Science writer and editor with credits at NY Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, Nature, etc.
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Articles by Devin Powell
Devin Powell to Appear on Beyond Success TV
FL, UNITED STATES, June 29, 2026 / EINPresswire.com/ -- Devin Powell, founder of Corsa Luxury & Exotic Rentals and entrepreneur, is set to appear on Beyond Success TV, where he will share insights on entrepreneurship, resilience, and building a business through calculated risk-taking and disciplined growth. Beyond Success TV is a cinematic docuseries that goes past the awards, revenue numbers, headlines, and highlight reels to uncover what it really takes to build something meaningful.
Las potentes promesas y amenazas del cannabis moderno
Ayuda Buscar en la ayuda Buscar en la ayuda Las potentes promesas y amenazas del cannabis moderno Autores: Rosecran Baldwin, Devin Powell, Stayce Colino, Brian Kevin, Sergyi Barchuk (fot.) Localización: National geographic, ISSN 1138-1434, Vol. 57, Nº. 3 (SEP), 2025, págs. 38-59 Idioma: español Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...) Resumen Actualmente la marihuana es más popular y más poderosa que nunca. y su consumo y su estudio están dando lugar a descubrimientos sorprendentes.
What If Your Normal Isn’t Normal? Common Habits That Signal Mental Struggles
We all have days when we’re tired, distracted, or distant. We tell ourselves, “It’s just stress.” “Everyone does this.” But sometimes, what we dismiss as everyday habits can be subtle signals — whispers from our minds trying to tell us that something deeper is going on. For too long, mental health has been treated as something we talk about only when it breaks down. But the truth is, mental health lives in the small moments. The ones we barely notice. And those everyday moments matter.
The Potent Promises (and Perils) of Modern Marijuana
The New Cannabis is a National Geographic exploration into the most critical questions raised by today’s stronger, stranger, ever more accessible weed. Pot is more popular than it’s ever been—and more powerful too. Driven by precision-cultivation techniques, sophisticated extraction, and old-fashioned consumer demand, the rise of ultrapotent cannabis (and its knockoffs) is sparking new science, new health concerns, and new ways of thinking about an increasingly destigmatized drug.
Why synthetic pot could be the future of pain relief
This article is part of The New Cannabis, a National Geographic exploration into the most critical questions raised by today’s stronger, stranger, ever more accessible weed. Learn more. They call it the holy grail of pain-relief research: a medicine that is comparable to the strongest opioids but lacks their potentially devastating side effects.
Blood Cells Mutated in Old Age Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease
By Devin Powell As we grow older, the cells that produce our blood tend to acquire damage to their DNA. These mutations are harmless most of the time. But certain changes can cause some of us, up to 30 percent of those over the age of 70, to be at risk of disease. They make people prone to blood cancer and dying early from a heart attack or stroke. They increase the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, in which our white blood cells fail to properly maintain our blood vessels.
Secret of neuron’s shape revealed in study of worms, rodents, people
By Devin Powell Everything your brain does – every memory, decision, emotion and command to move – starts with an electrical signal generated by a neuron. One of the most sophisticated cells in the body, every neuron has two sides. At one end is the tail-like axon, which acts as a data transmission line, sending signals to other neurons. At the other is the neuron’s branching crown of antenna-like dendrites, which receive incoming signals from other cells.
Do dogs cry ‘happy tears’ when reunited with owners?
Share: It’s easy to tell when your dog is happy to see you. The incessant face licking. The crazy tail wagging. But are they so happy they cry? Yes, suggests a study published today in Current Biology. Researchers found the eyes of dogs separated from their owners for several hours welled up with far more tears than those of dogs reunited with someone less familiar, The Scientist reports.
What Plants Can Teach Us About Treating Brain Disease
From Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s, neurodegenerative diseases are on the rise — yet few therapies exist to combat them. That’s why the Collaborative Pairs program at CZI’s Neurodegeneration Challenge Network (NDCN) is bringing together scientists to explore new ideas and new approaches. Jing-Ke Weng, an expert in plant evolution in MIT’s Department of Biology, might seem like a strange person to consult about human brain disease.
Japan's Kamikaze Winds, the Stuff of Legend, May Have Been Real
An ancient story tells of the kamikaze, or "divine wind," that twice saved Japan from Kublai Khan's Mongol fleets. So powerful was the legend that centuries later thousands of World War II pilots known as kamikazes would sign up to protect Japan again, by crashing their planes in suicide missions.
Industrial Physics Forum 2013: Frontiers in nanomanufacturing
By Devin Powell In the wake of President Obama's call for 15 new manufacturing hubs across the country, the third session of this year's Industrial Physics Forum focused on Frontiers in Nanomanufacturing. Four speakers addressed the promises and pitfalls of nanoscale approaches to innovation.
Tapirs may be key to reviving the Amazon. All they need to do is poop
Beneath the viridescent understory of the Brazilian Amazon, ecologist Lucas Paolucci has been honing his skills for hunting tapir dung. In this region’s degraded rain forests, he sees the piglike mammal’s enormous piles of poop as a treasure.
Fossil pushes back land-animal debut
Five-toed foot among new finds that help fill in evolutionary picture
Color-Changing Material Unites the Math and Physics of Knots
Facts So Romantic On Numbers Posted By Devin Powell on Feb 19, 2020 Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog. Mathematicians have studied knots for centuries, but a new material is showing why some knots are better than others.Image by karlibri / Shutterstock One sunny day in the summer of 2019, Mathias Kolle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a couple of eminent colleagues out sailing. They talked about their research. They had some drinks.
Psychedelic Fiber Offers a New Twist on the Science of Knots
One sunny day last summer, Mathias Kolle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a couple of eminent colleagues out sailing. They talked about their research. They had some drinks. Then Kolle noticed something was off: A rowboat tied to his boat had come loose and was drifting toward the horizon. As he tacked across the water to retrieve the wayward vessel, he realized his mistake. In securing the rowboat, he must have tied the knot wrong.
Color-Changing Material Unites Math and Physics of Knots
Patti Blake /News Herald via AP One sunny day last summer, Mathias Kolle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a couple of eminent colleagues out sailing. They talked about their research. They had some drinks. Then Kolle noticed something was off: A rowboat tied to his boat had come loose and was drifting toward the horizon. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
Color-Changing Material Unites the Math and Physics of Knots | Quanta Magazine
Kolle and his wandering rowboat would agree. But a few years ago, he received inspiration from an unexpected source: a vivid blue seed mailed to a colleague, in a matchbox, by a reporter in Mexico. Plucked from the colorfully named bastard hogberry, the fruit gets its hue from the arrangement of cells in light-bending patterns. Kolle adapted this optical trick to create plastic fibers that not only shine brightly in white light, but change color when stretched or bent.
Wildfires could flip parts of the Amazon from a carbon sponge to a source by 2050
A double whammy of climate change and deforestation could double the area burned by wildfires in the southern Brazilian Amazon forest, simulations suggest. That increase in fires could burn up to 16 percent of the region by 2050 and release enough carbon dioxide to flip parts of the forest from carbon dioxide sponge to source — exacerbating greenhouse gas warming rather than combating it.
The World's Smallest Penguin May Be In Danger
The world's tiniest penguin may be in big trouble. Warming ocean waters could make finding food increasingly difficult for thelittle penguin, Eudyptula minor, which stands less than a foot (0.3 meter) tall. Because their prey is sensitive to heat, âweâre seeing that warm years are quite bad for the penguins, and itâs not hard to see that if the temperature keeps going up, things might get worse,â says Gemma Carroll, a graduate student at Macquarie University in Sydney.
Focus: Optical Fibers Illuminate Single Ion
January 25, 2013• Physics 6, 10 A tiny cavity made from two optical fibers—previously used only with neutral atoms—strengthens the interaction between an ion and a photon, an important step toward quantum computers and networks. M. Steiner et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2013) Trapped with a photon.
Shark Smell Myth Found Fishy
Sharks are no better than other fish at sniffing blood in the water. sharksmell_top.jpg A shark waits for a squirt of smelly amino acids. Image credits: Stephen Kajiura Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 16:15 Devin Powell, Contributor WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Everyone knows that sharks have an amazing sense of smell. Toss a chunk of salmon into the shark tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, and you can see it in action.
Why Hammerhead Sharks Have A Wide Nose
New research rethinks how sharks with elongated head extensions to help them smell in stereo. Friday, June 11, 2010 - 18:15 Devin Powell, Contributor WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Anyone who stares at a hammerhead will notice its widely-spaced eyes. Far fewer will see that the same is true of its nostrils.
How to Understand Einstein's Theory of Gravity
An astronaut wakes up in a spaceship, with no memory of how she got there. Sitting alone in a chair, she wonders: “Where in the universe am I?” The ship has no windows. Its instruments are dead. The only clue is the push of the chair against her body. Phew, there’s gravity, she thinks. Her vessel must still be on Earth. But then a second possibility occurs to her. The ship could be accelerating through space, pressing her into the seat like a race car picking up speed.
Commentary: As Arctic melts, China aims for strategic advantage
I recently wrote a column on the challenges posed by China both on the South China Sea and globally on the deep seabed. But there is another element to the maritime “Great Game” China is playing: the Arctic Ocean. This may seem counterintuitive — last time I looked at a map, China did not have any Arctic waterfront. But this has not stopped Beijing from an aggressive program of building influence in what the Canadians call the High North.
How to Understand Einstein's Theory of Gravity
Einstein's general relativity may be complicated, but it's our best way of understanding the universe. An astronaut wakes up in a spaceship, with no memory of how she got there. Sitting alone in a chair, she wonders: “Where in the universe am I?” The ship has no windows. Its instruments are dead. The only clue is the push of the chair against her body. Phew, there’s gravity, she thinks. Her vessel must still be on Earth. But then a second possibility occurs to her.
How the 1919 Solar Eclipse Made Einstein the World's Most Famous Scientist
A hundred years ago, Albert Einstein wasn’t a household name. He was a professor in Berlin, known to scientists, intellectuals, his divorced wife and the first cousin who would soon become his second wife — but not to the world. His rise to superstardom began on May 29, 1919, when the moon and sun lined up just right for a solar eclipse. Photos of the astronomical event showed something strange: A few of the stars visible during the blackout were in the wrong place. Einstein had foreseen this.
Horny Male Alligators Bellow With Their Back Spikes
Alligators flirt with physics. When males attract attention by quivering their spiky backs underwater, they create Faraday waves, researchers reported May 23 in Seattle at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. These sophisticated patterns are usually seen only in man-made devices. "Faraday waves haven't really been seen in nature before," says John Allen, an acoustician at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who was not involved with the research.
Calcium offers clues in mass extinction
Ocean acidification during Permian period may have caused the Great Dying New clues in a mass murder that took place 252 million years ago points to a suspect: Ocean acidification may have driven the largest extinction of animals the world has ever seen. Carbon dioxide belched out by volcanic eruptions during the Permian period could have caused the oceans’ chemistry to change.
Time Moves Faster Upstairs
World's most precise clock confirms that time is indeed relative. Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 13:30 Devin Powell, Contributor WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- It's 2 a.m., and the noise from your upstairs neighbor is keeping you awake again. Take solace in the fact that by living above you he may be shortening his life, even if only by a tiny fraction of a second. Nearly a century ago, Albert Einstein suggested that time should move faster the farther away you are from the surface of the Earth.
Shape Shifters | DiscoverMagazine.com
But physicists considered the quantum Hall effect to be a peculiar situation, a one-off, says Allan MacDonald, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who studies the effect. Kane’s doughnut discovery extended Thouless’ work dramatically. “He showed that topology could apply not just in the very special circumstance, but very generally,” says MacDonald. That allowed Hasan and his team to make the first 3D topological insulator. This has tangible benefits as well.
Warmer Arctic waters attract surprising visitors: clams, fish, whales
ABOARD THE USCGC HEALY — On a ship near the top of the planet, a 120-pound steel claw dumps out mud freshly scooped from the bottom of the sea. Jackie Grebmeier gets to work with a pair of tweezers, picking shrimp-like critters called amphipods out of the muck.Grebmeier has been digging up animals in the waters between Alaska and Russia for more than 30 years. And she has noticed a trend: A retreat has begun here at the edge of the Arctic.
As Arctic warms, surprising species arrive
ABOARD THE USCGC HEALY — On a ship near the top of the planet, a 120-pound steel claw dumps out mud freshly scooped from the bottom of the sea. Jackie Grebmeier gets to work with a pair of tweezers, picking shrimplike critters called amphipods out of the muck.Grebmeier has been digging up animals in the waters between Alaska and Russia for more than 30 years. And she has noticed a trend: A retreat has begun here at the edge of the Arctic.
Warmer Arctic waters attract surprising visitors: clams, fish and whales
Brett Hembrough affixes an ice measurement pole while Adam Stenseth holds it in place Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018, on the bow of the Coast Guard Cutter Healy approximately 100 miles northwest of Barrow, Alaska, in the Chukchi Sea. Hembrough and Stenseth work in the Ship-based Science Technical Support in the Arctic lab aboard Healy, which provides technical assistance and support to science teams aboard the ship.
Warmer Arctic waters attract surprising visitors: Clams, fish and whales
On a ship near the top of the planet, a 120-pound steel claw dumps out mud freshly scooped from the bottom of the sea. Jackie Grebmeier gets to work with a pair of tweezers, picking shrimplike critters called amphipods out of the muck. Grebmeier has been digging up animals in the waters between Alaska and Russia for more than 30 years. And she has noticed a trend: A retreat has begun here at the edge of the Arctic. With temperatures rising, creatures such as amphipods have been inching northward.
Warmer Arctic waters attract surprising visitors: clams, fish and whales
ABOARD THE USCGC HEALY – On a ship near the top of the planet, a 120-pound steel claw dumps out mud freshly scooped from the bottom of the sea. Jackie Grebmeier gets to work with a pair of tweezers, picking shrimplike critters called amphipods out of the muck. Grebmeier has been digging up animals in the waters between Alaska and Russia for more than 30 years. And she has noticed a trend: A retreat has begun here at the edge of the Arctic.
Warmer Arctic waters attract surprising visitors: clams, fish and whales
ABOARD THE USCGC HEALY - On a ship near the top of the planet, a 120-pound steel claw dumps out mud freshly scooped from the bottom of the sea. Jackie Grebmeier gets to work with a pair of tweezers, picking shrimplike critters called amphipods out of the muck. Grebmeier has been digging up animals in the waters between Alaska and Russia for more than 30 years. And she has noticed a trend: A retreat has begun here at the edge of the Arctic.
The Standard Model: The Physics Theory of (Mostly) Everything
The math that describes nature can be simple, even elegant. Consider Einstein’s beloved E = mc2. A mere three letters tell us that matter and energy are, essentially, the same. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which sets limits on what we can know about reality at small scales, fits neatly on a coffee mug. And then there’s the Standard Model. This sprawling equation fills half a page in 12-point type.
Everything Worth Knowing About Entanglement
Testing the spookiness Proving Einstein wrong is never easy. But in the 1960s, an unassuming physicist from Northern Ireland found a way that eventually earned him a Nobel Prize nomination. John Stewart Bell’s math set a limit on how similar the behavior of particles could be in a universe explained only by traditional physics. Correlations beyond that limit would require something at least as spooky as entanglement.
The Standard Model
The math that describes nature can be simple, even elegant. Consider Einstein’s beloved E = mc2. A mere three letters tell us that matter and energy are, essentially, the same. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which sets limits on what we can know about reality at small scales, fits neatly on a coffee mug. And then there’s the Standard Model. This sprawling equation fills half a page in 12-point type.
Physicists net fractal butterfly
After a nearly 40-year chase, physicists have found experimental proof for one of the first fractal patterns known to quantum physics: the Hofstadter butterfly. Named after Douglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer prizewinning author of the 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach, the pattern describes the behaviour of electrons in extreme magnetic fields. To catch the butterfly, scientists have had to fashion innovative nets.
The science behind tainted “synthetic marijuana”
Three people died and more than 100 have been sickened in the past few weeks after taking synthetic cannabinoids, human-made compounds that target the same brain receptors as marijuana. Symptoms documented by poison centers — first mostly in the Midwest, and now in Maryland — include unexplained bruising, coughing up blood, bleeding from the nose and gums, blood in urine and feces, and excessively heavy menstruation.
The Spice of Death: The Science behind Tainted "Synthetic Marijuana"
Three people died and more than 100 have been sickened in the past few weeks after taking synthetic cannabinoids, human-made compounds that target the same brain receptors as marijuana. Symptoms documented by poison centers—first mostly in the Midwest, and now in Maryland—include unexplained bruising, coughing up blood, bleeding from the nose and gums, blood in urine and feces, and excessively heavy menstruation.
Smile! Your dog's brain will light up in response
Support nonprofit science journalism Sophisticated, trustworthy reporting about science has never been more important. As part of the AAAS mission, Science has built a global award-winning network of reporters and editors that independently cover the most important developments in research and policy. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. Charitable Disclosures
Dissolve the Dead? Controversy Swirls Around Liquid Cremation
SAN DIEGO—Eight times a year a funeral director sets off by boat from Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base carrying about two dozen plastic bags filled with unusual human remains. The powder he pours overboard is from corpses that have been “cremated”—not by fire, but by liquid. That’s how the University of California, Los Angeles, disposes of bodies donated to science: by dissolving the flesh off their bones.
Scientists Try To Fight Crop Damage With An Invasive Moth's Own DNA
If you like coleslaw — or kimchi or sauerkraut on your hot dog — you should worry about cabbage. This staple veggie has been under constant threat for decades, along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale and other leafy greens belonging to the Brassica genus. The danger? A tiny insect called the diamondback moth, an invasive marauder that has spread across the world and mutated to become immune to each new chemical pesticide designed to slay it.
Scientists Try To Fight Crop Damage With An Invasive Moth's Own DNA
If you like coleslaw — or kimchi or sauerkraut on your hot dog — you should worry about cabbage. This staple veggie has been under constant threat for decades, along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale and other leafy greens belonging to the Brassica genus. The danger? A tiny insect called the diamondback moth, an invasive marauder that has spread across the world and mutated to become immune to each new chemical pesticide designed to slay it.
Scientists Try To Fight Crop Damage With An Invasive Moth's Own DNA
If you like coleslaw — or kimchi or sauerkraut on your hot dog — you should worry about cabbage. This staple veggie has been under constant threat for decades, along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale and other leafy greens belonging to the Brassica genus. The danger? A tiny insect called the diamondback moth, an invasive marauder that has spread across the world and mutated to become immune to each new chemical pesticide designed to slay it.
Scientists Try To Fight Crop Damage With An Invasive Moth's Own DNA
If you like coleslaw — or kimchi or sauerkraut on your hot dog — you should worry about cabbage. This staple veggie has been under constant threat for decades, along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale and other leafy greens belonging to the Brassica genus. The danger? A tiny insect called the diamondback moth, an invasive marauder that has spread across the world and mutated to become immune to each new chemical pesticide designed to slay it.
Scientists Try To Fight Crop Damage With An Invasive Moth's Own DNA
If you like coleslaw — or kimchi or sauerkraut on your hot dog — you should worry about cabbage. This staple veggie has been under constant threat for decades, along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale and other leafy greens belonging to the Brassica genus. The danger? A tiny insect called the diamondback moth, an invasive marauder that has spread across the world and mutated to become immune to each new chemical pesticide designed to slay it.
Scientists Try To Fight Crop Damage With An Invasive Moth's Own DNA
If you like coleslaw — or kimchi or sauerkraut on your hot dog — you should worry about cabbage. This staple veggie has been under constant threat for decades, along with broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale and other leafy greens belonging to the Brassica genus. The danger? A tiny insect called the diamondback moth, an invasive marauder that has spread across the world and mutated to become immune to each new chemical pesticide designed to slay it.
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