HOW low can you go? Dedicated deep cavers plumb the depths for an answer, and a newly announced expedition may just get to the bottom of it all. For decades, cavers have competed informally to find the world’s deepest cave, pushing the boundaries of science along the way. It’s a perpetual quest –
Matt Covington didn’t sleep much the night before his big swim. Who could blame him? For two days, the wiry caver had, with the help of ropes and ladders, been making his way down through J2, a deep cave in the mountainous Mexican province of Oaxaca. Marcin Gala, an experienced caver from Poland, joined him
Uncharted underground Read More »
Children can be many things. Joyful, energetic and exasperating. Curious, playful and sad. For P.J. Lukac, who is finishing his pediatrics residency at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, children are also a source of inspiration and hope. “They’re a joy to work with, and theymake me laugh,” says the 30-year-oldpediatrician of the children under his care. “Even
On a bright day in the first week of August, Julianna Deardorff escorted five Chilean scientists from Berkeley to The Farm, an agricultural center and farm in Salinas, California, about 100 miles south of the Bay Area. The Farm has been in the same family for four generations; the brothers who run it now have made
Looking for the roots of risk Read More »
If the results from an experiment look too good to be true, look again. Those are wise words to remember. Consider, for example, a recent case of what looked like a breakthrough in treating the deadly virus HIV. The findings turned out to be bogus. All it took was a second look.
Retractions: Righting the wrongs of science Read More »
In the last few years, the sun-to-power efficiency of perovskites has surged at an unprecedented rate. This material is easier to use than conventional silicon, and if scientists can figure out the right way to keep it stable, it could be the future of solar power. I wrote about the stuff in this story from
Perovskite’s solar promise Read More »
Michael McQuilken will never forget the day lightning struck his younger brother. On August 20, 1975, he and Sean hiked to the top of Moro Rock together with their sister Mary and her friend Margie. This granite dome resides in California’s Sequoia National Park. As dark clouds gathered overhead, a light rain started
Where will lighting strike? Read More »
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft recently reached the orbit of Ceres, a dwarf planet and the largest object in the asteroid belt. Read more about the journey here.
How we got to Ceres Read More »
According to ancient historians, Archimedes spent the last moments of his life drawing figures in the dirt, so deeply entranced with the pleasures of geometry that he failed to notice the bloody pillage of Syracuse right outside his door. Aloofness, it’s tempting to conjecture, was his fatal flaw. By many accounts, he paid scant attention when
Archimedes in the Fence Read More »
A mathematical surface known as the Klein bottle is like a mischievous, mathematical cousin of the Moebius Strip, where the inside and the outside are the same side. Among topologists, the Klein bottle is well known as an example of a closed, nonorientable surface. Thanks to artist Bathsheba Grossman, whose sculptures bring
Mathematics in Metal Read More »
