Competing ideas abound for how Earth got its moon

 Science News, April 2017

The moon’s origin story does not add up. Most scientists think that the moon formed in the earliest days of the solar system, around 4.5 billion years ago, when a Mars-sized protoplanet called Theia whacked into the young Earth. The collision sent debris from both worlds hurling into orbit, where the rubble eventually mingled and combined to form the moon.

Feature article on the mysteries surrounding the moon's formation. Adapted for Science News for Students.

Devastation detectives try to solve dinosaur disappearance

 Science News, January 2017

Below the shimmering turquoise waters of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula lies the scene of a prehistoric mass murder. In a geologic instant, most animal and plant species perished. Drilling through hundreds of meters of rock, investigators have finally reached the footprint left by the accused: Earth’s most notorious space rock impact, Chicxulub. The dinosaur killer.

A feature article about new clues about the apocalyptic final days of the dinosaurs, including the first direct victims of the Chicxulub impact. Lead feature in a special issue on the K-Pg extinction. Cover story of issue. Adapted for Science News for Students. The special issue co-won the 2017 Eddie award for full-issue consumer magazine in science or technology.

Melissa Omand’s clever tech follows the fate of ocean carbon

 Science News, September 2016

As chief scientist for a voyage of the research vessel Endeavor, oceanographer Melissa Omand oversaw everything from the deployment of robotic submarines to crew-member bunk assignments. The November 2015 expedition 150 kilometers off Rhode Island’s coast was collecting data for Omand’s ongoing investigations of the fate of carbon dioxide soaked up by the ocean.

New desalination tech could help quench global thirst

 Science News, August 2016

The world is on the verge of a water crisis. Rainfall shifts caused by climate change plus the escalating water demands of a growing world population threaten society’s ability to meet its mounting needs. By 2025, the United Nations predicts, 2.4 billion people will live in regions of intense water scarcity, which may force as many as 700 million people from their homes in search of water by 2030. Those water woes have people thirstily eyeing the more than one sextillion liters of water in Earth’s oceans and some underground aquifers with high salt content.

A feature on emerging technologies such as graphene that could make desalination cheaper and more accessible. Cover story for issue.

How alien can a planet be and still support life?

 Science News, April 2016

Just how fantastical a planet can be and still support recognizable life isn’t just a question for science fiction. Astronomers are searching the stars for otherworldly inhabitants, and they need a road map. Which planets are most likely to harbor life? That’s where geoscientists’ imaginations come in. Applying their knowledge of how our world works and what allows life to flourish, they are envisioning what kind of other planetary configurations could sustain thriving biospheres.

A feature story on how unearthly mechanisms could keep planets habitable well outside the traditional "Goldilocks" zone.

Changing climate: 10 years after An Inconvenient Truth

 Science News, April 2016

More than 25 years before the star-studded Los Angeles premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson was about as far away from the red carpet as possible. It was 1978, and high in the rugged Andes, Thompson and fellow scientists were witnessing the first glimpses of a pending worldwide disaster. Rising temperatures were melting ancient titans of ice and snow. Mammoth glaciers were disappearing at unprecedented rates and withering to the smallest sizes in millennia. The delicate balance of Earth’s climate was upset.

A feature story on a decade of climate discoveries since Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Published in print edition as well as a special online package. Cover story of issue.

New fascination with Earth’s ‘Boring Billion’

 Science News, October 2015

Earth’s long history starts with an epic preamble: A collision with a Mars-sized space rock rips into the young planet and jettisons debris that forms the moon. Over the next few billion years, plot twists abound. The oceans form. Life appears. Solar-powered microbes breathe oxygen into the air. Colossal environmental shifts reshape the planet’s surface and drive the evolution of early life.

A feature article on Earth's so-called boring billion, a seemingly uneventful time in the planet's history that's now the setting of a fierce debate between scientists over what delayed the rise of animals: evolution or the environment.

Shinsei Ryu: Error-free quantum calculations

 Science News, September 2015

On the boundary between the quantum and everyday realms, things don’t always make a whole lot of sense. The bundles of particles that make up materials behave in ways both unexpected and unexplained. This is the weird world that theoretical physicist Shinsei Ryu hopes to bring into focus.

The magnetic mystery at the center of the Earth

 Science News, September 2015

Earth’s depths are a hellish place. More than 5,000 kilometers belowground, the iron-rich core scorches at temperatures comparable to the sun’s surface and crushes at pressures akin to the weight of 20 blue whales balanced on a postage stamp.

A feature article on a baffling paradox surrounding Earth's core and magnetic field. Published in both online and print editions. Accompanied by a list of the magnetic fields around the solar system's other rocky worlds.