Research geologist Elizabeth Cotrell turned a love of science into a career at one of the nation’s most important geological resources.
Features
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Chet Udell: A Passion for Instrumentation Creates a New Path
A love for experimental music helped Chet Udell forge a unique career developing new musical and scientific instruments.
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Kelsey Young: “Copy, Moon Joy”
She came to NASA with the goal of making planetary science front and center of the Artemis missions. She succeeded.
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Arctic Sea Ice Loss May Be Reshaping the Asian Monsoon
The connections are still cloudy, but scientists are beginning to reveal ways in which disappearing sea ice may affect the annual monsoon thousands of kilometers away.
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Extended Reality Offers Opportunities for Scientific Show-and-Tell
Advances in virtual and augmented reality, spatial computing, and other technologies offer chances to work with data more intuitively, benefiting Earth and space science research and education.
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Measuring Microplastics in Every Ocean Layer
Small bits of plastic don’t just float at the sea surface—they span the entire water column. Scientists need consistent methods to track these particles and to better understand the hazards they pose.
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A Quiet Quantum Revolution in Earth’s Deep Interior
A subtle change in iron ions’ electronic configuration produces a measurable difference in seismic wave speeds through mantle rocks.
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Chemical Companies Are Churning Out New PFAS. Where in the World Are They Ending Up?
Bans on older versions of “forever chemicals” seem to be working. But emerging variants behave in ways that scientists are only beginning to pin down.
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Small, Faint, or Fast, Rubin Will Find It
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is set to redraw the map of the solar system by discovering millions of small, fast-moving objects hidden all around us.
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Drilling Down to Open Up New Understanding of Earth’s Continents
Scientists have drilled into Earth’s crust for decades to understand natural hazards, past climates, energy resources, and more. They’ve only scratched the surface of what we can learn.