Travel

All of these planets are the best targets found so far to search for signs of life, and it is remarkable that they are all transiting the same star. This means that the system will allow us to study each planet in great depth, providing for the first time a rich perspective on a different planetary system than ours, and on planets around the smallest main sequence stars. Only 39 light years away from Earth! more »

Do you visit public lands that charge entrance fees often? Consider purchasing a public lands pass. There are a number of pass options but they give you access to more than 2,000 national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, grasslands and other federal lands. Of the 400 + US national park sites, only 120 charge an entrance fee (which range from $3 to $30 per vehicle for an entire week). For the national wildlife system, 31 refuges charge admission (ranging from $3 to $8 per vehicle) to help fund their recreation-related projects. more »

The US Forest Service has created this helpful tool for locating state and national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges across the country. On the homepage, visitors simply enter ZIP codes to find local sites of interest. For anyone interested in learning (or relearning) how to play the piano, this website provides a series of free video lessons. Ice and Sky earned a 2016 Webby nomination as an outstanding educational website. Horsethief is a digital magazine from Horsethief Books, a publisher of poetry books "from a diverse group of both emerging and established voices." Exotic and dramatic, Maria Merian's artwork was a valuable tool of discovery for Europeans at the time. more »

For the new work, Joel Cracraft, George Barrowclough, and their colleagues at Nebraska University, Lincoln and Washington University examined a random sample of 200 bird species through the lens of morphology — the study of the physical characteristics like plumage pattern and color, which can be used to highlight birds with separate evolutionary histories. This method turned up, on average, nearly two different species for each of the 200 birds studied. This suggests that bird biodiversity is severely underestimated, and is likely closer to 18,000 species worldwide.  more »