The flatworm Acoelomorpha is the deepest species we can go down the evolutionary tree for bilateral animals, animals that have symmetrical body forms.
Flatworm Acoelomorpha
Credit: Eric Rottinger/Kahikai.org
NYT has a great profile of Dr. Carolyn Porco, who Wired put in their list of top 15 people who should be advising the President, was friend to Carl Sagan, an advisor on the film Contact, advisor on the new Star Trek, and who is getting to enjoy seeing Saturn’s rings in three-dimensions for the first time in 400 years via being a member of the Cassini team.
A very interesting review of PBS’s series on America’s National Parks, America’s Best Idea, which preserved the commons but also conflicted with American capitalist ideals.
The book Green Metropolis is expected to stir up a little controversy for suggesting New York City is the greenest place to live in America, but I agree with the hypothesis.
Despite their awesome magnificence, we know very little about the Northern Lights, and the science to explore them is complicated, requiring rockets as the aurora is too high in the sky for planes and too low for satellites to measure it.
Terrier-Orion rocket launch near Fairbanks, Alaska
Credit: Tim Wright
Sourcemap is an open-source software that helps you map where your food and other products come from, information that is becoming more difficult to obtain in our global economy.
A new, prehistoric-looking six-foot-long fish with no scales, small teeth, and a gelatinous body has been discovered off the coast of Brazil (with video).
Chet Raymo has some interesting thoughts about the differences between Victorian and Romantic science, yearning for a new “Age of Wonder,” but willing to settle for “Islands of Wonder.”
They Might Be Giants: The Bloodmobile
