Dr. Universe

SPOKANE, Wash. – After a quick catnap and a stretch, I went to visit my friend Marcos Frank, a scientist at Washington State University who studies animal sleep.

PULLMAN, Wash. – It is very cold in space, but it wasn’t always that way. That’s what I learned from my friend Guy Worthey, a professor of astronomy here at Washington State University.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Because I’m a cat, car rides can sometimes make me feisty. But as a scientist, I am fascinated to learn about the mechanics, engineering and chemistry fueling the cars humans drive every day.

PULLMAN, Wash. – When we dig up fossils from the Earth they can tell us a lot about life in the past.

PULLMAN, Wash. – You’ve got to know your dough. Whether you want chewy cookies or crispy dunkers, it’s all about chemistry. Especially when it comes to the flour.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Mollusks, from land snails and slugs to oysters and mussels in the sea, have a few things in common. They have a head. They have a soft middle part that holds their organs. Then, some have a muscle that’s known as a “foot.”

PULLMAN, Wash. – It took more than 100 bakers to pull off the biggest bake sale in history. They made 14,534 cakes, sold out their supply in eight hours and made it into the Guinness World Records.

PULLMAN, Wash. – The dodo bird isn’t with us anymore, but if you visit a city park you’ll likely see one of its very close relatives walking around. It might even be nibbling on a french fry. Dodos were a pigeon, said my friend Michael Webster.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Whether it’s a model rocket you build in the backyard or one that launches a space shuttle, there are lots of materials you could use.

PULLMAN, Wash. – We’ve learned a lot about how water supports life on the blue planet, but the first drop is a bit mysterious. Scientists have a few theories about how it happened.