This Monday marked the 40th birthday of a joint venture of NASA and the USGS: Landsat. documenting changes to the face of the Earth. Two of our admins independently got exited enough to do an article on this event (sorry for the redundancy). But since we got so excited about it and some people were […]
Category Archives: Science
Greener cities = Greener cities!
Polution in the city still is hazardous. Especially nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and microscopic particulate matter (PM) exceed those levels and can be a threat to human health. We already do quite a big deal to decrease polution from traffic. Special filters can get most of the microscopic dust out of the exhaust. But a lot […]
Happy Birthday Landsat!
Since yesterday was my birthday I am particularly happy to proclaim: ?Happy 40th Birthday Landsat!? Landsat is a series of satellites whose only purpose is to explore the continental surface of the Earth. There have been 7 in the series (from which one did not work) and the 8th is in planning and supposed to […]
On the trails of Roald Amundsen
On the trails of Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott. Antarctica is a fascinating continent. Covered in ice and snow last century started out with a race to the geographical South Pole. It took until December 14th, 1911 that a human set foot on the South Pole. It took another 45 years that a station […]
Awesome thin-sections
When looking at rocks, we have one obvious problem. Most rocks are rather opaque. So when you want to analyze you can forget about that lumpy old microscope… But geologists have known a trick since 1858. It’s called a thin-section. You cut down your sample to a mere thickness of 30 micrometer, which is comparable […]
Jurassic Pork
For most of us this might be more on the humorous side of science. But actually studying the mating habits of dinosaurs might lead paleontologists on some important clues of how dinosaurs evolved. Dr. Halstead, known for his candid talk about Dino sex, said the following to “Omni”: “All dinosaurs used the same basic position […]
Batman ends?
Some men just want to watch the world burn. For many batman is a childhood hero. But just as the new movie approaches its premier, four final-year master students publish their findings why batman should rather hang his cape up. It’s not what batman does in general, it’s just that his cape just does not […]
Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a meteor?
I first saw this photo on the telegraph. It was a story on a meteorite crashing into the ocean just at the coast of Perth. However, the information was quite rare. “Meteorologists can’t pick up on these fast moving objects.” as well as “Perth Observatory and Astronomy WA” wasn’t up for a comment. So what’s […]
Start to the Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of Elements and its Ions
Probably you’ve seen the Periodic Table of Heavy Metal over at IFLS. http://on.fb.me/M8CJrh Although I’m quite a metal enthusiast, I have to say this doesn’t quite match the most awesome periodic table I’ve seen. It’s the Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of Elements and Their Ions. There is a popup-version of it with a lot of […]
Geoflow 2 – Geophysics in Space!
How can we image the Earth’s interior when the deepest drillhole is 12 thousand meters deep? Right, we go into space on the ISS. Ok, honestly this is quite counterintuitive, which is why this experiment immediately caught my attention as well. Today I read the Geoflow 2 experiment that is supposed to shed light on […]
