Mark Strauss

The Curious History Of Haiti’s Anti-Zombie Laws

Movie posters for the 1932 horror film White Zombie featured an excerpt from the Haitian Criminal Code as proof that the country “recognizes the existence of Zombies” and punishes practitioners of this “necromancy” with the death penalty. Other films and books have said the same, but the truth is more complicated. Indeed, as recently as…

​The French Government Has An Official Agency Of UFO Hunters

Inside the French Space Centre headquarters, a small team consisting of four staffers and a dozen volunteers is tasked with analyzing reports of unidentified flying objects — and sometimes, the agency dispatches trained investigators to visit the locations of the strange sightings. They are the Agents of G.E.I.P.A.N. Image: GEIPAN. Okay, in truth, their acronym…

A Clock So Precise That It Detects Tiny Shifts In The Flow Of Time

In a basement lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, researchers have built the world’s most accurate atomic clock — it can keep perfect time for 5 billion years. But the clock is so precise that it’s run into a problem. Time doesn’t move at the same rate everywhere in the cosmos, or even on…

​How One Soviet Submarine Commander Averted World War III

On October 27, 1962, the captain of a Soviet submarine ordered a torpedo with a ten-kiloton nuclear warhead to be launched at a U.S. aircraft carrier. One man’s decision prevented that order from being carried out—and his story is a cautionary tale about what could still happen in today’s world. Image: Arkhipov family album (via…

All the Science-Related Issues The U.S. Will Be Voting On Today

When voters go to the polls today, they will be confronted with 146 referenda and initiatives in 41 states and the District of Columbia. Among the measures are several related to science and the environment, including genetically modified food, hunting and disease research. The GMO labeling initiatives on the ballots in Oregon and Colorado have…

Are Environmentalists About To Suffer An Epic Defeat At The Polls?

Today, the most expensive midterm election in U.S. history is wrapping up. Among the big spenders were environmental groups, who shelled out an unprecedented $85 million to put climate change at the top of the political agenda. Surveys indicate that, at least in the short run, they failed. The issue that has resonated most in…

More U.S. measles cases have been reported in 2014 than any year in the past two decades. Indigenous circulation of the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, but travelers abroad can bring it into the U.S. A false sense that there is little or no threat is one key reason for declining U.S. vaccination rates.

​What If Dark Matter Were Actually A Vast Electric Field?

There isn’t enough visible matter in the universe to account for the gravitational force that holds galaxies together. That’s why scientists are searching for evidence of the missing “dark matter” that makes it possible. Now, one researcher has advanced an odd theory: dark matter is actually a galactic-scale electric field. Over the decades, astrophysicists have…

How China’s “Rare Earth” Weapon Went From Boom To Bust

Not so long ago, the U.S. went into full panic mode. China had reached the point where it controlled 97% of the world’s rare earth elements—minerals that play a crucial role in manufacturing high-tech products. Were they right to fear that Beijing has a stranglehold over the global economy? Image of a rare Earth metal…

Could you outrun a T-Rex? A Velociraptor? Find out at the Guardian’s Datablog, where an online simulation allows you to enter your running speed and participate in a 100-meter race between you, world-record breaker Usain Bolt, various animals (both living and extinct) and an F1 Racing Car.

A vampire-fanged deer has been spotted in Afghanistan, 60 years after its last appearance. Kashmir musk deer use their fangs during mating season to fight males and impress females. Their population has dropped 50% in just 20 years—poachers sell their musk glands, which are believed to have medicinal properties. Image: Julie Larsen Maher at the…

The “Mystical” DaVinci Self-Portrait That Was Hidden From Hitler

It sounds like a plot for an Indiana Jones or Captain America film. But, during World War II, the self-portrait of Leonardo DaVinci was secretly moved from Turin to Rome for safekeeping from the Nazis. Legend says the gaze of DaVinci is so intense, that it can imbue onlookers with preternatural strength. As the BBC…

The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow Was Inspired By A Yellow Fever Epidemic

A community paralyzed with fear, not knowing when an unseen presence will claim its next victim. Are we describing an epidemic or a supernatural predator? The similarity is not a coincidence in the horror story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, whose author, Washington Irving, fled a yellow fever outbreak in New York. Writing in Smithsonian…

An Artist Carved The Entire Rosetta Stone On A Pumpkin

We have a winner. You may think that you’ve seen pictures of the most impressive Jack-O-Lanterns this Halloween season, but nothing could top this pumpkin illuminating a replica of the famed Rosetta Stone, which enabled scholars to finally translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. The pumpkin was made by Mike Matola, an artist who owns Line By Line…

You Have Chosen…Poorly: A Ranking Of Alternate Horror Film Endings

Watching a movie is like playing roulette: we have no idea which ending we’ll be seeing. Will it be the original, or another version inspired by a failed test screening, or “creative differences”? Sometimes the change is for the better; sometimes not. Here, we rank 13 alternate horror film endings from worst to best. I…

A Stunning View Of Sunlit Seas On Titan

As NASA’s Cassini spacecraft soared past Saturn’s moon Titan, it recently caught a glimpse of bright sunlight reflecting off hydrocarbon seas. In the past, Cassini had captured, separately, views of the polar seas and the sun glinting off them, but this is the first time both have been seen together in the same view. [Image:…

Meet The Feline Guardians Of America’s Comic Book Stores

Faster than a speeding roadrunner, able to leap tall bookshelves in a single bound, these mild-mannered creatures possess extraordinary superpowers—which perhaps explains why they would feel right at home in a comic book store. The Dodo animal blog profiles several of these heroic felines—many of whom were strays—by telling us their origin stories, special superpowers…

Definitive Proof That Nostradamus Predicted Star Wars

The prophecies of the French astrologer Nostradamus remain famous more than 400 years after his death. He has been credited with predicting events like the French Revolution and World War II. But, after careful scrutiny, we present evidence that his prophecies were, in fact, plot spoilers for the Star Wars films. Image by Tara Jacoby,…

The Creationist Freak Out Over The Pope’s Evolution Speech Has Begun

In a speech earlier this week, Pope Francis declared evolution and the Big Bang theory to be real. His comments, while not completely unprecedented for the Catholic Church, go against the “pseudo theory” of intelligent design encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. So, how are creationists responding? Not well. https://gizmodo.com/pope-rails-against-intelligent-design-says-god-isnt-a-1652162938 The emerging theme among commentators…

Reservoirs and hydropower are often thought of as climate friendly, but new research suggests that we may have underestimated the amount of methane they produce. The methane—which is 35 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2 over the span of a century—is produced by bacteria eating nutrient-rich agricultural runoff.