Maris Fessenden

 

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

Dennis Kimetto after setting a world record at the 41st BMW Berlin marathon

What Will It Take For Someone to Run A Marathon in Under Two Hours?

Course design, genetics, training and luck all have a hand in this game

The Congo River still plays a major transport role between the major cities of Kinshasa and Kisangani

Why Kinshasa in the 1920s Was the Perfect Place for HIV to Go Global

Railways, a booming population and many sex workers created ideal conditions for the virus to spread

Space shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless floats in space

How the Isolation of Space Messes with Your Mind

Long-term missions must deal with hallucinations, boredom and the silent treatment between crew members

A herd of wild ass runs across the Tibetan plateau in Qinghai

The Tibetan Plateau is Getting a High-Tech Array of Weather Sensors

The massive research effort will help predict the increasingly unpredictable Indian monsoons as the climate changes

A bowhead whale breaches

Whaler Makes History as the First Female in Her Community to Harpoon a Whale

The 31-year old struck the whale near the end of the fall season for Alaska's bowhead subsistence hunters

Could Climate Change Affect the Number of Boys and Girls Born?

Whether boy babies outnumber girl babies could be influenced by war, temperature and other stress factors

The Only Primate With a Toxic Bite Might Have Evolved to Mimic Cobras

Slow lorises have snake-like markings, postures and a hiss that all resemble the speckled cobra

Jitterbugging in a juke joint, Saturday evening, outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1939

See Depression-Era Photos from Your Hometown

Thousands of images collected to document rural life from 1934 to 1944 are available to peruse online through an interactive project

Enough Ice Has Melted in Antarctica to Alter the Earth’s Gravity

The gravity loss is tiny but indicates big changes in ice coverage

Boston Just Found a Time Capsule That No One Knows How to Open

The 113-year-old copper box is inside a golden lion statue's head

African-American Girls Are More Likely To Be Suspended Or Expelled

Among other measures that illustrate education barriers, African American girls are twice as likely to be held back a grade

Using Natural Gas Will Only Delay Renewable Energy

Analysis of a range of climate policies reveals that a gas boom might lead to only a slight reduction in emissions

Wolf Hunting Made Illegal Again in Wyoming

A federal judge called the state’s management plan inadequate, though wolf numbers and genetics are still strong

Bubbles of Plasma in Space May Have Cost U.S. Lives in Afghanistan

New analysis reveals that unusual space weather may have scrambled radio signals and sent a rescue mission awry

How Bird Migrations Show Up Beautifully on Doppler Radar

Large groups of birds taking off around sunset typically show up as circles that grow and disperse

Ghostly Neutrinos Created in the Heart of the Sun Are Finally Detected

This is the most direct evidence supporting researchers’ ideas about how the Sun is powered

States with Medical Marijuana Have Fewer Painkiller Deaths

Could medical cannabis help prevent the more than 16,500 deaths each year due to opioid overdose?

Weird Physics Can Make an Invisible Cat Visible

These cat pictures are brought to you by quantum entanglement as discussed by Einstein and Schrödinger

This Is Your Brain on Your Favorite Song

When people listen to music they enjoy, their brains drift into a resting daydream, regardless of the genre

Researchers Solve the Mystery of Death Valley’s Sailing Rocks

A team recorded thin sheets of ice pushing rocks across a desert lake bed, answering a decades-old question

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