As national parks traveler Mikah Meyer wrapped up the last leg of his journey across the western state of Utah, he appears to have saved the best for last — with visits to Bryce and Zion national parks — the last two of the five national parks that make up the ‘Mighty 5.’ Hoodoo! Who knew? Mikah was one of millions of visitors who are drawn to Bryce Canyon National Park each year. The park is home to the world’s largest collection of hoodoos — giant pillars of rock that …

NASA launched the last of its longtime tracking and communication satellites Friday, a vital link to astronauts in orbit as well as the Hubble Space Telescope. The end of the era came with a morning liftoff of TDRS-M, the 13th satellite in the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite network. It rode to orbit aboard an unmanned Atlas V rocket. There were handshakes all around two hours later, when the satellite successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage. “We’re going to really celebrate this one,” said launch director Tim Dunn. NASA …

As national parks traveler Mikah Meyer wraps up the last leg of his journey across the western state of Utah, he appears to have saved the best for last – with visits to Bryce and Zion national parks — the last two of the five national parks that make up the ‘Mighty 5.’ He shared highlights of his experiences in some of the most stunning desert landscapes he’s seen on his epic national parks journey so far with VOA’s Julie Taboh. … From: MeNeedIt

The United Nations should name and shame countries that fail to protect health workers in war zones and audit what steps they take to keep medics safe, an aid expert said on Thursday. International law bounds all warring parties to respect and protect medical personnel, but the provision is largely disregarded, with hospital and medics often deliberately targeted in conflict areas, aid agencies say. Last year, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for an end to impunity for perpetrators, but little has been done to implement it, …

A U.S. researcher says she has developed automated ways to identify links between online sex trafficking ads and the digital currency Bitcoin, techniques that may help locate children being sold for sex. Law enforcement and anti-trafficking groups could use the methods to investigate Backpage.com, an online classified advertising site where sex ads can be found, according to a statement by the University of California Berkeley, where the research was based. About 1.5 million people in the United States are victims of trafficking, mostly for sexual exploitation, according to anti-trafficking groups. …

The August 21 solar eclipse, the first to travel coast to coast in the United States in nearly a century, has inspired dozens of citizen science projects involving solar physics, atmosphere and biology. “Millions of people … can walk out on their porch in their slippers and collect world-class data,” said Matthew Penn, an astronomer with the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Penn is coordinating a citizen science effort to photograph the sun’s volatile outer atmosphere, known as the corona. The corona’s pearly light is typically obscured by the …