Read the latest articles from Popular Science (Page 309)

a silverado ev pickup with power lines in the background
Electric Vehicles

GM is making more of their EVs into backup power banks

Homeowners who want to keep the lights on during a power failure are getting additional options.

Nvidia's GH200 chip
AI

A new chip can power the billions of calculations the AI age requires

Here's what's coming from Nvidia's upgraded GPUs.

A man is looking in a glass case of coprolites collected in Nong Yakong village, Chaiyaphum Province, Thailand.
Wildlife

Rare parasites found in 200 million-year-old reptile poop

Even ancient aquatic predators can't avoid the occasional pest.

Microscopic image of individual cell tattooed with gold array
Technology

Why medical engineers tattooed a single cell with gold

The tiny tattoos could one day help monitor health at the cellular level.

taxidermied two-headed goat kid
Evolution

Life after death never looked so beautiful

Nature plays tricks on us all the time—taxidermy gives Divya Anantharaman a way to play back.

Zoom app icon of smartphone home screen
AI

Zoom could be using your ‘content’ to train its AI

Though the video conferencing company adjusted its terms of service after public backlash, privacy experts worry it is not enough.

Maya Tilousi, member of the Hopi Tribe, Havasupai Tribe of Grand Canyon, and the Cheyanne and Arapaho Tribes, shakes hands with President Joe Biden at Red Butte Airfield, 25 miles south of Tusayan, Arizona, on August 8, 2023. Biden announced he is putting the brakes on uranium mining around the Grand Canyon and willl give an area of nearly one million acres national monument status.
Land

Nearly 1 million acres of land near the Grand Canyon is now a national monument

'Preserving these lands is good not only for Arizona, but for the planet.'

A hair whorl is a patch of hair growing in a circular pattern around a single point that is determined by the orientation of hair follicles.
Biology

The swirls and whorls of your hairline come from multiple genes

Hair woes are universal—but hair whorls are unique.

Three young people of different races and genders standing on a sidewalk in a park during the fall, all holding their phones and laughing.
Tech Hacks

How to use AirDrop without opening your phone up to strangers

AirDrop is a convenient way to share things with people up to 30 feet away, but you may receive unsolicited requests.

A NASA image of the sun with a bright solar flare in the upper left.
Sun

Would a massive shade between Earth and the sun help slow climate change?

The concept involves an asteroid counterweight and would be tremendously expensive to pull off.

Tourists visit the Solfatara crater, part of the Campi Flegrei Volcano, the biggest caldera of Italy.
Land

Up the coast from Pompeii, another city grows on top of an underground volcano

An uptick in small earthquakes has caught the attention of scientists, who watch for signs of an imminent eruption.

a c-17 aircraft at night
Air Force

UFO-type sightings happen more often near military airspace

A report from the RAND Corporation finds a connection between UAP sightings and Military Operations Areas.

Sea turtle robot crawling across sand
Robots

This waddling robot could guide baby turtles to the sea

Engineers synthesized the gaits and anatomy of multiple sea turtle species to create a helpful turtle bot.

Aerial view of solar panel farm
Technology

Solar power helps keep Europe’s grid reliable in historic heat

Sicily's solar power reserves provided over half of the excess demand on July 24.

Hannover train station
Technology

The world’s first hydrogen-powered train has made its final stop

But Germany is still focused on getting battery electric trains on track.

Two penguins and a seal on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Land

Antarctica is in the climate change crosshairs

A new study calls an increase in heat waves and sea ice loss ‘virtually certain.’

Reconstruction of Hupehsuchus about to engulf a shoal of shrimp. The ancient lizard widely opens its skinny snout and large mouth to swallow a large ball of shrimp.
Wildlife

The planet’s first filter feeder could be this extinct marine reptile

High competition for food means evolving unique feeding methods.

The Arc browser on macOS.
Tech Hacks

The new Arc browser will literally transform how you use the web

Arc is a unique browser, and you might find it's exactly right for you.

An illustration of a brown dwarf and a hotter star, in white.
Deep Space

Two tiny stars fit into an orbit smaller than our sun

This unusual system 'shouldn't exist,' says one astronomer, who notes the orbit is as long as his daily commute.

Bin full of waste.
Pollution

You could have ‘recycling bias’—here’s what that means

Decades of messaging urging us to recycle crowded out other options — like consuming less in the first place.