Maris Fessenden

 

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

The first US spacewalk had astronaut Edward White use a compressed gas "zip gun" for maneuvers

'The Stars and Sun Are Everywhere’: 50 Years of Spacewalks

Today marks five decades since cosmonaut Alexey Leonov became the first human to walk in space

35-year old male chimp Frodo enjoying Mbula fruit he collected in Gombe National Park, Tanzania

Chimps Will Work Harder to Get Their Favorite Foods

An experimental setup shows that chimps will travel farther to get a more preferred reward

How an Early 19th Century Journalist Took Lincoln to Task for Travel Reimbursement

Lincoln was a congress member at the time but not the only one charging too much for travel

Cocoa tree

A Special Facility in England Keeps the World’s Chocolate Safe

The cocoa tree is very sensitive to disease and pests, so someone checks every plant bound for international trade

Palau in Cocos Island National Park, Costa Rica — already claimed

Here’s How to Lay Claim to a Brand New Island

It’s pretty complicated (surprise!)

The slime mold, physarum polycephalum

Slime Mold Has an Uncannily Accurate Sense of Where Rome Built Its Roads

The strange organisms are remarkably good at mapping the most efficient route from place to place—and that's exactly what roads do

Scientists Have Been Studying Two Fake Human Pheromones for Decades

Two chemicals provided by a perfume company appear in a 1991 research paper and side-track years of work on human pheromones

Replicas of English sailing ships on the James River — similar ships would have brought English colonists to Jamestown in 1607

Did the Age of Humans Begin in 1610?

Debate over when the Anthropocene began is starting to narrow in on a few dates — 1610, when the Old World met the New, is one promising candidate

A computer that passes the new test would be able to say which people in this scene from Pushkar, India, are carrying objects and which are riding bikes

Now the Turing Test Goes Visual

A proposed test would have computer programs not only pick out what is in a photo but what is happening

A mosaic of Enceladus collected by Cassini showing deep fissures or sulci

A Hint That a Saturnian Moon Could Have Hydrothermal Vents—And Support Life

Grains of silica from Saturn’s magnetosphere likely came from Enceladus and may mean the moon has hydrothermal vents

A man butchers a whale in 1968

We Now Have a Toll of All the Whales Killed by Hunting in the Last Century

The whaling industry killed nearly 3 million for their oil, researchers estimate. But the true total is likely higher.

The Desire to Conform Starts In Toddlers

Apes don’t have this problem — if they know the answer to a puzzle, they’ll do it, regardless of what their friends might think

When Even the Simplest Word Looks Weird And Wrong You Have Wordnesia

We don’t really know why it happens, but at least there is a term for it

Our Brains Hate Waiting So We Sped Up Everything Else

Sidewalk rage, road rage and anger at slow-loading web pages are all part of our evolutionary inheritance

A scanning electronic microscope image of the 600 million-year-old sponge-like fossil

One of the Oldest Known Animals Is This Tiny, Ancient Sponge

A new fossil find pushes back the start of the evolution of multicellular animals

Smog over Shanghai

China’s Smog Might Be to Blame for the East Coast’s Rough Winter

A NASA visualization shows how particles from East Asia can swirl into Pacific storms—a source of precipitation for the U.S.

Celebrities: Popular then forgotten. Recognize her? No?Don't worry, this is just a stock photo.

How Long Do Cultural References Last?

Not forever

Screen grab from DIY TV’s "Professional Fort Builder: Jay Nelson"

This Treehouse Has It All

Salvaged fence boards, given new life, help Jay Nelson create dwellings that blend with nature

A large band of warmer than average sea surface temperatures, an indicator of El Niño, stretches across the Pacific

Gear Up for a Scorcher of a Year: El Niño Has Officially Arrived

It’s later than usual and weak, but definitely here

Artist’s conception of Dawn entering orbit around Ceres

Dawn Has Arrived at Ceres

Downlink connection confirms that the spacecraft is in orbit around the dwarf planet

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