Read the latest articles from Popular Science (Page 537)

What broadband ‘nutrition labels’ could reveal about your internet provider
Internet

What broadband ‘nutrition labels’ could reveal about your internet provider

It will be like what you see in a grocery store, but about monthly charges, not sugars. Here's how experts say they could help—and what problems remain.

Mars on 25 December 2003
Mars

Early Mars was a long-lasting hell, meteorite study suggests

The Red Planet could have been a cataclysmic place for even longer than suspected.

Iceberg melts into various shapes
Physics

Ice doesn’t always melt the same way—and these visuals prove it

Physicists sculpted ice into distinct shapes by controlling the temperature of surrounding water.

A Minecraft castle.
Tech Hacks

What I wish I knew before playing Minecraft with my kids

Tips for parents who want to game with their little ones.

ten dollars
Cryptocurrency

Project Hamilton takes its first run at modeling a digital dollar

MIT and Boston Fed ran computer models for a potential central bank digital currency system and published a white paper on their findings.

a large cloud system snowstorm swirls above the north east United States, taken from a satellite
Aviation

NASA’s storm-chasing planes fly through blizzards to improve snowfall forecasts

The IMPACTS mission is the first study in the last 30 years to focus on East Coast snowstorms.

Hot pink, floating, circular HIV particles like those discovered in high virulent varient.
Diseases

A highly virulent, but treatable, HIV strain has been quietly circulating since the ’90s

While it might be more contagious, it is not necessarily more deadly.

a Toyota race car on a track
Self Driving

This autonomous Toyota race car can drift like a pro

The person in the driver's seat wasn't driving. Here's why Toyota is conducting this research.

Person holding phone looking at screen
Tech Hacks

4 RSS apps to stay in the know

An old technology that has thrived and survived for a reason.

Chimney smoke
Fossil Fuels

Hitting Biden’s greenhouse goals could save billions in health-related costs

No extra effort necessary.

Boats on the waters of Rhode Island.
Archaeology

Has Captain Cook’s lost ship been found? Maybe.

US archaeologists dispute that the Atlantic shipwreck has been discovered.

A doctor talks to a patient who is sitting on an MRI machine's bed.
Vaccines

Who gets an organ transplant? Waitlist rules are complicated.

A COVID vaccine may be only one of many priorities for a transplant patient.

Robotic cartographers created these colorful cave maps
DARPA

Robotic cartographers created these colorful cave maps

Two new videos from the DARPA Subterranean Challenge reveal underground spaces—as charted by robots.

A pile of books to represent scientific journals and COVID preprint studies
COVID-19

‘Preliminary research’ on COVID has been surprisingly solid

Preprint studies have been critical for fast-moving science and public accessibility during the pandemic—but not without criticism.

A blonde woman in a white bathrobe smiling and lying on a white bed in a blue room.
Projects

Redesign your bedroom for a better night’s sleep

Make your room of rest the very best.

A prototype carrying the LAZA wing system
Robots

These robot wings use artificial muscle to flap like an insect

A prototype bot from engineers at the University of Bristol flies like an insect and looks like the golden snitch.

a gray wolf looks over its shoulder in the snow
Endangered Species

Snowy weather could determine life or death for Wisconsin’s poached gray wolves

A new analysis highlights how human activity and weather could make certain times of year more perilous than others for wolves.

A clinician readies a vaccine for injection.
Vaccines

The first people have received an experimental mRNA HIV vaccine

Moderna is hoping its mRNA technology will succeed where other HIV vaccines failed.

A man wearing a straight-brimmed baseball cap, watching TV on his phone while wearing black over-the-ear headphones.
Tech Hacks

The apps you need to watch movies and TV on your phone

Turn on, tune in, sit back.

Foundation of house destroyed by Hurricane Katrina
Sustainability

Brad Pitt’s affordable housing project in New Orleans failed Hurricane Katrina survivors

For the city's residents, it was a second disaster to overcome.