Flying organism speeds up to 1,000 miles per hour

Flying organism speeds up to 1,000 miles per hour

Skyfish is a flying organism, flying at speeds up to 1,000 miles per hour. This speed made skyfish undetectable to the naked human eyes. Appearing form a cave 1300 feet straight down, so deep it would hold the entire Empire State Building.

They only found out there’s this thing in 1994, when some cliff jumpers with […]

‘Pregnant’ San Andreas could be ready to deliver

‘Pregnant’ San Andreas could be ready to deliver

Scary beauty surrounds Cameron Barrows. He works in lush groves of fan palms that erupt like mirages from moonscape terrain. Hot springs bubble beneath them. Sand dunes drift nearby. “It’s an amazing place,” said Barrows, director of the Coachella Valley Preserve east of Palm Springs. The 20,000-acre sanctuary owes its splendors to the San Andreas […]

Semper fly: Suborbital space transport could put boots on the ground anywhere in 2 hours or less

Semper fly: Suborbital space transport could put boots on the ground anywhere in 2 hours or less

Getting troops to the fight can be as difficult as winning it. And for modern-day soldiers, the sites of conflict are so far-flung, and the political considerations of even flying over another country so complicated, that rapid entry has become nearly impossible. If a group of Marine Corps visionaries have their way, however, 30 years […]

The top-secret warplanes of Area 51

The top-secret warplanes of Area 51

Stealth jets? Hypersonic bombers? What’s really being developed at the military’s most famous classified base? On a trip to las vegas in 2004, observing from my east-facing hotel room in the pyramidal Luxor Hotel at daybreak, I watched a fleet of six unmarked 737s make commuter flights to nowhere. These aircraft depart every weekday morning from […]

An ancient building block of life

Astronomers have long assumed that organic molecules — compounds fundamental to life — were among the primary components available to build the solar system. Now they have physical evidence to support this idea.  The smoking gun comes from measurements of the famed Tagish Lake meteorite. The bolide, whose fragments fell to Earth on January 18, […]

Astronomers still wondering about the ‘Star of Wonder’

Astronomers have proposed a variety of sources over the years for the Christmas star — comets, a supernova or a grouping of planets. The actual astronomical events of the time suggest a solution, according to Griffith Observatory astronomer John Mosley. Mosley’s 1987 book “The Christmas Star” examines the sky during the time frame that historians […]