Stories by Eric R. Olson

Charles Liu, astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, answers questions submitted to our YouTube Space Lab Channel

On March 17th, physicists with the BICEP2 experiment announced they had detected the remnant of gravity waves in the cosmic microwave background, the light left over from the Big Bang.

Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist at Arizona State University, answers an age-old question.

Since at least the 1960s, astronauts and satellites have been snapping photos of planet Earth from on high. While many of these photos possess an intrinsic beauty, some hold important clues about the goings-on of the inhabitants below.

According to NASA, more than 500,000 pieces of debris are tracked as they orbit earth. Individual pieces can travel at speeds of up to 28,000 kilometers per hour, creating a potentially dangerous situation for both satellites and astronauts alike.

NASA is known for hi-tech wizardry when it comes to spacecraft, but some of its technology has floated back down to earth and made it into products we use everyday.

Emily Rice, astrophysics researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, answers question submitted to Scientific American's Space Lab channel.

Why do the number of spirals in a sunflower match up with the integers 34, 55, 89 and 144numbers found in the famous Fibonacci sequence? Scientific American editor John Matson explains in our latest Instant Egghead video: More to explore: What Is the Fibonacci Sequence?

If you haven’t seen it before, “Instant Egghead” is Scientific American’s ongoing series of short and (hopefully) entertaining explainer videos.

We rounded up the coolest, biggest and most important space stories of 2013 and asked the editors of Scientific American to vote for their top five.

Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “the selfish gene” with his best-selling book of the same name. “Selfish”, however, was perhaps an unfortunate word choice because genes lack their own will and can actually drive altruistic behavior.

Films like The Invisible Man and the more recent Harry Potter series speak to the fascination humans have with invisibility. Will new technology grant us this ability? Scientific American's John Matson explains how it might work.

If you live in the U.S., chances are good you’ll be munching on turkey tomorrow in celebration of Thanksgiving. But millions of miles above your head, Comet ISON will make its closest pass to the sun.

With the exception of international waters, unclaimed portions of Antarctica and a Hong Kong-sized parcel of land wedged between Egypt and Sudan, nearly every square inch of planet Earth has been claimed by a governing body.

The practice of meditation can sharpen our attention, strengthen memory and improve other mental abilities. In our latest Instant Egghead video, Scientific American editor Ferris Jabr examines the changes in brain structure behind some of these benefits.

If you aren’t familiar with the TEDEd series of animated videos, you should be. The series pairs professional educators with top-notch animators to create short video “lessons” on a huge variety of topics in science, medicine and history.

Contagious yawning can be annoying, but it might also be a sign of good social skills. It’s a type of emotional contagion, a phenomenon in which we tend to share the feelings of people around us.

  More to explore: Exoplanet colour confirmed for first time: it’s blue, but not pale — and nothing like Earth (Scientific American Blog Network) http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/b… Diamond ‘Super-Earth’ May Not be Quite as Precious (University of Arizona) http://uanews.org/story/diamond-super… Strange Exoplanet’s ‘Backwards’ Orbit Explained by Extra Star, Planet (Space.com) http://www.space.com/19421-backward-a… Astronomers Find Most Ancient Planet Yet (Scientific [...]

More to explore: Universe May Be Curved, Not Flat (Scientific American) http://www.s

New York University research scientist Gabe Perez-Giz answers questions submitted to our YouTube Space Lab Channel

More to explore: Voyager 1 Leaves the Solar System—for Real This Time (Scientific American) Voyager Has Entered The Interstellar Medium (Scientific American Blog Network) Space Farming: The Final Frontier (Modern Farmer) The inside of our Milky Way in 3D (Max Planck Institute) Moon Mission to Suck Up Lunar Dust (Nature News) (Scientific American is part [...]

More to explore: Earth life ‘may have come from Mars’ (BBC News) Maybe Mars Seeded Earth’s Life, Maybe It Didn’t (Scientific American Blog Network) China Plans Its First Unmanned Moon Landing This Year (New York Times) China to launch lunar probe for landing mission (Xinhua) NASA Data Reveals Mega-Canyon under Greenland Ice Sheet (NASA) Space [...]

Astrophysicist Lucianne Walkowicz answers questions submitted to our YouTube Space Lab Channel

More to explore: Curiosity Catches Sight of Mars’ Moon Passing the Other (PsiVid) Latest SpaceX Rocket Test Successfully Goes Sideways (New York Times) Public Naming of Planets and Planetary Satellites: Reaching Out for Worldwide Recognitionwith the Help of the IAU [Pdf] (IAU) Around the World in Four Days: NASA Tracks Chelyabinsk Meteor Plume (NASA) Russian [...]