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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

a black pig is smiling

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Pig sex and celery have a surprising connection

By Popular Science Team

A Rubik's Cube displayed on a stand

The inventor of the Rubik’s cube doesn’t get why it’s so popular

By Hope Reese/Undark

Nuria Tamarit illustration

Five dolls that changed the world

By Erin Blakemore

a generic doctors office

America has a long history of forced sterilization

By Kate Baggaley

a woman sits in a metal box while a man speaks to her

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

This scientist thought he’d found the source of all sexual energy

By Popular Science Team

Black model in grayscale

Why do beauty filters make you look whiter?

By Candice Wang

Civil War medical dispatch

Times of strife can lead to medical innovation—when governments are willing

By Jeffrey Clemens/The Conversation

Causes of Mortality in the Army

Infographics have helped keep us alive for centuries

By Murray Dick/MIT Press Reader

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Your car is probably full of spiders

By Popular Science Team

Japanese anime remembers the atom bomb, decades after Hiroshima

By Frank Fuller/The Conversation

An Audubon's shearwater over water

Bird names are due for an anti-racist reckoning

By Hannah Thomasy/Undark

The Mexico City landscape

Mexico City buried its river and lakes to prevent disease. But then COVID-19 happened.

By Elena Delavega/The Conversation

A mural in Minneapolis, Minnesota, commemorates George Floyd, who was killed while being restrained by city police officers in May.

Resharing videos of violence against Black people can spark more trauma

By Candice Wang

massive caldera

A massive volcanic eruption may have contributed to the rise of the Roman Empire

By Kate Baggaley

The Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, Illinois, mark the site of one of the biggest pre-Colombian civilizations in the US.

Colonial bias gave us an incorrect history of North America’s Indigenous people

By Sturt Manning/The Conversation

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.

General Charles Q. Brown Jr. is a historic choice to lead the Air Force

By Dan Pimentel/Flying Mag

Person holding a bread-and-butter pickle sandwich

The history and mystery of America’s long-lost pickle sandwich

By Eric Kim/Saveur

Black kids with binoculars

Black birders have never been safe or celebrated

By Jacqueline L. Scott/The Conversation

The 160-year-old reason you’re obsessed with your lawn

Jerrie Cobb and Mercury

International Space Station

A brief history of menstruating in space

By Amy Shira Teitel

Why barrier contraceptives (like diaphragms) are so unpopular

By Donna J. Drucker/MIT Press Reader

a baseball player swings a bat

Why baseball players ‘bone’ their bats

By Popular Science Team