Popular Science. Demystifying the worlds of science and technology since 1872.
Dogs really are communicating via button boards, new research suggests
Studying the viral online trend could yield insights into our pets’ surprising cognitive abilities.
Kevin Lieber
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The ’90s ‘mind-control glasses’ that ended in lawsuits
The SuperMind system claimed to help you communicate with whales, meditate, and mirror a near-death experience.
This worm got into some hot water and changed the course of history
Plus other weird things we learned this week.
Rachel Feltman
At Popular Science, we report and write dozens 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.
9 fascinating images from the Royal Society Publishing Photography Prize
A stunning moment between predator and prey took top honors.
If ‘correlation doesn’t imply causation,’ how do scientists figure out why things happen?
It’s not enough to just find a link between two things.
Anglerfish use ‘extremely rare’ mechanism to control their lures
The evolutionary implications go far beyond the sea creatures.
How body heat could replace batteries in wearables of the future
The human body could one day be used to power devices and cool down hot semiconductor chips.
Why is deep sleep so important to memory? It’s about time.
Slow brain waves are key to an important neurological process.
AI thought knee X-rays could tell if you drink beer and eat refried beans
‘Not all patterns they identify are meaningful or reliable.’
Earthquake off northern California shook the water in Devils Hole, 500 miles away
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake disrupted a critically endangered fish.
As ocean waters warm, a race to breed heat-resistant coral
Around the world, researchers are working on a range of projects that aim to enhance corals’ resistance to marine heat waves. In a promising sign, a U.K. team recently became the first to quantify an uptick in heat tolerance among adult corals selectively bred for the trait.
NASA is finishing its first off-world accident report
Mars Ingenuity crashed in January—years later than expected.