Technology has transformed the process of science—this fact is indisputable. It has allowed us to detect elusive particles like the Higgs boson that remained invisible to generations of physicists, to probe the cold vacuum of outer space for habitable Earth-like planets with unmanned spacecraft, to simulate the complex pulses of …
One of the Wired Magazine science blogs, Dot Physics, recently ran a post entitled “Three Science Words We Should Stop Using.” Care to guess what they were? Hypothesis. Theory. Scientific Law. Setting aside for a moment that the third choice is a phrase, rather than a word, this is a …
Two hundred and four years ago today, Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England. He grew up, of course, to become the father of evolution—the first to propose a robust, testable scientific hypothesis to explain the origin and diversification of species. After more than a century of research on the …
And liftoff! At 10:02 a.m. Pacific Standard Time today, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, a collaboration between NASA and the USGS, launched the eighth satellite in service of a scientific mission that dates back more than 40 years. Since 1972, satellites in the Landsat series have been circling the Earth, …
You might say that this robotic fish, developed by researchers at Michigan State University, has grace under water. Her designers, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Xiaobo Tan and his team, call her GRACE (which stands for Gliding Robot ACE). Originally, the robot flapped her tail fin to propel …
“Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.” –Carl Sagan At the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Susan Brantley of Penn State University stood before the audience and stated a dilemma that has attracted …
Well, it’s that time of year again: time to look back and reflect on everything that transpired during our latest trip around the sun. In 2012, there were plenty of moments (or in some cases extended sagas) in science worth remembering–whether for their sense of triumph and discovery or for …
This week at Visionlearning, we’re excited to launch our newest Scientific Research module: Tracking Endangered Jaguars with Sergio Avila. Avila, a wildlife biologist working for the nonprofit conservation group Sky Island Alliance in Tucson, Arizona, has a fascinating job studying jaguars and other wildlife in the U.S.-Mexico border region. Our …
“Clinical trials are powerful tools; like all powerful tools, they must be used with care.” – From Sponsorship, Authorship, and Accountability, an editorial endorsed by The International Committee for Medical Journal Editors Clinical trials to test the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs in humans are at the heart of …
In science, as in the rest of life, things don’t always go as planned. From time to time, accidents, mistakes, and tragedies happen. In the worst cases, these experiences result in serious losses or even catastrophes that can affect many people. In less severe cases they are the painful (and …