Maris Fessenden

 

Maris Fessenden is a freelance science writer and artist who appreciates small things and wide open spaces.

Mercury as seen by Messenger

Today The Messenger Spacecraft Will Crash Into Mercury

After years of exciting observations and stunning pictures of Mercury, the spacecraft has run out of fuel

People Are Too Optimistic About How Much Optimism Matters

Looking on the bright side doesn’t actually make dark things bright

Paper Airplanes Flew Decades Before Real Ones Did

Kids have been folding paper so it flies since at least the mid-19th century

An artist's interpretation of the Gaia spacecraft -- mistaken for a small moon this week

The Time a Space Observatory Was Mistaken for a Second Moon

For 13 hours, the space observatory Gaia was misidentified as a natural satellite orbiting Earth

Emperor Justinian of the Byzantine and Empress Theodora could almost switch robes in this print

Gender-Neutral Clothes Are Trendy, But Not New — Humans Dressed Similarly for Centuries

Fashion with distinct looks for men and women is a relatively recent, Western-centric phenomenon

A male Gentoo penguin brings stones to a female with chicks

Penguins May Use Poop to Melt Snow From Breeding Sites Before They Get it On

The observation comes from analyzing thousands of images captured by remote cameras trained on penguin colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula

Brewers at work making beer

Brewmasters Now Using DNA Techniques to Spot Bad Batches

Instead of waiting for bacteria to grow, a quick genetic test can identify problem brews

This 133-foot long wooden steamer, the Rising Sun, is in 6 to 12 feet of water just north of Pyramid Point, where she stranded on October 29, 1917. All 32 people on board were saved.

In 2015, Lake Michigan Was So Clear Its Shipwrecks Were Visible From the Air

A Coast Guard patrol spotted the wrecks in shallow waters that are only clear after the lake's ice melts and before summer sediment swirls and algae blooms

A giant rice rat specimen from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France

How Settlers Wiped Out the Caribbean’s Rodents of Unusual Size

The eradication of rice rats in the Lesser Antilles was part of a massive mammal extinction event

The Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope Has Been In Space for 25 Years, Here's What it Has Seen

The telescope has sent back some real beauties

The moon during a lunar eclipse

Japan Plans a Trip to the Moon by 2018

The lander will use information from Japan’s moon-orbiting satellite to stick the landing

Light micrograph of a two-celled human zygote (the earliest stages of the embryo)

Gene Editing in Human Embryos Ignites Controversy

Chinese researchers have published the results of using a new gene-editing tool on human embryos

Illustration of a Greek vase shows Dionysus leading three revelers toward likely hangovers

Recently Translated Papyrus Details 1,900-Year-Old Hangover Cure

Those disappointed by the effectiveness of this 1,900-year old remedy can instead peruse the eye surgery techniques in other ancient texts

A new record comes off the press machine at the GZ Media factory in Lodenice, Czech Republic in 2013

Vinyl Presses Struggle to Keep up with the Resurgent Demand for Records

Only a handful of pressing plants can make records in the U.S. and their machinery is finicky

Several Yanomami at the community of Irotatheri, in Venezuela, wait to preform a dance for visiting journalists

Even an Isolated Amazonian Tribe’s Microbes Are Antibiotic Resistant

The finding of antibiotic resistance in people who have never taken antibiotics highlights how hard it will be to combat superbugs

Here’s How Cinnamon is Harvested in Indonesia

Watch as the inner bark from cinnamon trees is cut and stripped down to create the spice

The Magellan probe captured radar images of the surface of Venus

Lifeless Venus Could Hold the Key to Life on Earth

Earth’s sister planet is astonishingly hostile to life, but exactly how it got that way has researchers intrigued

An illustration of some of the debris in low Earth orbit

Scientists Want to Use Lasers to Shoot Down Space Junk

The idea sounds farfetched, but it may be better than previous solutions

A false-color image of Ceres mimics what human eyes would see

Dawn Spacecraft Sends First Color Images of Ceres

Red and blue tell the tale of a dwarf planet covered in rock and ice

White rhinos are considered a conservation sucess after near extinction in the 19th century, their numbers now classify them as Near Threatened

Here’s How to Avoid Losing Half of Earth’s Species

Basically, don’t stop trying to halt extinction

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