Lifeboat Foundation

This animation by Rosanna Wan for the Royal Institution tells the fascinating story of Marie Tharp’s groundbreaking work to help prove Wegener’s theory.

The Short Film Showcase spotlights exceptional short videos created by filmmakers from around the web and selected by National Geographic editors. We look for work that affirms National Geographic’s belief in the power of science, exploration, and storytelling to change the world. The filmmakers created the content presented, and the opinions expressed are their own, not those of National Geographic Partners.

Know of a great short film that should be part of our Showcase? Email [email protected] to submit a video for consideration. See more from National Geographic’s Short Film Showcase at documentary.com

Continue reading “How One Brilliant Woman Mapped the Secrets of the Ocean Floor” »

Two pint-sized spacecraft, MarCO-A and MarCO-B, served as communications relays for NASA’s InSight lander.

• By Mike Wall, SPACE.com on November 30, 2018

This wearable strap for your fingers allows you to text on your phone wirelessly 🖐️.

Yang N, Sen P,. The senescent cell epigenome. Aging (Albany NY). 2018; 10:3590–3609. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.

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Delta says the Atlanta airport’s Terminal F has become the “first biometric terminal” in the United States where passengers can use facial recognition technology “from curb to gate.”

He Jiankui shocked the world by claiming he had created the world’s first genetically edited children.

What would it take to build a new, artificial planet?

It’s not like moon-walking astronauts don’t already have plenty of hazards to deal with. There’s less gravity, extreme temperatures, radiation—and the whole place is aggressively dusty. If that weren’t enough, it also turns out that the visual-sensory cues we use to perceive depth and distance don’t work as expected—on the moon, human eyeballs can turn into scam artists.

During the Apollo missions, it was a well-documented phenomenon that astronauts routinely underestimated the size of craters, the slopes of hilltops, and the distance to certain objects. Objects appeared much closer than they were, which created headaches for mission control. Astronauts sometimes overexerted themselves and depleted oxygen supplies in trying to reach objects that were further than expected.

This phenomenon has also become a topic of study for researchers trying to explain why human vision functions differently in space, why so many visual errors occurred, and what, if anything, we can do to prepare the next generation of space travelers.

• Once dismissed as a “party drug,” ketamine is emerging as a potential alternative treatment for depression.
• A growing list of academic medical centers now offer the drug, including Columbia University, which began offering ketamine to patients with severe depression this fall.
• Ketamine works differently from common antidepressants like Celexa or Prozac and has been called “the most important discovery in half a century.”
• Pharmaceutical companies, including Allergan and Johnson & Johnson, are also working on developing blockbuster antidepressants inspired by ketamine.

Ketamine, a drug once associated with raucous parties, bright lights, and loud music, is increasingly being embraced as an alternative depression treatment for the millions of patients who don’t get better after trying traditional medications.

The latest provider of the treatment is Columbia University, one of the nation’s largest academic medical centers.