Sampling – the collection and analysis of a representative mass like water, ore or soil – has evolved enormously since French chemist Pierre Gy penned his work on the subject in the early 1950s. Today ...

In my previous post about the Curiosity rover's Surface Sampling and Science (SSS) system, I provided a quick overview of the design of and rationale for the hardware. In this post, I'll talk about ...

Let’s imagine that we are studying a species of beetle. The beetles come in many different colors, and we want to know how common the orange (O) coloring is in this population. This population of ...

Figuring out what species live in an ecosystem, and which ones are rare or just good at hiding is an essential way to understand and care for them. Until now, it's been very labor intensive. But now ...