Science

Science spans our understanding of how Earth and the cosmos work. Get the biggest news on biology, physics, space, dinosaurs, and more—along with the latest episodes of the Ask Us Anything and Weirdest Thing podcasts.

Latest in Science

How frozen baby corals and high-powered lasers could help dying reefs
Environment

How frozen baby corals and high-powered lasers could help dying reefs

By Brent M. Foster / Hakai Magazine

A gray asteroid against the black background of our solar system.
Science

Why the heck is Earth wet?

By Ben Guarino

This square astronomical image is divided horizontally by a waving line between a white-orange cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively blue-purple-pink upper portion. From the nebula in the bottom half of the image, an orange cloud shaped like a horsehead sticks out. In the bottom left of the image, a white round glow is visible. The clouds from the bottom half of the image shine purple/blue light into the upper half. The top of the image shows the black expanse of space. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing stars of varying sizes and colors. Blue stars are younger and red stars are older.
Science

Euclid telescope spies shimmering stars and galaxies in its first look at the ‘dark’ universe

By Laura Baisas

Astronomers found the most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays (in a galaxy dubbed UHZ1) using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. X-ray emission is a telltale signature of a growing supermassive black hole. This result may explain how some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed. These images show the galaxy cluster Abell 2744 that UHZ1 is located behind, in X-rays from Chandra and infrared data from JWST, as well as close-ups of the black hole host galaxy UHZ1.
Science

Farthest black hole ever recorded by astronomers is nearly as old as our universe

By Laura Baisas

Close-up of Roman follis coins found off Italian coast
Technology

Divers recovered a treasure trove of more than 30,000 ancient, bronze coins off the Italian coast

By Andrew Paul

A sample of Asteroid Bennu is put on public display for the first time at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, on November 3, 2023. A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. The small black rock is located in a glass viewing pain.
Science

Smithsonian unveils a very small sample of the 4.5-billion-year-old Bennu asteroid

By Laura Baisas

A baby loggerhead turtle pokes out of a shell on the sand. Its head and front flippers are out of the shell, with the lower half remaining inside.
Environment

Endangered sea turtles build hundreds of nests on the Outer Banks

By Laura Baisas

Screenshot of star from NASA+ show 'Space Out'
Technology

NASA’s free streaming platform launches this week. Here’s what to watch.

By Andrew Paul

An illustration of Ekgmowechashala, the last primate to inhabit North America before humans. The animal has a white furry face, with a pink nose, and large dark eyes like a lemur. It is sitting in a leafy tree.
Science

North America was once home to some unusual wild monkeys

By Laura Baisas

The silver structure of the International Space Station against the black backdrop of space.
Science

What mouse embryos can tell us about the future of pregnancies in space

By Jon Kelvey

Test subject tilting in spatial disorientation machine
Technology

These wearables might protect astronauts from space ‘death spirals’

By Andrew Paul

A large asteroid with a smaller asteroid orbiting it. This image shows the “moonrise” of the satellite as it emerges from behind asteroid Dinkinesh as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager. This image was taken by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft at 12:55 p.m. EDT on November 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of approximately 270 miles. From this perspective, the satellite is behind the primary asteroid. The image has been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast.
Science

First NASA images from Lucy’s flyby reveal that ‘Dinky’ is not alone

By Laura Baisas

The particle accelerator on a one-cent coin.
Science

How physicists built the world’s smallest particle accelerator

By Rahul Rao

The synthetic melanin is being applied to Inflamed skin. Just under the surface of the skin are green free radicals, also known as ROS, or "reactive oxygen species."
Health

Lab-made ‘super melanin’ speeds up healing and boosts sun protection

By Laura Baisas

A white rat pops its head out of a black box. Like in humans, the rat’s hippocampus is the part of the brain where mental maps of the world are stored.
Science

Rats may have imaginations

By Laura Baisas

yeah! caption is A size comparison of Dinkinesh (shown in blue) and other main asteroid belt objects Bennu and (2867) Steins.
Science

NASA spacecraft Lucy says hello to ‘Dinky’ asteroid on far-flying mission

By Laura Baisas

A honey-infused Bee's Knees cocktail on a white plate on a table next to a jar of honey, some lemons, and a honey dipper.
DIY

The science behind mixing honey into cocktails

By Noah Lederman

Photograph of the skeletal mount of an Allosaurus specimen (AMNH 5753), from William Diller Matthew's 1915 book “Dinosaurs.”
Science

When a Jurassic giant died, predatory dinos probably feasted on the carcass

By Laura Baisas

An orange starfish, or sea star, on a black backgorund. The unusual five-axis symmetry of sea stars has long confounded our understanding of animal evolution.
Science

The sea star’s whole body is a head

By Laura Baisas

The Milky Way galaxy shines above a dark space telescope in the foreground.
Science

What astronomers learned from a near-Earth asteroid they never saw coming

By Briley Lewis

The gold mirrors of JSWT sit in front of an extremely large, circular door in a vast room with scientists working.
Technology

This NASA photographer documented the 30-year journey to build the James Webb Space Telescope

By Abby Ferguson

Several blooming yellow sunflowers under a blue sky with white clouds.
Science

We still don’t fully know how sunflowers turn toward the sun

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of an early lamprey's teeth and sucker. The Jurassic lampreys Yanliaomyzon had a feeding apparatus that surprisingly resembles that of the pouched lampreys. It foreshadows the ancestral flesh-eating habit of present day. lampreys.
Environment

Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh

By Laura Baisas

scientist pulls back stage curtain with colorful shapes behind; illustration
Science

How this computer scientist is rethinking color theory

By Kenneth R. Rosen

Beaver moon sets behind Rocca Calascio castle in Calascio, Italy, on November 9, 2022. November full moon takes this name because during this month beavers fill the banks of rivers and build their dams and dens to take refuge in view of winter.
Science

You can see three meteor showers at their peak and a full Beaver Moon this November

By Laura Baisas

An artist's rendition of the infrared aurora superimposed on a Hubble Space Telescope photograph of Uranus. The planet is blue with a white ring around it and the aurora is shown in red at its poles.
Science

Uranus has a weird infrared aurora

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of two Jormungandr walhallaensis mosasaurs fighting. The extinct creatrue is a long sea serpent with flippers, a shark-like tail, and narrow jaws. One is seen biting the other in the next, while pterosaurs fly above it.
Environment

Newfound mosasaur was like a giant Komodo dragon with flippers

By Laura Baisas

An ISRO rocket launches amid a brownish plume of exhaust.
Science

India had an impressive year in space—and it’s just getting started

By Jon Kelvey

A woman wearing ultraviolet makeup or body paint on half her face, standing under a blacklight.
DIY

4 science tricks to scare up a better Halloween costume

By Dan Seitz

Man holding HULC lunar camera in rocky outdoor environment
Technology

A sneak peek at the lunar camera destined for the Artemis missions

By Andrew Paul

A computer-generated three-dimensional perspective view of the surface of Venus. Venus has a surface temperature of over 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Science

Earth-like plate tectonics may have shaped Venus billions of years ago

By Laura Baisas

The Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) aka the Halloween beetle looks very similar to more common ladybugs, but they are generally bigger and with more spots. The bug is sitting on a yellow flower.
Environment

Why ladybugs and ‘Halloween beetles’ are everywhere right now

By Laura Baisas

Dark black holes merge together in a brown, star-studded illustration.
Science

Gravitational wave detector now squeezes light to find more black holes

By Rahul Rao

A clock-like brain indicates its role in sleep in an illustration.
Science

Your brain’s ‘master switchboard’ is an underappreciated marvel

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Ma Rainey, a post-reproductive female of the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, and her adult son Wes. The two are sitting among trees in a forest.
Environment

Wild chimpanzees show signs of potential menopause—a rarity in the animal kingdom

By Laura Baisas

colorful facial profiles of people saying BA BA BA and GA GA GA; illustration
Health

Why what we see influences what we hear

By Tom Hawking

Ancient rock carvings that reappeared in the region of the Lajes Archaeological Site due to the severe drought affecting the region's rivers on the banks of the Negro River in Manaus, Brazil, on October 21, 2023. The carvings feature depictions of human faces.
Environment

Drought reveals ancient rock carvings of human faces in Brazil

By Laura Baisas

A woman wearing over the ear headphones leans her head back and closes her eyes.
Health

Your favorite, bittersweet tunes may help relieve pain better than unfamiliar, relaxing music

By Laura Baisas

a hippo in the water opening its jaws
Science

American hippopotamus ranching almost took off 100 years ago

By Popular Science Team

Orang heat radiates from a reentering space capsule in NASA artwork.
Science

Rockets and satellites are shedding metal into the atmosphere

By Briley Lewis

A fuzzy yellow and black bumblebee foraging on a green plant.
Environment

Bumblebees carbo-load on the fly

By Laura Baisas

a collection of woolly mammoth figurines on petri dishes on a blue background to represent Colossal's de-extinction project
Environment

Is de-extinction only a pipette dream? This startup has a big, expensive plan to find out.

By Andrew Zaleski

A life-sized reconstruction of the head and jaws of the oldest megapredatory pliosaur called Lorrainosaurus. The reptile is long and torpedo shaped, with closed jaws and sharp exposed teeth.
Environment

This Jurassic-era ‘sea murderer’ was among the first of its kind

By Laura Baisas

Artist rendition of Voyager 1 in space
Technology

Voyager probes get virtual tune-up to keep decades-long missions going and going

By Andrew Paul

NASA astronaut Harrison Schmitt is standing on the moon’s surface next to a large split lunar boulder, with a roving vehicle on the other side of the boulder.
Science

The moon is 40 million years older than we thought, according to crystals collected by Apollo astronauts

By Laura Baisas

Pale craters on the moon's lunar surface, with dark shadows below.
Science

This private lander could be the first US machine on the moon this century

By Jon Kelvey

An illustration of a newly discovered shark species called Strigilodus tollesonae. The shark looks somewhat like a stingray, with outstretched wings, fan-like top fins, and a long tail with black spots.
Science

Prehistoric shark called Kentucky home 337 million years ago

By Laura Baisas

The best telescopes under $500 are a great starting point
Gear

The best telescopes under $500 in 2024

By Jim Beaugez

A radio telescope in Australia beneath the Milky Way.
Science

Oldest radio burst ever found could tell us what exists between galaxies

By Rahul Rao

An image of Jupiter taken with the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIR Cam in July 2022. Researchers recently discovered a narrow jet stream traveling 320 miles per hour sitting over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks. The numerous bright white "spots" and "streaks" are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms. Auroras, appearing in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet.
Science

Why a 3,000-mile-long jet stream on Jupiter surprised NASA scientists

By Laura Baisas

An ancient brown skull with a metal arrowhead protruding from its side.
Science

Why societies experience cycles of violence and peace

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

A group of worker bees surround the queen bee on a honeycomb. All worker honeybees are female and they can go to extreme lengths to serve their queen even shedding their own ovaries.
Environment

Female honeybees may pass down ‘altruistic’ genes

By Laura Baisas

The planet Earth, as seen from the DSCOVR satellite. Earth appears as a bright blue dot against the darkness of space, with the shadow of an annular solar eclipse over much of North America.
Science

What the ‘Ring of Fire’ eclipse looked like to a satellite nearly 1 million miles from Earth

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of a cutaway of Mars along with the paths of seismic waves from two separate quakes in 2021. These seismic waves, detected by NASA’s InSight mission, were the first ever identified to enter another planet’s core.
Science

Giant quake that shook Mars for hours had a surprising source

By Laura Baisas

A yellow-ish pepper named Pepper X sits on a crystal dish. Pepper X is the new hottest chili pepper in the world. It was crossbreed with Carolina Reaper and a mystery pepper.
Science

The world’s hottest chili pepper is worse than bear spray

By Laura Baisas

Red-capped Hall effect thrusters being attached to a spacecraft body by two engineers.
Science

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will blaze an unusual blue trail across the solar system

By Briley Lewis

Coral Beach on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, dotted with various types of seaweed.
Environment

Europeans ate a lot more seaweed 8,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

A fluorescent microscopic image, magnified 20 times, of a rodent nerve.
Science

Unraveled nerves and mesmerizing caffeine crystals: 10 sensational glimpses of the microscopic realm

By Popular Science Team

Microscopes for kids sliced header
Gear

The best microscopes for kids in 2024

By Carsen Joenk

Three stage of digital reconstruction. From left, the Pierolapithecus cranium shortly after discovery, after initial preparation, and after virtual reconstruction.
Science

12-million-year-old ape skull bares its fangs in virtual reconstruction

By Laura Baisas

Two Celestron telescopes on a white background
Gear

Save up to $101 on a Celestron x PopSci telescope with this post-eclipse sale at Amazon

By Stan Horaczek

Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem
Environment

Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem

By Syris Valentine/Hakai Magazine

Climate change could help fungal diseases thrive
Environment

Climate change could help fungal diseases thrive

By Shreya Dasgupta/Knowable Magazine

Charred scroll from Herculaneum undergoing laser scan
Technology

AI revealed the colorful first word of an ancient scroll torched by Mount Vesuvius

By Andrew Paul

Explore Science