Prime Pick

For most of scientific history, chemical elements were identified through materials that could be handled, heated, weighed or examined in a laboratory. Helium followed a very different path. It first emerged not from a rock, a gas sample or a chemical experiment, but from a thin yellow line hidden within sunlight.According to a Science Museum … Read more

For decades, discussion about California’s next major earthquake has tended to revolve around a single fault. The southern stretch of the San Andreas has long been viewed as the state’s most closely watched geological boundary, largely because it has remained quiet since the mid-19th century despite continuing movement beneath the surface. That long silence has … Read more