Read the latest articles from Popular Science (Page 773)

a hand holding a thermometer
Medicine

Our average body temperatures seem to be dropping

Talk about historical hotties.

Hand in leather bag with Chromebook laptop
Tech Hacks

The best Android apps for your Chromebook

Our top picks for music, TV, art, and games.

hot chocolate
Physics

A food scientist breaks down the thermodynamics between marshmallows and hot chocolate

The most important question: Do marshmallows cool down or heat up the drink?

The Sims language
Gaming

The Sims’ language has surprisingly scientific origins

Robi Kauker helped improvise a nonsense vocabulary for the popular game. The process was ‘stupid hard.’

Volunteers working in a park.
Projects

Show your local park some love by planning a volunteer day

Protect green areas around you by donating your time.

bushfire smoke
Cancer

We know wildfire smoke affects our health, but the long-term consequences are hazy

The dose of exposure is important—the worse the pollution, the greater the health effects.

African grey parrot.
Evolution

For some African grey parrots, sharing is caring

Birds were willing to sacrifice so their pals could get a snack.

a drawer made out of scrap wood
Projects

How to build a drawer out of scrap wood

A drawer doesn’t have to be fancy to be functional.

ferret captures a prairie dog
Animals

The race to save the most elusive ferret in the U.S.

Despite some conservation success, the species remains threatened out West. Biologists are trying to understand why.

satellite image of smoke over amazon rainforest
Climate Change

The Amazon stores tons of carbon. Climate change-fueled wildfires could ruin that.

Deforestation makes drought-stressed forests even more vulnerable.

illustration of bubbles of clear space around stars
NASA

Young galaxies transformed the early universe by blowing bubbles

The universe was filled with fog until three galaxies started clearing it out.

a tailor man sewing cloth on a sewing machine
Projects

Five simple fixes to keep your clothing around longer

More wear, less tear.

a hummingbird on a tree
Birds

Hummingbirds get their wild coloring from ‘air-filled pancakes’ in their feathers

If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

illustration
Science

Why is it so hard for us to get peoples’ pronouns right?

Singular ‘they’ is becoming more of a vernacular mainstay—but there’s cultural resistance.

violin
Technology

Inside the extraordinary experiment to save the Stradivarius sound

An entire town went quiet so the world’s most iconic violin could be immortalized.

Person shooting photo at sunset.
Projects

Light your photos like a pro

First tip: Midday lighting makes everything look bad.

Phonautograph and Wax Cylinder recorders
Technology

Humans have been recording sound since before they could play it back

It’s taken us quite a few years to learn how to capture audio accurately.

a homemade DIY dance arcade game built with a Raspberry Pi
Projects

DDR DIY: How to build your own dance game with a Raspberry Pi

Jump up, jump up, and get down.

cuttlefish with 3D glasses
Fish

Cuttlefish perceive depth—and they wore 3D glasses to prove it

Their eyes aren’t all that different from ours, even though they are more closely related to a clam.

a firefighter silhouetted against a bushfire
Land

Australia’s government needs to take drastic action to prevent future fires—and so do the rest of us

Dispatches from the front lines of climate change.