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a black and white picture cut out of two men in lab coats looking at vials on a lab bench that has a microscope. in purple behind them is text of an old news article, with the headline "science closes in on the common cold"

Why we still don’t have a vaccine for the common cold

By Bill Gourgey

a high speed rail train in black and white over a map of US rail lines in purple in the background

High-speed rail trains are stalled in the US—and that might not change for a while

By Bill Gourgey

Orange and white pottery shards sit scattered on top of a dark blue background.

Cacao was probably loved by all, even 1,000 years ago in Maya culture

By Helen Bradshaw

the three pyramids of giza under a sunny day

A dried-up arm of the Nile provides another clue to how Egyptians built the pyramids

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

a black, white and purple designed image of a man driving a levitating car

The century-old dream of traveling by hovercraft is still alive

By Bill Gourgey

Poliovirus particles in blue and green in a digital rendering

What to know about the new rare polio case in New York

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Great Smoky Mountains seen from Townsend, Tennessee

A humble seismograph beneath the Great Smoky Mountains could be one of the best in the world

By Alisha McDarris

a purple and black and white stylized image of a historic foldable flying car with newspaper clippings in the background

What it would take for cars to actually fly

By Bill Gourgey

a beaver in a stream

Martian beavers, intentional explosions, and other weird facts from 150 years of PopSci

By Popular Science Team

Faafafine individual at Auckland, New Zealand pride parade

Sex and gender binaries don’t tell the entire story of life

By Rachel Feltman

an image of an unlaced light brown torso on a human body shown from the back

Shapewear has changed a lot over the centuries. How much has it changed us?

By Eleanor Cummins

an aerial view of an atomic garden

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Nuclear war inspired peacetime ‘gamma gardens’ for growing mutant plants

By Popular Science Team

1970s era living room with orange wallpaper, two chairs and a TV with a deepfake of Nixon playing.

Deepfakes may use new technology, but they’re based on an old idea

By Maggie Galloway

three tall rockets in front of a museum park

Ukraine was about to revive its space program. Then Russia invaded.

By Tatyana Woodall

six raw oysters in a circle around a lemon next to a glass of champagne to be used as aphrodisiacs for sex

Research on aphrodisiacs is kind of unsatisfying

By Philip Kiefer

Why young orphans were once used as human refrigerators

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Why young orphans were once used as human refrigerators

By Popular Science Team

People wear COVID masks in on public transportation

The 5 phases of COVID’s endgame

Glowing red sphere of light around a black hole in a NASA simulation

We’re still in the dark about a key black hole paradox

By Leto Sapunar

A bronze helmet shown from the front and the side. It has curving horns coming out of the sides of the head, and a birdlike face.

Horned helmets came from Bronze Age artists, not Vikings

By Philip Kiefer

Rembrandt's oil painting "The Night Watch" restored and broken down into six high-res squares

AI turned a Rembrandt masterpiece into 5.6 terabytes of data

By Purbita Saha

viper illustration

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

This noxious island is so full of snakes, people can’t even visit

By Popular Science Team

a spotted lanternfly with green illustrated background

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Spotted lanternfly goo is surprisingly tasty

By Popular Science Team

E. coli bacteria on a green background to show germ theory vs. terrain theory

This pseudoscience movement wants to wipe germs from existence

By Isobel Whitcomb

a cow with a blue ribbon

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Inside the cutthroat world of competitive meat judging

By Popular Science Team

Slats of an old shipwreck in Lake Michigan seen from the air

Dead ships find solace under the treacherous surface of the Great Lakes

By Margo Milanowski

Young cities from around the world in floating bubbles on a light green and mint background

These young cities are solving age-old problems

planets lined up over an art illustration

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Death ‘by planet’ was surprisingly common in the 1600s

By Popular Science Team

a thick green lake

Ancient cities had toxic pollution, too

By Philip Kiefer

Three women in helmets leaning down on turf with a foam heart-shaped football in black and white

These ‘experts’ once said women couldn’t play football. Boy were they wrong.

By Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D’Arcangelo

Melting ice cap in the ocean aerial

The oil and gas industry knew about climate change in the 1950s

By Benjamin Franta/The Conversation

art illustration with a pile of slime and the weirdest thing eyeball

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

How sexy Victorian mediums tricked scientists into believing in ectoplasm

By Popular Science Team

Light beer in a pint and 12-ounce glass on a table outside

Why beer serving sizes are so weird

By Mike Rampton/Mel Magazine

Gen Z and millennial kid and parent with curly hair and leather jackets sticking their tongues out in the mirror of a red motorcycle

The myth of generations, debunked

By Yasmin Tayag

a baby chimp and baby human

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

What scientists learned when they tried to raise a chimp with a human baby

By Popular Science Team

Queer couple with cropped hair thinking of the Kinsey Scale Test

The Kinsey Scale Test and 3 other ways to find where you fall on the sexuality spectrum

By Sara Chodosh

Panis quadratus on a marble plate on a wooden table

Eat like an ancient Roman by recreating bread from Pompeii

By Alisha McDarris

a colorful illustration of long-tailed gray rodents carrying assorted objects such as buttons, bones, bugs, and flowers

What’s in a packrat’s petrified pee? Just a few thousand years of secrets.

By Jason Bittel

Hubble space telescope deep field view of ancient galaxies that helps answer the question: How old is the universe?

Space Telescope

How old is the universe? Our answer keeps getting more precise.

By Charlie Wood

an old-fashioned medical tool covered in a serrated blade

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Why were chainsaws invented? To help with childbirth.

By Popular Science Team

a skyscraper against a green background with rays of light beaming off of it onto the ground

Some skyscrapers are so shiny they turn into death rays

By Popular Science Team

Barbed wire rolls on a white background

The thorny history of barbed wire

By Eleanor Cummins

White Olympics five-ring flag flying during the 1988 summer games in Seoul

Why are people obsessed with the Olympics?

a woman in a gas mask holds a baby doll inside a covered apparatus

11 terrifying childcare inventions from the early 20th century

Rockets from ships landing on a fort on a island in an old painting

What is the ‘red glare’ in the Star Spangled Banner?

By Tom McNamara

an old photo of a man running barefoot on a green illustrated background

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

How Abebe Bikila won the Olympic marathon without shoes

By Popular Science Team

Portuguese F-16 fighter plane with orange tiger design

European fighter jets are making a diplomatic statement with their tiger print

By David Roza/Task & Purpose

a woman on her side clutching her stomach as if in pain against a green background

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Viagra could have been a groundbreaking cure for period cramps

By Popular Science Team

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

What’s stranger than bees telling time? How we learned that they can.

By Popular Science Team

Parent in pink tank top pushing baby in a futuristic green and white stroller

Travel through time on history’s most ridiculous rides

By Michael Hearst

an old drawing of a kitchen with a large open fire and a small dog running on a mill-like wheel to turn the spit

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

This dog was genetically engineered to be a kitchen appliance

By Popular Science Team

Megalithic jars in a Laos forest

Archaeologists finally uncovered some of the mystery behind Laos’s Plain of Jars

Venus Crater Farm image taken by the Magellan spacecraft for NASA

The hellish Venus surface in 5 vintage photos

By Amy Shira Teitel

an old fashioned sketch of someone drinking out of a small glass on a green background with blue polka dots and a drawing of an eyeball

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

People used to drink a very specific kind of urine to treat motion sickness

By Popular Science Team

a woman holding flowers and wearing a gas mask

It’s time you really understood what allergies mean

By Eleanor Cummins

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Craving a radioactive snack? Grab a banana.

By Popular Science Team

The NASA STS-39 shuttle crew in orange astronaut suits on a space backdrop

What did ’90s NASA astronauts pack for space?

By Scott Murdock/Task & Purpose

a man and a woman lay sleeping in bed

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

You get brainwashed whenever you go to sleep (and that’s a good thing)

By Popular Science Team

Jacqueline Oakley hippo illustration

Pablo Escobar’s hippos might be filling an ancient ecological niche

The sun over Maunakea volcano and research observatories in Hawaii

In Hawaii, an ancient observatory offers lessons for modern stargazers

By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Labradoodle dog looking at a person in a blue shirt with a yellow "don't tread on me" flag

Can you ‘deprogram’ people who join cults?

By Michael Schulson/Undark

a man and woman sit close to each other and share a plate of pancakes

Your favorite brunch foods are thousands of years old

By Popular Science Team

a bowl of tofu and a glass of soy milk on a white marble counter, with dried soybeans scattered around the surface

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Eating soy does not make men grow boobs

By Popular Science Team

Sketches of the boat-safety device that President Abraham Lincoln patented

The 5 US presidents with niche scientific interests that might surprise you

By Sara Chodosh

A model in a wine-red cutout dress on a beach

Tech-savvy fashion forecasters already know what you’ll be wearing in two years

By Rachael Zisk