Posts Tagged ‘ocean’
36-Spaceship Earth: Overseeing space…& Earth
When Christa Peters-Lidard cold-called the head of NASA’s hydrology lab as an undergrad, she wasn’t thinking she’d eventually land that very position. Now as the Acting Director for Sciences and Exploration at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Christa oversees several critical programs – either orbiting, like the James Webb Telescope, or currently in development – by ensuring scientists have the resources they need for a successful mission.
Read MoreDistillations: Mapping the seafloor with computer games
Many might think that we know most or all there is to know about our world. On the surface, that might be somewhat true. But below the surfaced, we’ve mapped less of the oceans than of places outside our world like Mars and our moon.
Read MoreHalloween special: Nessie & the kraken
We’ve all heard stories about fantastical creatures that people swear they’ve seen and have evidence of but can never be confirmed. Think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. Mermaids or the Kraken. While there’s no evidence backing the existence of these creatures, either in present day or at any point in the past, there must…
Read MoreHalloween special: Sasquatches & mermaids
We’ve all heard stories about fantastical creatures that people swear they’ve seen and have evidence of but can never be confirmed. Think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. Mermaids or the Kraken. While there’s no evidence backing the existence of these creatures, either in present day or at any point in the past, there must be a reason why such legends were created in the first place. In most cases, the legend in grounded in fact.
Read More22-Storied careers: Ocean sensors and dog scenters
Tommy Dickey is an emeritus oceanographer from U.C. Santa Barbara and Naval Operations Chair in Ocean Sciences. His modeling and observational research yielded ocean monitoring technologies and tools. For retirement, Tommy trains and deploys Great Pyrenees as therapy dogs, while studying scent dogs’ capacity to detect COVID-19.
Read More21-Storied careers: Scouring seas from the skies
This episode is about how satellite technology is being used to study a big chunk of the earth’s surface. Seventy percent of the earth comprises water but we know very little about it. Color sensors aboard some satellites can actually reveal a lot about phytoplankton or microalgae blooms that are linked to ocean temperatures. These tiny organisms contribute to half the photosynthesis on the planet.
Read More16-Ice: Shells of an ice-less past
Brian Huber is a climate detective at the Smithsonian who grew up collecting arrowheads in the woods of Ohio, but now collects and studies fossils from sediment cores. Brian uses fossils of tiny organisms − foraminifera − to track climate over millions of years, including the Cretaceous Hot Greenhouse climate.
Read More12.5-A podcast of ice and fire
Cool off from the summer heat with our next six-part miniseries all about ice – from those who call it home to its use as a tool in science.
Read More6.5-Extinctions: Dinosaurs, volcanoes, the space station, oh my!
Join us for our next six-part miniseries on Extinctions as we learn about the demise of the dinosaurs, what makes a comet “extinct,” the Cambrian and Triassic periods, volcanoes, and the aforementioned (planned) fiery end of the International Space Station!
Read More4-True story: Using TikTok for (shark) science good
Jaida Elcock says she thrives in chaos. And we’re inclined to believe her. From her ridiculously entertaining TikToks on animal facts, to her work with the non-profit Minorities in Shark Sciences (oh, did we mention she’s currently pursuing her Ph.D.), she seems to be managing that chaos pretty well. We talked with her about all of her endeavors, her inspiration from conservationist Jeff Corwin, and what (or who) she would like to see in science.
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