Clara Moskowitz

New York

Senior Editor at Scientific American

Senior Editor at Scientific American, covering space & physics. Views expressed are my own. She/her 🏳️‍🌈

Articles

Why Some Animals Live for Only Days and Others Live for Thousands of Years

1 week ago | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz |Mark Belan

Some species seem to live fast and die young. Others, though, “appear not to age,” says João Pedro de Magalhães, a molecular biologist at the University of Birmingham in England. He is project leader of the Human Ageing Genomic Resources program, which keeps the AnAge database of maximum animal lifespans. Some species of turtles, fishes and salamanders, for instance, don’t show any signs of degeneration or senescence as they grow older.
Which Knot Is Stronger? Humans Aren’t Great Judges

2 months ago | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz |Jen Christiansen

Humans are pretty good at guessing whether a towering stack of dishes in the sink will topple over or where a pool ball will go when a cue hits it. We evolved this kind of physical reasoning to navigate our changing and sometimes dangerous environments. But a new study highlights one area of intuitive physics that’s deceptively difficult: judging how strong a knot is. Take a look at these four knots, which may look similar but are all distinct.
JWST Photos Reveal Bizarre Physics of Supernova Explosions

Jan 21, 2025 | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz

As soon as a star is born, it starts fighting a battle with gravity. A burning star constantly releases enough energy to counteract gravity’s inward pressure. But once its fuel runs out, gravity wins: the star implodes, and most of its mass becomes either a neutron star—an ultradense object about the size of a city—or a black hole. The rest explodes outward, flying into space like bullets.
Will We Find Planet Nine with the Vera Rubin Observatory’s New Telescope?

Jan 10, 2025 | scientificamerican.com | Rachel Feltman |Clara Moskowitz |Fonda Mwangi |Madison Goldberg

[CLIP: Theme music]Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Unless you’re really on the low end of our listener age bell curve, chances are you grew up learning about our solar system’s nine planets. Of course, unless you’ve been living under a rock since 2006, you also know that now we only have eight planets. Sorry, Pluto fans. But maybe you’ve also heard rumblings about the mysterious Planet Nine.
Infografik: Stürmische Sonne

Dec 7, 2024 | spektrum.de | Clara Moskowitz

News Lesedauer ca. 1 Minute DruckenTeilenInfografik: Stürmische SonneUnser nächster Stern zeigt sich in regelmäßigen Zyklen mal mehr, mal weniger aktiv. Das bekommt die Erde als »Weltraumwetter« zu spüren – 2024 besonders heftig. Exklusive Übersetzung ausViele Menschen, die das farbenprächtige Himmelsphänomen aus ihren Breitengraden nicht gewohnt waren, konnten im Jahr 2024 Polarlichter bestaunen.
Enceladus Might Be a Methane Hotspot

Nov 23, 2024 | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz

Enceladus. It’s one of Saturn’s moons. It’s one of the strangest places in the solar system. It’s also one of the most likely places to host extraterrestrial life. Powerful plumes of water vapor erupt from its poles—which proves that a liquid water ocean lies hidden beneath its icy surface. And a new analysis suggests that this buried ocean has striking similarities to the deep oceans here on Earth—at least when it comes to methane. The study is in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
See How Close We Are to Gender Equality around the World

Nov 19, 2024 | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz |Federica Fragapane

Around the world, women and girls still face disproportionate discrimination, poverty and violence, as well as a lack of access to education, health care and property ownership, among other disadvantages. Every year the United Nations agencies U.N. Women and U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs track progress toward global gender equality—one of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which all U.N. member countries agreed to try to reach by 2030.
See How Close We Are to Gender Equality around the World

Nov 19, 2024 | drumup.io | Clara Moskowitz |Federica Fragapane

Around the world, women and girls still face disproportionate discrimination, poverty and violence, as well as a lack of access to education, health care and property ownership, among other disadvantages. Every year the United Nations agencies U.N. Women and U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs track progress toward global gender equality—one of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which all U.N. member countries agreed to try to reach by 2030.
How Marie Curie Helped a Generation of Women Break into Science

Oct 15, 2024 | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz

Marie Curie, born more than 150 years ago, is still the only female scientist many people can name. The double Nobel Prize winner is most famous for her discovery of radioactivity, as well as the radioactive elements radium and polonium. She is less well known for encouraging a generation of women who worked in her lab and went on to work in research because of the path she paved.
First Observation of One-in-10-Billion Particle Decay Hints at Hidden Physics

Sep 30, 2024 | scientificamerican.com | Clara Moskowitz

Once in a very great while, an ephemeral particle called a kaon arises and then quickly decays away into three other obscure entities. Whether or not this happens in a particular way has very little bearing on most of us, who will go about our lives without knowing either way. But to physicists who have been searching for this arcane process for decades, it matters a lot; finding out how often it happens could reveal hidden aspects of our universe.