It’s not exactly breaking news that Democratic and Republican legislators are deeply divided on the issue of climate change. Now, a new study by researchers at Northeastern University suggests it may not be just climate change, but science as a whole, that has become a wedge issue in Congress. And they used an unusual tool to arrive at their result: Twitter. The whole thing started as idle curiosity. Well, not quite idle. Like many ocean scientists, Brian Helmuth and some colleagues at

We all have stories of pets or other animals doing things that seem like they could only be the result of thought or emotion. Yet, the idea of animal intelligence has long been dismissed or discounted. Now, a growing number of scientists are trying to rigorously study how animals' minds work, and finding that sometimes our own brains get in the way. Primatologist Frans de Waal chronicles the history of the scientific community's shifting attitudes toward animal intelligence in his new book, Are

As a college student, Amy Bower dreamed of becoming an oceanographer, combining her love of physics and the natural world. A devastating diagnosis almost derailed her. Amy Bower was an undergraduate, studying physics at Tufts University, when she noticed that her vision was getting blurry. Later, as a graduate student at University of Rhode Island, she got the official diagnosis: she was going blind. Macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa would gradually take away her sight. The news hit

May 21st is World Fish Migration Day. Yes, that’s a real thing, and groups around Cape Cod have already begun participating by doing what many of them do every spring – gathering to count and learn about river herring as they try to make their way from the ocean up to fresh water to spawn. There are some eighty herring runs in Massachusetts, with a number on Cape Cod. Biologists estimate that one hundred fifty years ago, each run may have supported a million fish. Today, it’s a fraction of that

May 21st is World Fish Migration Day. Yes, that’s a real thing, and groups around Cape Cod have already begun participating by doing what many of them...

In 1971, Jon Kabat-Zinn finished his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Salvador Luria, at M.I.T. Then, he took what might be considered a left turn – he went to study with Buddhist masters. Several years later, he drew on both his training in both biology and Buddhism when he founded the Stress Reduction Clinic at U. Mass. Medical School and created the first course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. "It seems like 'wow, what a gigantic shift from molecular biology to Buddhist

In 1971, Jon Kabat-Zinn finished his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Salvador Luria, at M.I.T. Then, he took what might be considered a left...

It's the holy grail of commercial fishing: catch just the right amount of just the right size of just the right species, without damage to the physical environment. It's a tall order, and few fisheries are there yet. Leaving aside the issue of straight up over-fishing, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that, each year, fishermen around the world accidentally catch more than seven million tons of marine life - everything from whales and turtles, to sea

It's the holy grail of commercial fishing: catch just the right amount of just the right size of just the right species, without damage to the physical...

One hundred years ago this week, Sir Ernest Shackleton and five members of his crew were in a jury-rigged 23-foot lifeboat named the James Caird, sailing across some of the most treacherous ocean in the world (the Drake Passage between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula is notorious for hurricane force winds and ninety foot waves) near peak storm season. Ironically, they weren't waiting to be rescued. They were the rescue mission. They'd left behind the remaining twenty two members of