It was inevitable that sooner or later we would ask bacteria to make electricity.
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E. coli bacteria • Photo by Janice Haney Carr, National Escherichia, Shigella, Vibrio Reference Unit at CDC, USCDCP on Pixnio
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.