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Scientists maintain that scientific investigation must adhere to the scientific method, a process for properly developing and evaluating natural explanations for observable phenomena based on empirical study and independent verification. Science therefore bypasses supernatural explanations, it instead only considers natural explanations, and rejects arguments from authority.
Fields of science are commonly classified as either a Natural sciences which study natural phenomena or as a social sciences which study human behavior and societies. Mathematics is the language in which scientific information is best presented but more often it is the only way. Therefore whether mathematics is a science is a matter of perspective.
Fields of science can be further distinguished as pure science or applied science. Pure science is principally involved with the discovery of new truths with less (or no) regard to their applications. Applied science is principally involved with the application of existing knowledge in new ways.
Uplift of the region started about 75 million years ago in the Laramide orogeny, a mountain-building event that is largely responsible for creating the Rocky Mountains to the east. Accelerated uplift started 17 million years ago when the Colorado Plateaus (on which the area is located) were being formed. In total these layers were uplifted an estimated 10,000 feet (3000 m) which enabled the ancestral Colorado River to cut its channel into the four plateaus that constitute this area. But the canyon did not start to form until 5.3 million years ago when the Gulf of California opened up and thus lowered the river's base level (its lowest point) from that of large inland lakes to sea level.
The Falkirk Wheel, named after the nearby town of Falkirk in central Scotland, is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal, which at this point differ by 24 metres, roughly equivalent to the height of an eight story building.
On 24 May 2002, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Falkirk Wheel as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations. The opening had been delayed by a month due to flooding caused by vandals who forced open the Wheel's gates.
Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrobiologist, and highly successful science popularizer. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was the most-watched PBS program until Ken Burns' The Civil War in 1990. A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated scientific skepticism, humanism, and the scientific method.
- ...that space artist Jon Lomberg (artwork pictured) was Carl Sagan's principal artistic collaborator on many projects such as Cosmos and the Voyager Golden Record?
- ...that NASA astronaut Stephen Robinson has logged 497 hours in space?
- ...that Othniel Charles Marsh named two species of the dinosaur Coelurus from the same quarry, not knowing that the bones belonged to the same skeleton?
- ...that the type specimen of Dromicosuchus had damage to its jaw and neck that may have been inflicted by the teeth of the large carnivore it was found underneath?
- ...that the scientific name of the common Australian garden fungus Aseroë rubra (pictured) means 'red disgusting juice'?
