Meghan Bartels

1 week ago | scientificamerican.com | Meghan Bartels

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has determined that a discovery that could be likened to a cosmic crime scene isn’t what astronomers thought: rather than pointing to a star that swelled up to swallow its planet, the finding seems to reveal that the planet spiraled into its own sun. The BackgroundIn 2020 astronomers spotted an intriguing event that they labeled ZTF SLRN-2020. Over about 10 days, optical light from a certain location in our galaxy spiked, then faded over about six months.

2 weeks ago | scientificamerican.com | Meghan Bartels

Spring has finally arrived in the U.S., bringing its bright spectacle of budding trees and migrating birds, along with more subtle but equally important changes—among them, the first emergence of native bees. But “native bees” doesn’t actually include the insect most of us picture upon hearing the word “bee.” That yellow-and-black-striped, hive-living, honey-making critter—formally Apis mellifera—hails from Europe.

3 weeks ago | scientificamerican.com | Meghan Bartels

Four passengers that launched onboard a SpaceX rocket on Monday are bound for a new orbital destination—looping from pole to pole, perpendicular to Earth’s equator—on a mission dubbed Fram2 in a nod to a Norwegian polar ship. Prior to Fram2, crewed missions only reached orbits of up to 65 degrees inclination to the equator. This means no astronauts have ever flown in space over Antarctic terrain or much north of Iceland.

3 weeks ago | projektpulsar.pl | Meghan Bartels

Nietypowa strategia lokomocji pozwala ptakom szybko się przemieszczać. Gdy chcemy szybko się poruszać, wówczas – jeśli pominąć zawody w chodzie sportowym – wykonujemy skoki do przodu, odrywając stopy od podłoża. Kiedy jednak ptaki potrzebują szybko dostać się w inne miejsce bez używania do tego celu skrzydeł, zwykle biegną tak, aby trzymać jedną stopę zawsze na ziemi. Ich dziwnie wyglądający sposób lokomocji naukowcy określają „biegiem przyziemnym”.

1 month ago | scientificamerican.com | Meghan Bartels

Many people in the U.S. today have no direct experience with measles, a disease that used to infect three or four million people in the nation every year before vaccines became available in 1963. Adults may remember they were vaccinated against the disease in childhood or have only a vague memory the disease is associated with a spotty red rash.