Bob Collins
This is the power of human connection, of shared joy, and shared grief, a medical gift to us that removes the scar tissue of the steady drumbeat of the worst of us, for the healthy heart of empathy. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Science
It’s still slow going to get broadcast meteorologists to talk about their views on the science. Read more →
We’ve never met a state climatologist we didn’t like — or any climatologist for that matter — and we suspect Harry Hillaker would continue the streak. Alas, he’s retiring as Iowa’s climatologist, the Des Moines Register says. There’s something comforting about seeing the state’s climatology records are kept in file cabinets… on paper. So old Read more →
No doubt, you’ve heard by now that the last living male white rhino has died and that’s that. This beautiful and haunting image from National Geographic, however, also shows another vanishing species. Joseph Wachira is the last human who will ever walk the planet to hear the breath of a male white rhino and touch Read more →
Since the 1960s, studies have asked children to draw pictures of scientists and since the 1960s, the pictures have depicted a man. Of the 5,000 drawings submitted then, 4,972 showed a man. Read more →
We don’t get as much snow in the winter, and the air coming into Minnesota and the Dakotas from the Arctic isn’t near as cold as it used to be. In short: we’re losing our reputation. Read more →
Anytime you can marry science, fire, smoke and David Bowie, it’s a good thing.
Read more →
I’ve been fortunate enough to watch (from afar) about every space launch since Alan Shepard went for a quick ride in May 1961, but I confess that I’ve never seen anything like what happened at Cape Canaveral today where the SpaceX Falcon Heavy test flight was launched.
Read more →
When last we heard about ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes, he was about to launch in his homemade steam-powered rocket to prove that the earth is flat. It didn’t happen. Neither did the next scheduled launch. And neither did the one scheduled for Saturday. Read more →
As it has for several decades, the International Space Station is going around and around, rarely making news.
Occasionally, however, something happens aboard the station that gives us pause to consider its example. Read more →
For 118 years now, the Audubon Society has used people power around the country to hold a census of birds. In Duluth, Milton Blomberg checked ‘boreal owl’ off the list.
Read more →
Scientists in Ontario want to know who picked up a meteorite that crashed along Highway 61 in Thunder Bay last night.
A loud explosion shook homes around 11 and while police looked around, they didn’t find any evidence of anything unusual until this morning. Read more →
The U.S. Geological Survey says sea ice is declining because of a warming planet. It has forced polar bears, which feed on seals, onto land where they are dying of starvation. Read more →
The description of the process used in the gene therapy is enough to make you proud to walk the same planet as the scientists who have figured out how to do it.
Read more →
Dick Gordon was the pilot on Apollo 12, the second mission to the moon on which Charles Conrad and lunar module pilot, Alan Bean got to bounce around on the moon while Gordon, like Michael Collins before him, got to orbit the moon by himself for a few days. He died on Monday. Read more →