Maris Fessenden

 

Maris Fessenden is a freelance science writer and artist who appreciates small things and wide open spaces.

"Women of Algiers (Version O)" by Pablo Picasso before it went on sale at Christie's auction house in New York City

Picasso Painting Breaks Auction Record by $37 Million

"Women of Algiers (Version O)" fetched nearly $180 million

Here the experimental chick embryo (center) can be compared to a typical chicken about to hatch (left) and an alligator (right)

Researchers Create Chicken Embryos With Dinosaur-Like Faces

Researchers seeking to understand how birds got their beaks turned back the evolutionary clock just a tad

The South Portico of the White House, around 1950, during Truman's rennovation

The White House is Mostly a Reconstruction of the Original

The mansion may have been built over 200 years ago, but its skeleton was redone in the early 1950s

American chestnut seed

Turning the American Chestnut into a GMO Might be the Only Way to Save it

Adding wheat genes could help the tree fight off blight

This chocolate may look fine, but it’s just a few steps away from disaster

X-Rays Reveal Why Old Chocolate Turns White

Liquid fat turns out to be the culprit

Starbucks Moves its Bottled Water Operations Out of California’s Drought

Bottling water in California might not be a great idea, but many companies still do it

Armor from the Old Arsenal Museum (Altes Zeughaus) in Solothurn, Switzerland

Here’s How to Fight Wearing 15th Century Armor

Experts demonstrate some moves in a video while wearing full suits of plate armor

A drawing by explorer John Cleves as he mapped the northern poles.

John Quincy Adams Was an Ardent Supporter of Exploration

The president planned to fund an expedition to the South Pole and South Pacific, but the research trip was canceled by his successor, Andrew Jackson

Here's How to Make Harper Lee’s Crackling Cornbread

The recipe is offered with a side serving of dry wit

Labyrinths in Prisons and Hospitals Might Actually Help People Relax

Labyrinths are experiencing a revival

A Falcon 9 rocket and unmanned Dragon space capsule blast off from Cape Canaveral last month to re-supply the International Space Station

SpaceX’s Capsule Has an Emergency Eject System

The spaceflight company hits another milestone in tests of its Dragon 2 and Falcon 9 systems

An original schematic of Thomas Edison's speaking doll showing the phonograph mechanism inside

Listen to the Newly Reconstructed, Very Creepy Voices of Thomas Edison’s Dolls

A lab figured out how to hear the rare talking dolls without damaging the original recordings

An ocean sunfish hangs out with pilotfishes

Goofy Looking Ocean Sunfish Are Actually Active Swimmers and Predators

The idea that these giant fish are lazy is just wrong

The Mystery of What Venus de Milo Was Once Holding

A distaff, thread and spindle could have been held in her upraised arms and would have been appropriate for the goddess of love

Diamond crystal on kimberlite from Eastern Siberia

This African Plant Leads the Way to Diamond Deposits

A palm-like plant seems to grow only on top of diamond-rich deposits called kimberlite pipes

You Can See South Korea’s Seaweed Farms From Space

Seaweed farms offer a sustainable source of vegetable protein

Researchers Come Closer to Making Everyone a Universal Blood Donor

The approach uses an enzyme to snip off the parts of blood cells that can prove problematic

A 1911 illustration of a vampire squid

Poop Eating Vampire Squids Aren't Actually Squids at All

The strange-looking animals have a very different reproductive strategy than other cephalopods

Sentinel-1 image showing the effects of the April 25 earthquake in Nepal

The Nepal Earthquake Made Mt. Everest an Inch Shorter

Satellite data gives the first results for the way the land moved during the quake

Mercury as seen by Messenger

Today The Messenger Spacecraft Will Crash Into Mercury

After years of exciting observations and stunning pictures of Mercury, the spacecraft has run out of fuel

Page 27 of 44