an eclipse of the Sun by the *Earth*. It happened while the Apollo 12 crew was returning home from the Moon, on November 21, 1969.
Fortunately, the astronauts filmed the moment so you can share in the experience.
https://archive.org/details/Apollo1216mmOnboardFilm [at the 4:50 mark] #space #science #nasa #eclipse
#ICYMI: Are we close to discovering life beyond Earth? Dr. Martin Dominik isn't certain, but he thinks we should be prepared to handle the consequences of finding that life. He spoke with Dr. Franck Marchis in this week's #SETILive. Watch the full interview: https://youtube.com/live/cULB0k2Cb7s
How do we find new trans-Neptunian objects, given that they are small and distant? Astronomer Dr. Rosemary E. Pike explains the necessary observations taken before, during, and after the expected place in the sky. Listen to the latest #SETILive #podcast: https://feeds.libsyn.com/462636/rss
Now here's a gutsy headline. https://www.sciencealert.com/fish-buttholes-may-be-the-reason-we-now-have-fingers-study-finds
#science #evolution
Huzzah! 🥳
We've reached 10,000 followers. Thanks to all the scientists, students, teachers and science nerds who contribute to this community. We just love sharing interesting science news with you.
What would you like to see more of?
#Science #Space #ClimateChange
Options: (choose one)
"Hypotheses, treated as mere poetic fancies in one age, scouted as scientific absurdities in the next — preparatory only to their being altogether forgotten — have often, when least expected, received confirmation from indirect channels, and, at length, become finally adopted as tenets, deducible from the sober exercise of induction."
Michael Faraday #BOTD in 1791.
British scientist Rosalind Franklin died #OTD in 1958.
Her most famous contribution to science came from her X-ray diffraction images of DNA, particularly Photo 51, which provided crucial evidence for the double helix structure of DNA. Her photo was shared without her knowledge with J. Watson & F. Crick, who used it as a basis for their model of DNA's structure. Their work overshadowed her contribution, & she was not fully recognized for her role until after her death.
Edited 1y ago
As a reporter, I've followed the science of gender-affirming care from before the current political moment. I have always committed to following the evidence, whether I like it or don't like it.
Today on Assigned, I've published a piece by a freelancer who did her master's on the informed consent model of gender affirming treatment. She wrote us a digest version.
The narrative is the narrative. The evidence tells another story. #trans #science #news #journalism
https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/informed-consent-what-does-evidence-tell-us
The #EPA Has Done Nearly Everything It Can to Clean Up This Town. It Hasn’t Worked.
==
Despite years of air monitoring, inspections and millions in penalties for petrochemical plants, the air in Calvert City, #Kentucky, remains polluted.
The EPA’s inability to fix it is an indictment of the laws governing clean air, experts say.
#Pollution #Environment #Climate #CleanAir #CleanWater #Cancer #News #Science #Law
There is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe. Scientists using the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes have triple-checked and confirmed that depending on where we look, the universe is expanding at bafflingly different rates. Live Science explains more, including how scientists are ruling out a measurement error as the cause of the “Hubble Tension.” https://flip.it/VDvM6g
#Science #Space #Hubble #HubbleTension #Universe #JWST
French astronomer Charles Messier died #OTD in 1817.
He is best known for his catalog, the Messier Catalog (contains 110 objects), which lists various astronomical objects, including nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. Messier was primarily interested in comet hunting, and his catalog was created to help him and other astronomers differentiate between permanent celestial objects and comets, which could easily be mistaken for new discoveries.
#OTD in 1885.
Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog. This vaccine bwas produced by growing the virus in rabbits, and then weakening it by drying the affected nerve tissue. The vaccine had been tested in 50 dogs before its first human trial. The treatment's success laid the foundations for the manufacture of many other vaccines.
Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, & inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution Christiaan Huygens was born #OTD in 1629.
He developed the wave theory of light, proposing that light propagates as a wave rather than a stream of particles, which was a revolutionary idea at the time. Huygens also invented the pendulum clock, which greatly improved timekeeping accuracy and became widely used in scientific experiments and everyday life.
Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist Ernest Solvay was born #OTD in 1838.
He is best known for his pioneering work in the chemical industry and for the establishment of the Solvay process for the manufacture of soda ash (sodium carbonate). In 1911, he began a series of important conferences in physics, known as the Solvay Conferences, whose participants included Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Henri Poincaré, and Albert Einstein.
#theBeeAt3
Basic bee facts every day at 3pm.
# 181
Bumblebees tend to start struggling to fly when the ambient temperature rises above 100°F (38°C).
#bees
#climate
#nature
#environment
#insects
#education
#science
🐝🌍
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel says AI will help scientists understand "most diseases" in three to five years.
@Semafor quotes the executive: “The reason we still have people dying of cancer, people suffering from Alzheimer's, is we do not understand the fundamental biology of those diseases.”
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Disease #Cancer #Health #Science #Biology #Tech
Edited 1y ago
Many people have learned that horses first came to the Americas when Spanish explorers brought them here about 500 years ago.
But fossils show horses have been in North America for centuries, including during the Americas during the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
https://theconversation.com/horses-lived-in-the-americas-for-millions-of-years-new-research-helps-paleontologists-understand-the-fossils-weve-found-and-those-that-are-missing-from-the-record-223268
#history #science #evolution #horses
The water you're drinking could be older than the Sun!
New ALMA observations show that water molecules carry the same chemical fingerprint all the way from star-forming clouds to planet-forming discs and comets, meaning these molecules have remained unaltered since they first formed.
What is this chemical signature and how do astronomers use it to trace the history of water? Find out: https://www.eso.org/public/blog/water-origin/
#OTD in 1818.
French physicist Augustin Fresnel signs his preliminary "Note on the Theory of Diffraction" (deposited on the following day). The document ends with what we now call the Fresnel integrals.
The Fresnel integrals have various applications in optics, such as in the calculation of the diffraction pattern produced by a single slit or a circular aperture, as well as in the study of the propagation of light through various optical systems.
#OTD in 1865.
Astronomer Angelo Secchi demonstrates the Secchi disk, which measures water clarity, aboard Pope Pius IX's yacht, the L'Immaculata Concezion.
It is a plain white, circular disk 30 cm in diameter used to measure water transparency or turbidity in bodies of water. The disc is mounted on a pole or line and lowered slowly down in the water. The depth at which the disk is no longer visible is taken as a measure of the transparency of the water (Secchi depth).
On Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, at 7 pm (PT), Dr. Steven Kahn (UC Berkeley) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:
"The New Vera C. Rubin Observatory: Surveying the Universe"
in the Smithwick Theater at Foothill College, in Los Altos (see directions at the link below).
The talk is part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series, now in its 26th year.
Learn more: https://www.seti.org/events/the-new-vera-c-rubin-observatory-surveying-the-universe/
