In some exciting news on the space front, the James Webb Space Telescope, which launched on Christmas Day in 2021, has reached its final destination. Webb is the most powerful telescope ever built and is about the size of a tennis court. Over this last month, it had...

On Saturday, January 15th, a powerful undersea volcano erupted near Tonga, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, covering the group of islands in a thick layer of ash. A 4-foot wave swept ashore in the Tongan capital, leaving behind flooded homes and structural damage....

Happy New Year 2022 - wishing you all health and happiness! In this Science Wednesday, learn more about Maine's highpoint, Katahdin, and the Appalachian Mountains. Here is a link to the new video. #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

Come explore the ancient landscape of west Texas, home to Guadalupe Peak, the state highpoint at 8,750 feet! Here is a link to the new video. #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

Travel with us down to Antarctica and explore the different penguin species during this week's special holiday Science Wednesday! Here is a link to the new video. #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

Learn more about Mont Blanc and its changing glaciers in this new Science Wednesday. Ricardo and I climbed the peak back in August 2018 - and even got engaged on the summit! Here is the new video... #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

On June 1, 2019, we hiked Illinois' highpoint, Charles Mound (1,235 ft) for the Summits, Songs and Science project. It's on private property and, due to the owners' wishes, only open the first weekend in June, July, August and September. While in the state, we took...

Check out our new video Science Wednesday. This one explores the volcanic features of northern Arizona. Also featured is Humphreys Peak, Arizona's highpoint at 12,633 feet. While Ricardo climbed it back in 1999, this was Ulyana's 20th state highpoint, climbed on May...

Check out our new video Science Wednesday. This one explores the glaciers of the Wind River Range, home to Wyoming's state highpoint: Gannett Peak, 13,804 ft. #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

Check out our new video Science Wednesday. This one focuses on The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota, which is home to the largest concentration of mammoth remains in the world. #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

Check out our new video Science Wednesday. Shot on location on the Vatnajokull icecap (Iceland) in November 2021, this short film explores some of the changes that Europe's largest glacier mass has seen over the decades. #sciencewednesdays #summitssongsandscience

Fagradalsfjall Mountain in the Reykjanes Peninsula, southwestern Iceland, is home to some of the youngest land on the planet. Check out this new video Science Wednesday to learn more about what happened and about different lava types! #sciencewednesdays...

Last week, we shared an educational game you can download and play while learning more about ice flows and changes in Greenland and Antarctica. This week, I wanted to share an opportunity for citizen science using a smartphone app: making cloud observations through...

For those who prefer interacting and experimenting with things on your own, this Science Wednesday is for you! Ice Flows is a new educational computer game based on science (but with some elements of fiction to make the game fun to play) developed at the University of...

In February 2021, the newest Mars rover – Perseverance – touched down at Jezero Crater, interpreted to be the site of an ancient Martian lake. Modern Mars is dry and hostile. But billions of years ago, when the planet still had a magnetic field and thicker atmosphere,...

*Disclaimer: Just like the virus is evolving, so is the science in trying to understand it. Using reputable sources (e.g., scientific research papers, scientific studies, reports from the CDC, Harvard/MIT/Yale Medicine, etc.) versus solely relying on mainstream media...

For the past week, Ricardo and I have been dealing with breakthrough COVID infections. It’s affected us in different ways. While Ricardo lost his sense of smell (anosmia), he’s retained taste. I initially kept smell but lost taste. Now, both senses are gone for me but...

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, leaves on the trees are starting to turn colors. There’s a chill in the air in the mornings and evenings. This Wednesday marks the first day of astronomical fall (autumn) in the Northern Hemisphere. According to the meteorological...

As the world grapples with climate change, let’s talk solutions. What are the long-term ones? The energy sources we currently rely on – oil and gas – are non-renewable, meaning that they draw on finite resources and once those are used up, they’re gone for good....

Warmer conditions in the oceans are raising the potential intensity for storms, where intensity refers to how bad they can get if nothing disrupts them. We have no clearer example of this than Hurricane Ida, a deadly and destructive hurricane that not only impacted...

Colorado is known for its beautiful remote wilderness areas and its high peaks. But it’s also home to one of the largest and most destructive volcanic events in Earth’s history. The story starts roughly 35 million years ago, when layers of lava, ash, and other debris...

Posting Science Wednesday early, due to some upcoming travel and being away from cell signal and the internet. More than 500 miles above the Arctic Circle and at 10,551 ft. (3,216 meters) above sea level, it rained for the first time. On August 14, 2021, temperatures...

50,000 years ago, a large crater was formed in the northern Arizona desert of the United States. To get an idea of the size, imagine twenty American football games being played simultaneously on its floor, while more than 2 million spectators watch from the sloping...

Just a few days ago, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared a “code red for humanity” in its latest 3,000 page report on the state of the climate. It is clear that the climate is in a state of emergency due to human-caused...

A lot of rain and afternoon thunderstorms are typical of the summer monsoon season here in Colorado. Monsoon? In Colorado? When you hear the word monsoon, you probably think of the heavy rains in India during the summertime. While The North American monsoon is not as...

Here in the Northern Hemisphere during these hot summer days, a lot of us are eating delicious produce like watermelon, peaches and corn-on-the cob. These days, there’s lots of chatter about GMO concerns (genetically modified organisms), but every species that’s ever...

A few days ago, record rainfall caused rivers to burst their banks, leading to devastating floods in parts of western Europe. In the hardest hit parts of Germany, two months’ worth of rain fell in 24 hours, according to Deutscher Wetterdienst, Germany’s meteorological...

Today’s Science Wednesday is a guest post from French anthropologist, Dr. Benjamin Pothier, with a focus on enthobotany. While anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures and societies, in both the present...

Located along the 40,000-kilometer-long mostly underwater Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) is one of the most volcanically active places in the world: Iceland. The ridge is the meeting point of the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, and, as the two tectonic plates...

The Pacific Northwest of North America has been experiencing unprecedented heat these last few days. But "unprecedented" doesn’t even do it justice. Statistically speaking, this is shaping up to be a once in a 1000-year occurrence – and that’s in a normal climate. But...

This past weekend, Ricardo and I were in South Dakota. While there, hiking the highpoint (Black Elk Peak – 7,242 ft./2207 m), we were also able to visit nearby Mt. Rushmore – my first time seeing this national memorial. The size of the faces carved into the rock is...

Guest post by Dylan Dickstein: Astronaut analogs are unique and incredible opportunities to jump into new worlds and challenge your ability to remain productive and level-headed while living in isolation with limited resources. This past April, The Explorers Club...

Did you know that, deep below the snowpack during the winter, wildfires can still smolder? It’s pretty rare – but these overwintering fires do happen! Typically, when forest fires are put out, they stay out. They don’t survive cold, wet winters. But in boreal forests...

Up in the Arctic, 650 miles from the North Pole, there appears to be a landscape dotted with 100 giant golf balls, all cued up and ready for a game. But, in fact, this is the home of SvalSat, the northernmost – and one of the largest – satellite stations in the...

There are few places on the planet that are true paradise - that not only provide stunning scenery but incredible diversity of life, microclimates and geology. Baja California Sur - the state in the southern part of the larger Baja California Peninsula - is one of...

(Science Wednesday is posted early due to some upcoming travel): On the north side of Denali, North America’s highest peak, the Muldrow Glacier has been moving unusually fast: as much as 90 feet/day! What is causing this? It’s called a glacial surge which is a...

It’s Science Wednesday – and it’s an exciting time in the realm of planetary science! On February 18, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars in order to explore the Jezero Crater. The primary mission is an astrobiological one: to identify environments capable...

When we think of climate change, often we think about how the atmosphere is changing – how it’s getting hotter. But there is also a story of change unfolding in the ocean, which absorbs some 90 percent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. A system of...

From 1914 – 1919, during which time World War I was being fought, an unusual weather pattern settled in over Northern Europe due to what’s called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This is a natural fluctuation that occurs in atmospheric pressure over the North...

Earlier in February, as the US was in the icy grip of an Arctic blast of cold air, a tragedy was unfolding on the other side of the planet, in northern India. On February 7, 2021, a large torrent of water and debris wiped out multiple hydroelectric power plants in the...

Back in January, I wrote about A-68a – the world’s largest iceberg – that was on a collision course with South Georgia Island, an island about 950 miles from the Antarctic Peninsula. The iceberg initially measured more than 2300 square miles (6000 square kilometers)!...

It’s Science Wednesday! Back in June/July 2020, parts of the US and the Caribbean saw darker hazier skies due to large clouds of dust coming from the Sahara Desert in Africa. While the dust storm was a part of a regular meteorological phenomenon, the 2020 cloud of...