Popular Science. Demystifying the worlds of science and technology since 1872.
Vintage vaccine skeptics thought medicine would turn kids into demon cows
Plus horror movie empaths and other weird things we learned this week.
Rachel Feltman
At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of stories every week. And while a lot of the fun facts we stumble across make it into our articles, there are lots of other weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week.
Latest Articles
Rare 19th century pistol used to rob Tulsa liquor store
‘This pistol is something a bit different,’ according to a firearms expert.
Elizabethan era gold coin sold for record-breaking price
The coin minted between 1584 and 1586 celebrates England’s naval superiority.
Supermassive black hole belches 30,000-miles-per-second winds
Two X-ray space telescopes captured the never-before-seen blast 130 million light-years away.
Air New Zealand tests a new generation of electric planes
Battery and hydrogen-powered aircraft are cleared for takeoff.
Underwater robot survives voyage to ‘never-accessed region of the planet’
An Argo float delivered unprecedented data after eight months beneath Antarctic ice.
Pair of exploding stars baffle astronomers
New images of two novae are ‘like going from a grainy black-and-white photo to high-definition video.’
Swiss startup turns urine into plant fertilizer
The space-inspired wastewater treatment uses the nutrients and loses the odor.
What is shivering? Why our bodies shake when it’s cold.
Involuntary muscle contractions keep us warm and even fight infections.
Nature’s greatest method actors: the insects that cosplay bumblebees
Hoverflies don’t just look like bumblebees—they visit the same flowers and even act like them to fool predators.
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