A recent discovery out of the University of California, Davis might one day help to minimize the devastation of major earthquakes. Researchers have developed a process to convert loose, sandy soil into rock by using injections of cultures from a natural bacterium. So far, their process has only …

It’s so complex it takes a numerical matrix of more than 400,000 rows and columns to describe it. After four years, 77 hours of supercomputer time and calculation of 200 billion numbers, 18 mathematicians have been able to map E8–a 57-dimensional object that might eventually help explain the …

Internet Mapping Project (Image 1)

A map of the internet, colored by IP addresses.

This image was produced as part of the Internet Mapping Project. The project was originally created in 1998 by Bell Labs to acquire and save Internet topological data over a long period of time. The data has …

Internet Mapping Project (Image 2)

A map of the internet, colored by IP addresses.

This image was produced as part of the Internet Mapping Project. The project was originally created in 1998 by Bell Labs to acquire and save Internet topological data over a long period of time. The data has …

Discovering Lucy — Revisited (Image 1)

Paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson and a cast of Lucy. In November 1974, Johanson unearthed one of the most influential and significant fossil discoveries of the 20th century–the 3.2 million-year-old partial female skeleton of Australopithecus …

Discovering Lucy — Revisited (Image 4)

Combined stratigraphic dating process, in layers (four layers, top to bottom): top layer is silt and mud deposits; next, volcanic ash layer–dated by argon-40 content; next, fossil layer–dated by measurement of thickness of accumulated sediments between …

Discovering Lucy — Revisited (Image 2)

This illustration interprets a pair of foraging Australopithecus afarensis, known most famously from the fossil of ‘Lucy,’ unearthed by Donald C. Johanson in 1974 in Hader, Ethiopia.

What did early human ancestors look like? Fossil evidence reveals …

Discovering Lucy — Revisited (Image 3)

Potassium-argon radiometric dating process (left to right): newly formed; after 1.3 billion years; after 2.6 billion years; after 3.9 billion years. [Image 3 of 4 related images. See Image …

ALISON (Image 6)

Marge Porter of Somers School, Conn., measures ice thickness at 35.8 Mile Pond, an ALISON site. The ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network) program is a science education and scientific research partnership between the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the K-12 …

ALISON (Image
Graphs showing all the ice thickness data obtained at ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network) study sites in the winter of 2003-2004. Note that the vertical scales are different. The data reveal the effects of spatial variability in winter climate on lake ice …

ALISON (Image 3)

A group of home-school students at the Aurora Pond observatory site in Fairbanks, Alaska. In the foreground are two parents taking snow samples that will be weighed and their density determined. In the background, children measure snow depth and temperature. Note the line of …

ALISON (Image 5)

Two high school students from Innoko River School, Shageluk Village, Alaska, measure and record snow depth and the temperature on the ice surface at the bottom of the snow at Shageluk observatory. The observatory, which is operated by teacher Joy Hamilton and her high school …

ALISON Network (Image 4)

Students from the Innoko River School in Shageluk Village, Alaska, look on as village elder Rudi Hamilton uses his chainsaw to cut a slot in the ice prior to installing a hot-wire ice thickness gauge that will be used with the Shageluk observatory. The observatory, …

ALISON (Image 7)

Shannon Graham, a middle and high school science teacher at Washington School for the Deaf in Vancouver, Wash., places a snow sample in a bag so that it can be weighed and its density calculated in due course at the 34 Mile Pond, an ALISON site. The ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and …

ALISON (Image 2)

Elementary school students from Wales Kingikmiut School in the Kingikmiut Village of Wales are participating in the ALISON (Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network) program, a science education and scientific research partnership between the University of Alaska, …