Read the latest articles from Popular Science (Page 485)

Lion's mane mushrooms on a table.
Biology

Lion’s mane mushroom shows promise in boosting brain cell growth

Used for centuries, the fungi has compounds that boost nerve growth.

Screenshot of Joplin's app menu to import notes from Evernote.
Tech Hacks

Evernote is getting more expensive—here’s how to move to another app

You don't have to lose your Evernote content if you move to another app.

A plane flying high above the ground, drawing white contrails across a blue sky.
Aviation

How high do planes fly? It depends on if they’re going east or west.

Factors like temperature, weight, and even the direction of travel figure into an aircraft's altitude. Here's what's up.

Silhouette of bird in front of full moon
Space

Volunteer astronomers bring wonders of the universe into prisons

Two prison-education programs in the US are giving incarcerated kids and adults the space to learn science.

Close up to the Twitter app icon on the screen of an iPhone
Tech Hacks

6 Twitter alternatives, in case you’re looking

There are a lot of platforms like Twitter—you just have to find the right one for you.

How thinning could help prevent wildfires
Land

How thinning could help prevent wildfires

The rundown on what scientists find actually works to protect forests and homes.

Robot painted portrait of Frida Kahlo
AI

This robot can create finger paintings based on human inputs

Carnegie Mellon University's FRIDA turns ideas into colorful finger-painted portraits.

Millions of dead crabs ended up in the deep sea. Scientists still aren’t sure why.
Ocean

Millions of dead crabs ended up in the deep sea. Scientists still aren’t sure why.

The unexpected discovery of a mass grave of red crabs 4,000 meters below the ocean’s surface is puzzling scientists—and raising questions about the ecology of the deep sea.

Fossil hippo skeleton and associated Oldowan artifacts at the Nyayanga site in July 2016.
Archaeology

2.9 million-year-old tools found in Kenya stir up a ‘fascinating whodunnit’

The stone tools could likely be the oldest evidence of Stone Age innovation.

A prototype of QuEra's neutral atom quantum computer.
Engineering

How neutral atoms could help power next-gen quantum computers

These atoms would function as individual qubits and would be controlled by "optical tweezers."

Bird intelligence researcher in maroon shirt with flock of captive Goffin's cockatoos on his arms and head
Birds

These clever cockatoos carry around toolkits to get to food faster

Nothing can stand between Figaro and his cashews.

Screenshot of Safari's translation tool.
Tech Hacks

How to translate any website from your browser

You can now learn the news from the horse's mouth—without having to speak horse.

A scientist working at a microscope with a pipette.
Vaccines

A vaccine trial targeting the most lethal breast cancer just took its next step

The vaccine targets triple negative breast cancers which make up about 10 to 15 percent of all breast cancers.

The planet Saturn on a dark background. Two smudgy spokes are seen in the B ring (left). The shape and shading of spokes can appear light or dark, depending on the viewing angle, and sometimes appear more like blobs than classic radial spoke shapes, as seen here.
Space Telescope

Hubble telescope spies Saturn’s rings in ‘spoke season’

One season on Saturn lasts roughly seven Earth years.

Chest of police officer in uniform wearing body camera next to police car.
AI

Police are paying for AI to analyze body cam audio for ‘professionalism’

Law enforcement is using Truleo's natural language processing AI to analyze officers' interactions with the public, raising questions about efficacy and civilian privacy.

An open-celled cloud formation west of Chile.
NASA

IBM’s AI has a new job: sorting through NASA’s giant stream of Earth and weather images

The artificial intelligence will also help sift through Earth science studies to answer questions.

The ring system around dwarf planet Quaoar.
Solar System

Distant dwarf planet Quaoar shouldn’t have a ring, but it does

Something put a ring around a tiny world orbiting beyond Neptune.

A small, young plant sprouts up from dark soil.
Agriculture

Smarter fertilizer use could shrink our agricultural carbon footprint

A new study shows how fertilizer emissions could drop 80 percent by 2050.

Wind farm silhouette at sunset
Technology

A new solution could keep old wind turbine blades out of landfills

Retired wind turbine blades are a massive landfill issue, but a new chemical mixture appears to finally solve the problem.

Revamped Microsoft Bing search engine home page screenshot
AI

Just because an AI can hold a conversation does not make it smart

These AI models may respond and write in a human-like way, but they are not always 100 percent correct.