Maris Fessenden

 

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

Advanced Prosthetics Help a Dog Run And a Man Move Robotic Arms With His Mind 

Two recent stories showcase the latest advances in prosthetics and the lives they have changed

Introverts Give Their Extroverted Colleagues Bad Performance Reviews

Studies of students show that extroverts don’t get rewarded for being outgoing when introverts are judging

Irving Berlin and wife Ellen MacKay

"White Christmas" Is Actually the Saddest Christmas Song

The season would have reminded composer Irving Berlin of his young son who died Christmas Day in 1928

One of the hapless burglars in "Home Alone" unwittingly stepped on Christmas ornaments placed by Kevin

Architects Analyze Kevin McCallister's "Home Alone" Booby Traps

Overanalyze Home Alone in every way possible — and it still stands up, all these years later

You Eat Millions...Even Billions!...of Microbes Every Day

Yes, plenty of live microorganisms lurk in your yogurt, but they are everywhere else as well

A recreation of the test that led to Louis Slotin's accident

After WWII, Scientists Conducted Deadly Tests With an Unexploded Nuclear Bomb Core

Physicist Richard Feynman called the tests "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon"

Get Set Up With a Family in NYC for Christmas

Don’t be sad at the prospect of spending the holiday alone, a popular photoblog will match you up with a family

The Turing Test of Computer Intelligence Is Too Easy

To better test our computer programs’ intelligence, we should to ask them for stories and drawings

You Wobble Like No Other Person on the Planet

Analysis of the frame movements in footage from head-mounted cameras is just as unique as a fingerprint

A torture chamber at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

A Better Way Than Torture to Obtain Information: Acting Friendly

Friendly methods get information from suspects faster and more reliably, oh and they don't violate human rights

A 2013 view of a channel in the middle section of China’s South-North Water Diversion project

China Just Opened the World's Largest Water Diversion Project

An unprecedented engineering project sends water to China’s parched North

Wolf hunt in 1930

Killing Wolves Actually Leads to More Livestock Deaths

On the surface, killing wolves that kill sheep and cattle seems like a way to control predation, but the data paints a not-so-simple picture

Chances Are Your Supermarket Tomatoes Were Picked By Mexican Workers Living in Terrible Conditions

An investigation reveals practices in Mexican farm labor camps that resemble slavery

Christmas Research Papers Tackle Goofy Problems in Medicine

The British Medical Journal's holiday issue includes an investigation of old magazines in waiting rooms and finds that men can be idiots

Ice from a glacier

Backpackers Walk Across a Completely Clear Frozen Lake

A cool video raises the question: Why is most ice cloudy?

Port Fourchon, a seaport and hub for the petroleum industry on the marshy coast south of New Orleans

The Plan to Save Louisiana's Coast Is a 'Moon Shot'

The plan involves moving silt from upstream down into the delta—but no one knows if there's actually enough

The Mars Rover Curiosity’s landing site in Gale Crater

Curiosity Rover’s Mars Crater May Have Cradled Large Lakes

Signs of water on Mars aren’t new, but now scientists think water may have been there for a long time

These Adorable Robot Toys Teach Kids How to Code

The two bots using a basic visual language, and they are just one way to introduce children to computer programming

Sergeant Tanzanika Carter of the BART police force wears a body camera in San Francisco, CA

Body Cameras Help Police

An in-depth investigation of five cities using police body cameras highlights what the technology addresses and what it doesn’t

Lettuce is fine, just eat something else as well.

That Detox Diet Is Not Going to Rid Your Body of Toxins

It doesn't matter how many pureed veggies you drink, they won't vaporize those mysterious "poisons" you've heard about

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