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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

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

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

a needle and a pile of cannabis on a white and green background

The war on drugs didn’t work. Oregon’s plan might.

glacier in water

Earth used to be cooler than we thought, which changes our math on global warming

By Philip Kiefer

Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R." in 1921

The first ‘robots’ were made of flesh and bone

By John M. Jordan/MIT Press Reader

A line of protesters with signs standing in a street, just feet from a line of police with riot shields.

How to save important photos and video from the web

By John Kennedy

Capitol Hill aerial view with construction vehicles and work

Washington, D.C. is home to a fascinating labyrinth of tunnels

By Joseph Trevithick and Thomas Newdick/The War Zone

A US sailor at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California, prepares Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for rollout

Vaccines conquered smallpox and polio, but COVID-19 looks like a tougher battle

By Tyler Santora

Lucy Engleman illustration

The famous Nazca lines aren’t mysterious—but they are ingenious

By Sara Kiley Watson

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

There’s no stopping this immortal jellyfish

By Popular Science Team

an astronaut stands next to an american flag on the moon

Imagine traveling to the moon only to realize you’re allergic to it. One astronaut did.

By Popular Science Team

Marryam Moma collage

In Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ a Black community battles an industry that threatens its health—and history

By Megan I. Gannon

Remembering one of history’s greatest whale explosions

By Sara Kiley Watson

infected human cell

How the COVID-19 pandemic might end

By Wendy Orent/Undark

a woman holding an umbrella

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

What really happened during the ‘Kentucky meat shower’?

By Popular Science Team

A person sitting in a cafe at night, using a laptop.

5 ways to go back in time on the internet

Atlantis isn’t real, but here are all the places it could have been

By Eleanor Cummins

a hand putting a ballot into a box

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

The story behind the most fraudulent election in history

By Popular Science Team

sand dunes and trees at hither hills state park on long island

We didn’t track hurricanes hundreds of years ago—but trees did

a fried egg on top of tomatoes on a white plate

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Egg yolk color doesn’t mean what you think it does

By Popular Science Team

Landing on the moon only made us love it more

By Alice Gorman/MIT Press Reader

vaccine generic

A taskforce of Black doctors is independently evaluating COVID-19 vaccine candidates

By Kate Baggaley