It’s Official: The Leap Second Will Be Retired (a Decade from Now)The time has come — or will come, in 2035 — to abandon the leap second. So voted the member states of the international treaty governing science and measurement standards, at a meeting in Versailles, France, on Friday. The near unanimous vote on what… Nov 19 22November 19, 2022Article at New York Times
Time Has Run Out for the Leap SecondRoughly every four years, an extra day gets tacked onto the end of February, a time-keeping convention known as the leap year. The practice of adjusting the calendar with an extra day was established by Julius Caesar more than 2,000 years ago and… Nov 14 22November 14, 2022Article at New York Times
Un grupo de científicos trabaja para redefinir los segundosLos científicos se preparan para redefinir la unidad fundamental del tiempo. No será más larga ni más corta, pero será más precisa y mucho más potente. Se dice que la civilización moderna sería imposible sin medidas. Y las medidas no tendrían sentido… May 04 22May 04, 2022Article at New York Times
Get Ready For the New, Improved SecondModern civilization, it is said, would be impossible without measurement. And measurement would be pointless if we weren’t all using the same units. So, for nearly 150 years, the world’s metrologists have agreed on strict definitions for units of… Apr 25 22April 25, 2022Article at New York Times
It’s a Grizzly Bear Survival Program. For Grizzly Bears.One morning in mid-July, Lana M. Ciarniello, a bear biologist in British Columbia, caught a flight from Vancouver Island, where she lives, to a wildlife sanctuary in the northwestern part of the province to meet two baby grizzlies, the newest… Jul 23 21July 23, 2021Article at New York Times
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to an Ancient Geomagnetic DisruptionAbout 42,000 years ago, Earth was beset with oddness. Its magnetic field collapsed. Ice sheets surged across North America, Australasia and the Andes. Wind belts shifted across the Pacific and Southern Oceans. Prolonged drought hit Australia; that… Feb 18 21February 18, 2021Article at New York Times
America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them.How big is a foot? In the United States, that depends on which of the two official foot measurements you are talking about. If it comes as a surprise that there are two feet, how about this: One of those feet is about to go away. The first foot is… Aug 18 20August 18, 2020Article at New York Times
The U.S. Is Getting Shorter, as Mapmakers Race to Keep UpHeight is height, right? Look at a Manhattan skyscraper, or the Washington Monument, or a mountain peak in California, and you imagine that it will be the same height tomorrow as it is today. But across the United States, the heights of structures,… May 22 20May 22, 2020Article at New York Times
‘Earthworm Dilemma’ Has Climate Scientists Racing to Keep UpCindy Shaw, a carbon-research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, studies the boreal forest — the world’s most northerly forest, which circles the top of the globe like a ring of hair around a balding head. A few years ago, while conducting a… May 20 19May 20, 2019Article at New York Times
Plundering Science, Bone by BoneIt is the dinosaur version of grave robbing: fossil poachers plundering a paleontological dig, frequently smashing ancient skulls and stealing valuable teeth, claws and feet. Often, all that remain are shards of fossilized bone and a wrecked,… Oct 21 13October 21, 2013Article at New York Times
Beyond the Kiss, Mistletoe Helps Feed Forests, Study SuggestsFor years, mistletoe has suffered from a split reputation: either the decorative prelude to a sweet Christmas kiss or the tree-killing parasite that must be mercilessly excised for the good of the forests. Now a recent Australian study has come up… Dec 17 12December 17, 2012Article at New York Times
Ceramic Fragments Point to Artistry in the Ice AgeWe know them best for their stone tools and intrepid mammoth hunting. But new discoveries in Croatia suggest that ice age humans made evocative ceramic art far more regularly than once believed. Thirty-six fragments of fired clay, excavated in the… Sep 10 12September 10, 2012Article at New York Times
Life in the Sea Found Its Fate in a Paroxysm of ExtinctionIt may never be as well known as the Cretaceous extinction, the one that killed off the dinosaurs. Yet the much earlier Permian extinction — 252 million years ago — was by far the most catastrophic of the planet’s five known paroxysms of species… Apr 30 12April 30, 2012Article at New York Times
DNA Turning Human Story Into a Tell-AllThe tip of a girl’s 40,000-year-old pinky finger found in a cold Siberian cave, paired with faster and cheaper genetic sequencing technology, is helping scientists draw a surprisingly complex new picture of human origins. The new view is fast… Jan 31 12January 31, 2012Article at New York Times
