Tag Archives: Science (Journal)

Her Discovery Wasn’t Alien Life, but Science Has Never Been the Same

Her Discovery Wasn’t Alien Life, but Science Has Never Been the Same

With TV cameras pointed at her, Felisa Wolfe-Simon began speaking at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 2, 2010. “I’ve discovered — I’ve led a team that has discovered — something that I’ve been thinking about for many years,” Dr. Wolfe-Simon said. She was at that time a visiting researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey, speaking to a sizable …

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In Greenland, the Ice Doesn’t Just Flow, It Quivers and Quakes

In Greenland, the Ice Doesn’t Just Flow, It Quivers and Quakes

When Andreas Fichtner unspooled a fiber-optic cable into a deep hole in Greenland’s ice, he wasn’t expecting to discover a whole new way that glaciers move. Even when the cable started sending back data, his first reaction was skeptical. “Rubbish,” Dr. Fichtner, a professor of seismology and wave physics at the Swiss university ETH Zurich, remembers thinking. “Just some electronic …

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What Lurks in This Flower’s Bizarrely Large Y Chromosome?

What Lurks in This Flower’s Bizarrely Large Y Chromosome?

The vast majority of plants are hermaphrodites, with both male and female reproductive parts. Oaks, some orchids, the potted spider plant in your office — they’re all capable of reproducing without a member of another sex nearby. “It makes sense if you are an organism that can’t run around and find mates,” said Deborah Charlesworth, a population geneticist at the …

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