Science

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Latest in Science

storm chasers
Environment

What do storm chasers really do?

By Yvette Richardson and Paul Markowski / The Conversation

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, Expedition 36 flight engineer, is pictured near food packages floating freely in the Unity node of the International Space Station.
Health

Why food tastes more bland in space

By Andrew Paul

Silhouette of moon
Moons

There really are moon lava tunnels—and humans may live in them one day

By Andrew Paul

beluga whales
Environment

Beluga Whale Live Cam brings the ‘canaries of the sea’ to your screen

By Laura Baisas

kids playing with numbers
Science

Why schools are teaching math word problems all wrong

By Sarah Carr / The Hechinger Report

Researcher Andrea Spolaor holds an ice core recovered in Svalbard, Norway in April 2023.
Environment

The race to save glacial ice records before they melt away

By Nicola Jones / Yale Environment 360

co2 collector containers
Environment

Why carbon capture needs to evolve

By Natasha Gilbert / Knowable Magazine

Image of ice falling away from Falcon 9 rocket shortly before explosion
Private Space Flight

SpaceX’s historic Falcon 9 success streak met a fiery end

By Andrew Paul

harvester ants
Environment

How ants acts for the common good of the colony

By Tom Hawking

Hurricane Ian flood, Florida.
Environment

FEMA will now consider climate change when it rebuilds after floods

By Jake Bittle/Grist

A new urine filtration system could help future astronauts explore further without needing to lug around hefty water reserves.
Science

Future astronauts could safely drink their own urine with this Dune-like device

By Mack DeGeurin

The rim and floor of Gale Crater as seen from NASA’s Curiosity Rover.
Science

Mars was icy and wet billions of years ago, new study suggests

By Tom Hawking

Image of the planet Mars
Mars

Elon Musk’s Martian dreams include modded Cybertrucks and bioengineered animals

By Andrew Paul

An illustration of newly discovered crocodile relative named Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis on the coast of an ancient ocean called Panthalassa.
Animals

Say hello to the surprising crocodile relative Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis

By Laura Baisas

a thick mammoth foot preserved in permafrost. it is round and dark brown
Animals

Woolly mammoth ‘jerky’ preserves 52,000-year-old fossil chromosomes

By Laura Baisas

Millions Of Red Crabs Make Their Way To Ocean As Part Of Annual Migration On Christmas Island
Science

Millions of crabs scuttle across this island every year

By Lauren Leffer

WIPP site in New Mexico
Environment

Finding a forever home for nuclear waste

By Sarah Scoles/Undark

a male lion sits in a tree
Environment

Lion brothers take risky swim across crocodile-infested channel

By Laura Baisas

Screenshot of model rocket vertically landing
Aviation

Teen’s model rocket sticks a SpaceX-inspired vertical landing

By Andrew Paul

several stone circles marking gravesites in a field in norway
Archaeology

Stone circles unearthed in Norway mark ancient children’s graves

By Laura Baisas

Image of Omega Centauri star cluster with black hole and evidence stars highlighted
Black Holes

Astronomers discover Earth’s closest black hole

By Andrew Paul

tourists in greece
Environment

Tourists are feeling the heat—and their bodies may not be able to catch up

By Kiley Price / Inside Climate News

Located in the foothills of a rock emerging from a green field
Agriculture

Iron Age plant remains tell new agricultural story in east Africa

By Laura Baisas

Starship test launch in 2021
NASA

SpaceX’s Starship may mess up the lunar surface

By Andrew Paul

circles of red, blue, and green bacteria
Biology

‘Bacterial glitter’ shimmers without pigments

By Laura Baisas

NASA asteroid concept
Science

How often do asteroids come near Earth?

By Briley Lewis

an illustration of a large shark jumping out of the water and eating a winged dinosaur
Animals

When the ocean got hot, the sharks bulked up

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a blue exoplanet with white swirls near a sun-like star
Deep Space

A nearby exoplanet reeks of rotten eggs

By Laura Baisas

hybrid train
Environment

The greening of planes, trains, and automobiles

By Nicola Jones / Knowable Magazine

A sampling of haplochromine cichlid fish.
Environment

One fish, two fish, 3,000 fish …

By Curtis Abraham / Knowable Magazine

Large hailstones
Environment

How does hail grow to the size of golf balls and even grapefruit?

By Brian Tang / The Conversation

Barred owls have expanded their range across North America, from east to west.
Environment

These owls spread from east to west. Not everyone is pleased.

By Jude Isabella/Hakai Magazine

lanternfly
Environment

What’s going on with spotted lanternflies?

By Lauren Leffer

Octopus in water
Environment

The ‘smart’ animal club keeps getting bigger

By Mack DeGeurin

Pain doesn’t belong on a scale of zero to 10
Health

Pain doesn’t belong on a scale of zero to 10

By Elisabeth Rosenthal/KFF Health News

a nearly complete skeleton of a salamander-like creature that lived 300 million years ago. it's head is round and shaped like a toilet seat
Animals

This giant tetrapod sucked in prey with its ‘toilet seat-shaped’ head

By Laura Baisas

cone shaped skull
Science

These viking ladies tried to start a trend for pointy heads, but it didn’t take off

By Popular Science Team

Brain and brain waves in epilepsy, computer illustration. This EEG (electroencephalogram) illustration shows generalized epilepsy, affecting the whole brain cortex: all the EEG traces show chaotic brain waves. Epilepsy can take many forms, and have different effects. This could illustrate both benign epilepsy (inherited childhood form that normally improves with age), and myoclonic epilepsy (form that causes muscle contractions). An EEG measures electrical activity in the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp.
Technology

100 years of EEG: How this technology transformed neuroscience

By Erika Nyhus / The Conversation

a striped cat scratching a grey armchair
Animals

Why some cats scratch more than others

By Laura Baisas

Close up of human brain neuron
AI

Lab-grown human brain tissue used to control robot

By Andrew Paul

a small grey and black reef fish swims
Animals

Fish in Earth’s hottest water defy the odds

By Laura Baisas

two ants face each other in a lab. one has purple dye where a wound was treated.
Environment

Watch a carpenter ant chew off another’s wounded leg to try to save its life

By Laura Baisas

Close up of Syntrichia caninervis moss
Agriculture

This inedible, indestructible moss may help humans thrive on Mars

By Andrew Paul

SpaceX will attempt the first commercial spacewalk
Science

SpaceX will attempt the first commercial spacewalk

By Briley Lewis

beaver at a dam
Environment

How beavers are helping the Tule River Tribe of California fight wildfires

By Taylar Dawn Stagner / Grist

Breakdown of Antikythera mechanism
Archaeology

The world’s oldest mechanical computer used a lunar calendar to study the stars

By Andrew Paul

Ritual sticks uncovered in Cloggs Cave date back 10,000 to 12,000 years.
Archaeology

Evidence of 12,000-year-old cultural ritual unearthed in Australia

By Laura Baisas

The newly described Guianan long-nosed armadillo.
Science

A new armadillo species was hiding in plain sight

By Lauren Leffer

NASA's Orion Capsule is drawn into the well deck of the USS Portland during recovery operations after it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, on December 11, 2022. - Orion was launched November 16 on the Artemis rocket for a 25-day mission to the Moon. The main goal of this mission was to test Orion's heat shield -- for the day when it is humans and not test mannequins riding inside. (Photo by Mario Tama / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MARIO TAMA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Science

How NASA and SpaceX get spacecraft safely back on Earth

By Marcos Fernandez Tous / The Conversation

green and red grapes
Biology

If dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct, we may not have delicious grapes

By Laura Baisas

Oil Pulling Mouthwash, dental oral hygiene rinse aid liquid, trendy alternative detoxifying mouthwash with toothbrush, toothpaste for cleaning teeth on bath background
Health

What does oil pulling do to your teeth? We asked dentists.

By Hannah Seo

a fun moon rises over an italian city
Mars

July’s skies sizzle with the Buck Moon and a meteor shower

By Laura Baisas

man sneezing on a colorful, illustrated background
Health

Why do some people sneeze so loudly?

By RJ Mackenzie

Henrique Alvim Corrêa’s Illustrations for The War of the Worlds (1906)
Science

100 years of aliens: From Mars beavers to little gray men

By Bill Gourgey

Five of the comb jelly species featured in a new study on how their cells adapt to water pressures. Red coloration as seen in the two specimens at right is common among deep-sea animals.
Animals

Comb jellies won’t give into the extreme pressures of deep-sea life

By Laura Baisas

a marine biologist and an actor fist bump while sitting on a dive boat in the ocean
Animals

Actor Anthony Mackie and marine biologist Jasmin Graham talk sharks

By Laura Baisas

International Space Station orbiting above Earth
International Space Station

NASA is paying SpaceX to destroy the International Space Station

By Andrew Paul

Illustration of woolly mammoth walking icy plain
Animals

The last woolly mammoths were impressively inbred—but that’s not what killed them

By Andrew Paul

five statues depicting the high dignitary Nefer and his wife (Abusir, Egypt).
Archaeology

Ancient Egyptian scribes suffered bone damage from working long hours in hunched positions

By Laura Baisas

the tall and straight pillars of creation as seen with two space telescopes. these celestial bodies are finger-like figures of gas and dust
Deep Space

Ethereal Pillars of Creation come to life in new 3D visualization

By Laura Baisas

visual rabbit illusion
Science

How does the visual rabbit illusion fool us so reliably?

By Tom Hawking

Shark Embryos
Environment

Scientists built an artificial shark uterus

By Claudia Geib / Hakai Magazine

NASA astronaut and Expedition 71 Flight Engineer Tracy C. Dyson is pictured in her spacesuit prior to the start of a science and maintenance spacewalk that ended early after her suit experienced a water leak in the service and cooling umbilical unit.
International Space Station

NASA is having one rough summer

By Andrew Paul

the wreckage of an ancient greek shipwreck underwater, with two divers exploring it
Archaeology

Nuts, bones, and wood help date a 2,000-year-old Greek shipwreck

By Laura Baisas

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