Two centuries have elapsed since Joseph Haydn composed his magnificent The Creation oratorio. In all that time, no other musician has given us a better evocation of how the universe began.
Photo by Dukas Lu (CC BY-NC 2.0)
E. coli bacteria • Photo by Janice Haney Carr, National Escherichia, Shigella, Vibrio Reference Unit at CDC, USCDCP on Pixnio
Into the future with bacteria
It was inevitable that sooner or later we would ask bacteria to make electricity.
Photo by Thomas Schweighofer on Unsplash
Hobbit thinking might be wise
I first read J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” in the early 1960s. The maps of Middle Earth attracted my interest. I had not previously heard of Tolkien, and his books were only beginning to become cult favorites of the college crowd.
Ascalapha_odorata • Photo by Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Greatest miracle is under wraps
We call it “the Year of the Bats.” Not your usual bats — the furry, warm-blooded mammals that skate the night sky and (according to myth) get caught in your hair. No, our “bats” are not bats at all; rather they are large black-brown moths with an 8‑inch wingspan, as big as an adult hand.
Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash
Computing origin of the ‘lesser light’
Last week, I watched a just-past-full moon rise over the sea, from a place where the sky was dark enough to observe a lunar “dawn” — the sky noticeably brightening before the moon appeared above the horizon. Not as spectacular as a solar dawn, but beautiful in its own subtle way.
Photo by Peter Miller (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Chemistry holds universe’s secrets
How do you make a universe?
Photo by Arjun MJ on Unsplash
Using evolution against itself
It is a widely held misapprehension that evolution is “just a theory.”
Photo by Gabriel Dizzi on Unsplash
The whale’s tale stirs imaginations
What is it about whales?
Plumes of gas ejected from the eruption of the star Eta Carinae • NASA, ESA, N. Smith, and J. Morse
Universe’s story unfolds in pictures
Question: How do you turn a star inside out? Answer: You give it time.
Medics preparing to treat Ebola victims • Photo by Simon Davis/DFID (CC BY 2.0)
These heroes battle microbes
As if AIDS-afflicted Africa didn’t have enough to contend with, the deadly Ebola virus keeps raising its ugly head, most recently in the West African nation of Gabon.