By Sarah Treadwell It is estimated that for humans to have first reached Australia approximately 65,000 years ago, they would have had to travel across vast bodies of open water. Much is unknown about how exactly they achieved this. Archaeologists and historians credit this as one of the first, remarkable achievements made by humans. While admirable today, their courage could also be described as reckless. When these early humans set sail, they took incalculable risks. They had to weather the […]

By Aditi Sharma From the climate crisis to the current global pandemic, our Earth faces significant threats. This has led many people to criticize space exploration, emphasizing instead that before looking to the stars we should focus on the issues on the planet we live on. It seems that many believe investing in space signifies a severe lack of commitment to improving the Earth. However, such an argument fails to address how space exploration has already benefited modern society and […]

Dr. Rika Anderson specializes in questions concerning the evolution of microbial life with its environment. She is currently an assistant professor at Carleton College in the Biology department, but her lab collaborates with scientists across disciplines to connect biology with astronomy, geology, oceanography, and atmospheric sciences. Her current lab uses bioinformatic techniques to look at microbial and viral evolution in hydrothermal vent environments, investigating how these microbial species arise, spread, and adapt to new environments by looking at their genetic […]