December 4, 2024

Six Animal Tracks to Look for on Your Next Hike

Sharman Apt Russell

Imagine walking along a forested mountain trail and coming across footprints impressed in the dirt. You think, “Do they belong to a fox, a bobcat, or a coyote? What animal fits these marks on the ground?” Combining lyrical memoir with...

June 19, 2024

Technology and Vannevar Bush, Fifty Years Later

G. Pascal Zachary

On his death fifty years ago, Vannevar Bush was celebrated with a page one obituary in the New York Times. He died quietly in his home in the late hours of June 29, and his passing was met with the...

June 5, 2024

Five Scientists with Disabilities Whom You Should Know

Skylar Bayer and Gabi Serrato Marks

In 2018, we (Skylar and Gabi) got together and decided that we would create a book with a diversity of stories about disability and medical conditions in STEM, help contributors tell their stories in their own voices, and provide representation...

May 29, 2024

Eye of the Beholder:

Perception of Art and the Brain

Eric R. Kandel

Art is not complete without the perceptual and emotional involvement of the viewer—that is, without our response to it. As a neuroscientist and a lover of art, I am fascinated by this response, which results from the interaction of two...

May 22, 2024

The Rip Current Survival Guide

Rob Brander

The beach. There’s a lot wrapped up in those two words. To some, beaches are associated with the joys of a yearly vacation, but for others they can evoke a scary memory of being caught in a rip current. In...

April 24, 2024

Virginia Hanusik on Into the Quiet and the Light

Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana offers a glimpse into the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry....

April 22, 2024

A Systems Thinking Approach to Teaching About Climate Change

Cassie Xu and Radhika Iyengar

Climate change is one of the largest threats for humanity and has already had a significant impact globally and locally. It is perhaps the most defining issue of our time. It will ultimately test how communities, cities, and countries around...

April 8, 2024

The Power of the Shuar:

How a Small Group of Indigenous People Protected Large Forests

Thomas K. Rudel

Affluent farmers and wealthy groups of investors have continued to destroy extensive tracts of tropical forests in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America over these past forty years. The ongoing loss of these old growth forests has intensified the biodiversity...

April 1, 2024

Five Fascinating Facts About Earth’s Ancient Climate

Donald R. Prothero

Earth’s ancient climate reveals a history of extreme transformations—from a greenhouse world of sweltering temperatures and high sea levels to a “snowball earth” in which glaciers reached the equator. In The Story of Earth’s Climate in 25 Discoveries, Donald R....

December 4, 2023

Q&A: Andy Secher on The Trilobite Collector’s Guide

After a three-decade-long career in the rock ’n’ roll industry—during which he edited the heavy metal magazine Hit Parader, produced two music-oriented TV shows, and created Titanium Records—Andy Secher turned his attention towards another paramount interest: those strange, long-gone marine...

November 17, 2023

Stepping Ashore the Fennoscandian Shield in the Åland Archipelago

Markes E. Johnson

In the narrow Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden, the Åland Islands are dominated by exposures of the 1.6-billion-year-old Rapakivi granite. Limestone is scarce and its fossil content largely unknown to the outside world. Sixty islands are inhabited, surrounded...

November 15, 2023

Q&A: Giving Voice and Data to the Gender Gap in Science

Lisa M. P. Munoz

For more than twenty years, Lisa M. P. Munoz has interviewed hundreds of different scientists about their work in psychology, neuroscience, the geosciences, biotechnology, and immunology, among other disciplines. Time and time again, she heard about the unique struggles facing women...