Mark Strauss

States That Legalize Medical Marijuana See Fewer Painkiller Overdoses

As the number of patients who receive opioid prescriptions to treat non-cancer pain has increased in the past decade, so too have the number of overdoses. A new study, however, finds that states that legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010 had 25% fewer annual overdose deaths than the rest of the U.S. More specifically,…

Economist Uses Lego Bricks To Show The Ugly Truth Of Social Mobility

Richard Reeves, a Brookings Institution economist, has made a brief video using Legos to visualize the hard facts about getting ahead in the U.S. “In terms of fairness,” he says, the question is less about the income gap between the bottom and top and “more about your chance of making it from the bottom to…

Physicists Have A Simple Answer For How Egyptians Built The Pyramids

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the last of the ancient world’s “seven wonders.” The 4,500-year-old structure was constructed from 2.4 million limestone blocks, most weighing around 2.5 tons. Today we’re still debating how the Egyptians managed to move these blocks from local quarries. Now scientists have a new hypothesis. [Image: Library of Congress] They…

Newly-Analyzed Maps Reveal Exact Locations of Historic Events

More than 3,000 maps of cities, battles and landscapes—representing a millennium of history—have been georeferenced by the British Library. That means it’s now possible to see the precise locations of historic places and events in the context of today’s world. The BL Georeferencer allows you to click on points across the globe, revealing multiple views…

​The Pentagon Made A Graphic Novel To Unveil Its Proposed Stealth Tank

Whenever the U.S. military releases images of its latest badass hardware under development, we usually see futuristic, 3D renderings that look like screenshots from the latest videogames. But a presentation of the proposed Ground X-Vehicle opted for a more stylish, pseudo-anime look. Perhaps it’s the resemblance to videogames that prompted this new approach. After being…

Is It Too Much To Ask That Reporters Understand Evolution?

It isn’t always easy for reporters to convey complex scientific theories to a broad audience when they have a limited number of words to work with. But that doesn’t excuse the cringe-worthy errors that repeatedly appear in articles that describe the basic ideas underlying the theory of evolution. Just last week, for instance, an article…

Watching this Video Feels Like Landing on Mars at Breakneck Speed

This video takes you on a virtual descent from orbit into the so-called Distributary Fan on Mars, located just northeast of Holden Crater. Using imagery from the Mars Orbiter and the Mars Global Surveyor, this visualization shows where liquid water probably flowed across the Martian surface in the past. [Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific…

​It’s Time To Get Serious About Exploring Uranus. (Stop Snickering!)

Do names determine our destiny? Certainly, Uranus (properly pronounced, yur-an-us) makes a strong case for that theory. The planet has been repeatedly ignored by space missions, aside from a Voyager 2 flyby in 1986. But, a group of planetary scientists say Uranus has fascinating traits that merit investigation. “Uranus really stands out,” University of Oxford…

A Photograph Of The Future, Taken 100 Years Ago

While filing photographs at the Library of Congress, Barbara Orbach Natanson was momentarily startled by a 1920 picture that looked as if Portland, Oregon was being attacked from above. “How frightening would it have been to be on the streets,” she asked herself, “when these airplanes swooped overhead?” The answer, she tells us, is not…

​These Medieval Insects Might Give You The Creepy Crawlies

Medieval books are filled with stunning illustrations of animals, both real and imaginary. And, while insects might have lacked the star power of unicorns and serpents, they were nonetheless lushly presented by the artists of their time. As the British Library notes: Bugs are everywhere – although we hasten to add that we are extremely…

The Herd Mentality Of The Anti-Vaxxer Movement

It’s not just the myth about autism that’s driving down vaccination rates. Many parents believe that as long as most other children are vaccinated, their kids won’t get sick. It’s a faulty interpretation of “herd immunity” — and it’s prompting families to prioritize exaggerated, imagined risks over actual benefits. September is fast approaching, which means…

A Protective Suit That Lets You Stand Inside A Fireworks Display

Colin Furze is a British garage inventor and video maker, perhaps best known for his “DIY X-Men” devices that endowed him with the powers of Magneto and Wolverine. And now, perhaps inspired by the pyrotechnic prowess of Jubilee, he has created an inflatable metal suit that can withstand a barrage of fireworks. His “safety suit”…

​The Race Begins To Find A Landing Site On Rosetta’s Comet

On August 6, the Rosetta probe rendezvoused with Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Now comes the hard part: picking a suitable location for the spacecraft’s Philae lander. The site must be chosen soon because, as the comet gets closer to the sun, its icy surface will begin to change. Churyumov-Gerasimenko is on a 6.5-year orbit around the Sun and…

Secrets of the Manhattan Project Leaked 1500 Times During World War II

The World War II program to develop an atomic bomb was the largest secret project ever undertaken by the U.S. government. But newly-declassified documents reveal how it hard it was to keep things secret as the weapon neared completion. Information leaks were everywhere, even in church sermons. Trinity Test plutonium bomb image courtesy of Truman…

Watch The ISS Fly Through An Aurora

The ESA has just released a stunning timelapse video of the International Space Station flying through an aurora, which was created when a giant cloud of gas from the sun — a “coronal mass ejection” — collided with Earth’s magnetic fields last week. The footage was taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst. A few days…

A Medical Student Fears Liberia Is “Destined For Extinction”

We’ve read the news reports and seen the photos. But none of it quite prepares you for the terror expressed by a young Liberian medical student on the front lines of his country’s Ebola outbreak. [Image: USAID] Gondah Lekpeh, a fourth-year medical student in Monrovia, who is writing at the PLoS Medical Journal’s Community Blog,…

These Are the Brave and Fluffy Cats Who Served in World War I

Throughout the “war to end all wars,” cats were a common sight in the trenches and aboard ships, where they hunted mice and rats. Beyond their “official” duties, they were also embraced as mascots and pets by the soldiers and sailors with whom they served. An estimated 500,000 cats were dispatched to the trenches, where…

A new analysis of U.S. court rulings shows that judges are rejecting claims that acoustic pulses triggered by wind turbines are making people sick. “That’s a big deal, because claims about that are used across the globe…to try to slow the development of wind farms,” says Gabe Elsner, at the Energy and Policy Institute.

Snowshoes For Texas? The Most Bizarre Things The Pentagon Gave Police

Using data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Government Executive magazine looked at the type and cost of equipment that police departments received from the Defense Department since 2006. If you think the items couldn’t be crazier than what you’ve read about already, think again. The entire article is worth reading in full, but…

The British Library Unveils a New Show Devoted to Gothic Literature

Two hundred rare objects will trace 250 years of Gothic literature, in the British Library’s forthcoming exhibition, Terror and Wonder. Dave McKean has designed this image to promote the event, inspired by Frankenstein, Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “Dave’s artwork brilliantly captures the drama and intensity of the Gothic…