Dan Falk

1 month ago | phys.org | Dan Falk

At first glance, landscapes like the Great Plains and the Rockies may seem unchanging, but over geological time scales, they're dynamic systems. Plate tectonics raise mountains, while erosion—driven by glaciers, rain and wind—wears them down. But there's an often-overlooked factor in this process: the rock itself.

1 month ago | undark.org | Dan Falk

The summer of 1962 was a grim time for American-Soviet relations. The botched Bay of Pigs invasion of the previous year, in Soviet-backed Cuba, was still a fresh memory, and the Cuban Missile Crisis was just months away. Nonetheless, in June of that year a young astronomer named Carl Sagan decided to reach out to a colleague in the USSR, the astrophysicist Iosif Shklovsky.

2 months ago | msn.com | Dan Falk

Continue reading More for You   Continue reading More for You

2 months ago | smithsonianmag.com | Dan Falk

A decade ago, physicists using twin detectors in Washington State and Louisiana detected gravitational waves—subtle ripples in space-time—for the first time. The landmark discovery, confirming Albert Einstein’s century-old prediction of such waves, was recognized with the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Gravitational waves are created whenever massive objects undergo any kind of acceleration.

Dec 17, 2024 | geneticliteracyproject.org | Dan Falk

According to Guinness World Records, the world’s fastest talker is one Sean Shannon, capable of unleashing a staggering 665 English words per minute (that’s 11 words per second). But even those of us with average tongues seem to chatter incessantly.