Science, Spoken

Introducing WIRED's Gadget Lab! Sep 04, 2024

Although we paused on publishing narrated versions of WIRED articles in this feed, you will still hear the latest in tech from the WIRED team.
On WIRED's Gadget Lab, you'll find hosts Lauren Goode and Michael Calore tackling the biggest questions in the world of tech with knowledgeable WIRED reporters.
You can expect the best of WIRED's breaking news and tech analysis right here in this feed.
Listen to WIRED's Gadget Lab: https://listen.wired.com/YDai_aaZ

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Introducing WIRED Politics Lab! Sep 04, 2024

Although we paused on publishing narrated versions of WIRED articles in this feed, you will still hear the latest in tech and politics from the WIRED team.

Join host Leah Feiger and a rotation of guests as they guide you through the exciting, challenging, and sometimes entertaining vortex of internet extremism, conspiracies, and disinformation on WIRED Politics Lab.

You can find the information needed to lift the fog of disinformation we find ourselves in everyday right on this feed.

Listen to WIRED Politics Lab: https://listen.wired.com/politicslab_feeddrop

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The Bird Flu Threat Keeps Growing Jul 31, 2024

Human cases keep ticking up, are very likely to be underreported, and offer the virus the opportunity to learn how to spread from person to person.

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Dengue Fever Threatens to Gate-Crash the 2024 Summer Olympics Jul 30, 2024

Measles, bedbugs, and dengue have all been cited as concerns for tourists and athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, with the tropical virus in particular forcing authorities into action.

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No, You Can’t Have a Solar-Powered Passenger Plane Jul 29, 2024

Guilt-free air travel is a beautiful dream, but there’s simply no way to get enough solar energy to keep a cabin full of people in the air.

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The Mysterious Discovery of ‘Dark Oxygen’ on the Ocean Floor Jul 26, 2024

Researchers believe they have discovered oxygen being produced 4,000 meters below the sea surface, and think polymetallic nodules—the sought-after bounty of deep-sea miners—could be the source.

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The Race for the Next Ozempic Jul 25, 2024

The next wave of obesity drugs could help people lose even more weight—and make some pharma companies a fortune.

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Abortion Rights Groups Rush to Back Kamala Harris Jul 24, 2024

Activists believe that the vice president, who is already the leading voice for reproductive rights in the Biden administration, will champion their cause.

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Hospitals Around the World Are Struggling in the Aftermath of the Great IT Meltdown Jul 23, 2024

Doctors find themselves without critical systems and diagnostic tools—and face the daunting reality that a full recovery could take days—after CrowdStrike’s botched deployment of a software update.

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Newly Discovered Moon Caves Could One Day House Astronauts Jul 22, 2024

Analysis of lunar imagery has ended a longstanding debate over whether there are accessible underground areas on the Moon; an emptied lava tube in the Sea of Tranquility is of particular interest.

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To Find Alien Life, We Might Have to Kill It Jul 19, 2024

Missions to explore other worlds, like Mars or Saturn’s moon Titan, could disrupt or destroy extraterrestrial life in the process of seeking it.

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The New UK Government Wants Clean Energy, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and Public Transport Reform Jul 18, 2024

Legislation in coming years will set up a publicly owned clean power company and leverage the Crown Estate for investment in green infrastructure.

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It Will Soon Be Easier for Americans to Recycle Batteries Jul 17, 2024

Improperly discarded batteries leak toxic chemicals and are prone to exploding. A new program funded by the Department of Energy will prop up battery drop-off sites across the US.

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Google DeepMind's Chatbot-Powered Robot Is Part of a Bigger Revolution Jul 16, 2024

Robotics researchers are exploring how large language models can give physical machines more smarts.

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Elon Musk’s Neuralink Is Ready to Implant a Second Volunteer Jul 15, 2024

In a livestreamed update on X, Elon Musk and Neuralink executives gave an update on the company's next study participant—and its next-generation brain implant.

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AI's Energy Demands Are Out of Control. Welcome to the Internet's Hyper-Consumption Era Jul 12, 2024

Generative artificial intelligence tools, now part of the everyday user experience online, are causing stress on local power grids and mass water evaporation.

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The $11 Billion Marketplace Enabling the Crypto Scam Economy Jul 11, 2024

Deepfake scam services. Victim data. Electrified shackles for human trafficking. Crypto tracing firm Elliptic found all were available for sale on an online marketplace linked to Cambodia’s ruling family.

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This Ancient Technology Is Helping Millions Stay Cool Jul 10, 2024

Cheap, low-energy evaporative cooling devices are keeping water, food, people, and even whole buildings cool across India.

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Health Care Should Be Designed for the Extremes of Life Jul 09, 2024

Much of health care is designed with the “comfortable middle” of society in mind, says designer Yves Behar, when it should be tailored to children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

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How a Group of Butterflies Managed to Fly 4,200 Kilometers Without Stopping Jul 08, 2024

When butterflies not native to South America appeared on a beach in French Guiana, entomologists started sleuthing to prove where they came from—and how they might have got there.

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The UK’s NHS Going Digital Would Be Equivalent to Hiring Thousands of New Doctors Jul 04, 2024

More than 30 million Brits have the NHS app. This represents an opportunity to transform the health service, which shadow health secretary Wes Streeting calls “an analog system in a digital age.”

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Sexist Myths Are a Danger to Health Jul 03, 2024

To improve outcomes for female patients, all evidence needs to be considered—while outdated myths about the significance of sex differences need to be retired.

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Not Everyone Loses Weight on Ozempic Jul 02, 2024

For many patients, GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy lead to substantial weight loss. But some see much less benefit, and researchers are trying to figure out why.

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NASA Desperately Needs New Spacesuits. Private Firms Are Struggling to Make Them Jul 01, 2024

Collins Aerospace is expected to back out of a contract with NASA, while high interest rates and a difficult supply chain environment have affected Axiom.

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Aging Might Not Be Inevitable Jun 28, 2024

There are biological underpinnings to aging—and so researchers are investigating cell manipulations, transfusions of young blood, and chemical compounds that can mimic low-calorie diets.

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With AI Tools, Scientists Can Crack the Code of Life Jun 27, 2024

Google’s AI research lab DeepMind is steadily building knowledge of how genes and their products work inside the body—and how and why they sometimes go wrong.

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Boring Architecture Is Starving Your Brain Jun 26, 2024

Thomas Heatherwick believes architecture has a “nutritional value” to society—and that the public desperately deserve a better offering.

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Revolutionary Alzheimer’s Treatments Can’t Help Patients Who Go Undiagnosed Jun 25, 2024

It’s a question of when, not if, highly effective treatments become available, says the CEO of Alzheimer’s Research UK. But that doesn’t solve the problem of one-third of dementia patients still going undiagnosed.

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Science Is Full of Errors. Bounty Hunters Are Here to Find Them Jun 24, 2024

A new project is paying researchers to find errors in other scientists’ work. The only problem? Even error hunters make mistakes.

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Europe Scrambles for Relevance in the Age of AI Jun 21, 2024

With chatbot and AI development largely coming from the US, some EU entrepreneurs and politicians say local champions are needed to prevent a cultural flattening.

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How to Take the Perfect Soccer Penalty Jun 20, 2024

To understand how to take a match-winning penalty, you’ve got to understand the physics behind the perfect kick.

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Starship’s Successful Test Moves SpaceX One Step Closer to Mars Jun 19, 2024

The vehicle mostly survived launch and reentry—key stepping stones toward operational flights of the largest rocket in history.

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Banks Are Finally Realizing What Climate Change Will Do to Housing Jun 18, 2024

Extreme weather threatens the investment value of many properties, but financing for climate mitigation efforts are only just getting going.

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Sellers Call Amazon’s Buy Box ‘Abusive.’ Now They’re Suing Jun 17, 2024

UK retailers have accused Amazon of using its Buy Box section to choke their businesses, reigniting a years-long debate over whether there was foul play.

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From the Archives: Generative AI Is Coming for Sales Execs’ Jobs—and They’re Celebrating Jun 14, 2024

Generative AI Is Coming for Sales Execs’ Jobs—and They’re Celebrating

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The 2024 US Open Is Designed to Thwart Golf’s Big Hitters Jun 14, 2024

Players, aided by technology, are hitting the ball farther than ever, and courses can’t keep getting longer—meaning operators are having to find smarter ways to keep the sport challenging.

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Apple Intelligence Will Infuse the iPhone With Generative AI Jun 13, 2024

At its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple introduced its first serious foray into generative AI, with a focus on app integrations and data privacy.

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From the Archives: The Race to Save Yellowknife From Raging Wildfires Jun 12, 2024

Some residents of Yellowknife are staying behind to fight back wildfires that could soon engulf the Canadian city. Others have shared harrowing stories as they race to escape the flames.

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Apple's Biggest AI Challenge? Making It Behave Jun 12, 2024

Apple Intelligence will make apps and services smarter. But Apple’s most notable innovations focus on ensuring the technology doesn't disappoint, annoy, or offend.

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AI Tools Are Secretly Training on Real Images of Children Jun 11, 2024

A popular AI training dataset is “stealing and weaponizing” the faces of Brazilian children without their knowledge or consent, human rights activists claim.

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The World’s Largest Fungarium May Unlock the Mysteries of Carbon Capture Jun 10, 2024

Research is uncovering the key role that fungi play in getting soils to absorb carbon, and how humanity’s actions aboveground are wreaking havoc in the mysterious fungal world below.

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From the Archive: How a Firefly Course Is Saving Japan’s Favorite Glowing Insect Jun 09, 2024

The fireflies of Moriyama City have long been prized (and hunted) for their yellow-green glow. To bring populations back up, amateur conservationists are hitting the books.

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From the Archives: What Do We Owe the Octopus? Jun 08, 2024

Mounting research suggests that cephalopods experience pain. Now, the National Institutes of Health is considering new animal welfare rules that would put them in the same category as monkeys.

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From the Archives: Why Scientists Are Bugging the Rainforest Jun 07, 2024

Scientists use microphones and AI to automatically detect species by their chirps and croaks. This bioacoustics research could be critical for protecting ecosystems on a warming planet.

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Chatbot Teamwork Makes the AI Dream Work Jun 07, 2024

Experiments show that asking AI chatbots to work together on a problem can compensate for some of their shortcomings. WIRED enlisted two bots to help plan this article.

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From the Archives: What Science Says About Social Media and Mental Health Jun 06, 2024

We're bringing an extra episode from our show What's New.

Here’s what the science really says about teens and screens—and how to start the conversation with young people of any age.

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Why the EU’s Vice President Isn’t Worried About Moon-Landing Conspiracies on YouTube Jun 06, 2024

During a tour of Silicon Valley, EU vice president Věra Jourová said she expects tech giants to prioritize stamping out content that could distort democracy.

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Woman Who Received Pig Kidney Transplant Has It Removed Jun 05, 2024

Surgeons at NYU took out the pig kidney because it wasn’t getting enough blood flow.

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AI Is a Black Box. Anthropic Figured Out a Way to Look Inside Jun 04, 2024

What goes on in artificial neural networks work is largely a mystery, even to their creators. But researchers from Anthropic have caught a glimpse.

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Ecuador Is Literally Powerless in the Face of Drought Jun 03, 2024

Drought-stricken hydro dams have led to daily electricity cuts in Ecuador. As weather becomes less predictable die to climate change, experts say other countries need to take notice.

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From Security, Spoken: Deepfake Porn Is Out of Control Jun 02, 2024

We're bringing an extra episode from our show Security, Spoken.

New research shows the number of deepfake videos is skyrocketing—and the world's biggest search engines are funneling clicks to dozens of sites dedicated to the nonconsensual fakes.

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From Business, Spoken: Why Read Books When You Can Use Chatbots to Talk to Them Instead? May 31, 2024

We're bringing an extra episode from our show Business, Spoken.

Book publishers are experimenting with chatbot editions of new titles, providing "conversational companions" for readers.

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Chatbots Are Entering the Stone Age May 31, 2024

Anthropic and other big AI startups are teaching chatbots “tool use,” to make them more useful in the workplace.

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Neuralink’s First User Is ‘Constantly Multitasking’ With His Brain Implant May 30, 2024

Noland Arbaugh is the first to get Elon Musk’s brain device. The 30-year-old speaks to WIRED about what it’s like to use a computer with his mind—and gain a new sense of independence.

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From What's New: Stop Planting Trees, Says Guy Who Inspired World to Plant a Trillion Trees May 29, 2024

We're bringing an extra episode from our show What's New.

Ecologist Thomas Crowther’s research inspired countless tree-planting campaigns, greenwashing, and attacks from scientists. Now he’s back with a new plan for nature restoration.

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Mexico Is So Hot, Monkeys Are Falling to Their Death From Trees May 29, 2024

Authorities and conservation groups are investigating the deaths of dozens of howler monkeys in Tabasco, where extreme heat and land-use change appear to be threatening the vulnerable species.

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The Auroras Should Be Spectacular This Summer, Thanks to Solar Maximum May 28, 2024

Increasing solar activity over the next year could bring more opportunities to see fantastic displays of the northern lights.

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Don’t Believe the Biggest Myth About Heat Pumps May 27, 2024

Not only do heat pumps work fine in cold weather, they’re still more efficient than gas furnaces in such conditions.

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Pocket-Sized AI Models Could Unlock a New Era of Computing May 24, 2024

Research at Microsoft shows it’s possible to make AI models small enough to run on phones or laptops without major compromises to their smarts. The technique could open up new use cases for AI.

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How a Virus Found in Wastewater Beat Back a Woman’s ‘Zombie’ Bacteria May 23, 2024

Viruses called phages offer a promising treatment option for bacterial infections when antibiotics stop working, but they have limitations.

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The World Is Ignoring the—Other—Deadly Kind of Carbon May 22, 2024

Not only is black carbon terrible for human health, but ever-fiercer wildfires are covering the Arctic with the dark particles, accelerating melting.

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Hydro Dams Are Struggling to Handle the World’s Intensifying Weather May 21, 2024

Climate change is robbing some hydro dams of water while oversupplying others—forcing managers to employ new forecasting technology and clever strategies to capitalize on what they have.

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City Trees Save Lives May 20, 2024

Green spaces significantly cool our ever-hotter cities. New research suggests more trees could cut heat-related ER visits in LA by up to two-thirds.

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An Epic Fight Over What Really Killed the Dinosaurs May 19, 2024

We wanted to bring back a favorite episode from 2023: A deep learning model has joined a vigorous debate over whether volcanoes began dinosaur doomsday well before the asteroid hit. Thanks for listening to WIRED.

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Lab-Grown Meat Is on Shelves Now. But There’s a Catch May 17, 2024

A store in Singapore is selling lab-grown chicken, but it only contains 3 percent animal cells.

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Saunas Are the Next Frontier in Fighting Depression May 16, 2024

The preliminary results of a clinical trial of using heat exposure to combat depression are in—and are fueling cautious optimism that sauna practice could become an accepted treatment.

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The First Person to Receive a Pig Kidney Transplant Has Died May 15, 2024

The hospital that carried out the procedure two months prior says there’s “no indication” that the transplant was related to his death.

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These Artificial Blood Platelets Could One Day Save Lives May 14, 2024

Platelets help blood clot, but they have a short shelf life. With blood in short supply, synthetic platelets could help meet demand.

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The Earth Is About to Feast on Dead Cicadas May 13, 2024

Two cicada broods, XIX and XIII, are emerging in sync for the first time in 221 years. They’re bringing the banquet of a lifetime for birds, trees, and humans alike.

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Sell Lab-Grown Meat in Alabama and You Could Go to Jail May 10, 2024

Anyone found guilty of selling or manufacturing cultivated meat in Alabama will face up to a three-month jail sentence and $500 fine.

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The One Thing That’s Holding Back the Heat Pump May 09, 2024

It’s not the technology itself. It’s that we don’t yet have enough trained workers to install heat pumps for full-tilt decarbonization.

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Boeing's Starliner Is Finally Ready to Launch a NASA Crew Into Space May 08, 2024

Seven years behind schedule, on Monday Starliner will send two astronauts to space on a mission for NASA. The troubled company still has lots of catching up to do.

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The US Is Cracking Down on Synthetic DNA May 07, 2024

Synthetic DNA could be used to spark a pandemic. A move by President Biden aims to create new standards for the safety and security of mail-order genetic material.

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China Has a Controversial Plan for Brain-Computer Interfaces May 02, 2024

China's brain-computer interface technology is catching up to the US. But it envisions a very different use case: cognitive enhancement.

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She Painted a Few Champagne Bottles. Then Came Meta’s Customer Support Hell May 01, 2024

A fashion influencer’s struggles to unblock her Instagram account highlight a long-standing problem with Meta’s lackluster customer service. Users and regulators say the company must step up.

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Can’t Afford a House? Buy a Piece of One Instead Apr 30, 2024

In a chaotic housing market that has shut many buyers out, fractional home ownership and investing trends are taking off.

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What’s the Safest Seat on an Airplane? Apr 29, 2024

The back of the plane is safest, according to common wisdom, but that’s not really true. Let us explain.

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We Finally Know Where Neuralink’s Brain Implant Trial Is Happening Apr 26, 2024

After months of secrecy, Neuralink revealed that the partner site for its brain implant study is the Barrow Neurological Institute.

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Doctors Combined a Heart Pump and Pig Kidney Transplant in Breakthrough Surgery Apr 25, 2024

In the first procedure of its kind, a 54-year-old New Jersey woman received a genetically engineered pig kidney and thymus after getting a heart pump.

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No, Dubai’s Floods Weren’t Caused By Cloud Seeding Apr 24, 2024

Heavy rain has triggered flash flooding in Dubai. But those pointing the finger at cloud seeding are misguided.

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Green Roofs Are Great. Blue-Green Roofs Are Even Better Apr 23, 2024

Amsterdam is experimenting with roofs that not only grow plants but capture water for a building’s residents. Welcome to the squeezable sponge city of tomorrow.

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Unruly Gut Fungi Can Make Your Covid Worse Apr 22, 2024

An infection can upset your microbiome, and if certain gut fungi run riot, this can kick the immune system into overdrive.

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The Rise of the Carbon Farmer Apr 19, 2024

Farmers around the world are reigniting the less intensive agricultural practices of yesteryear—to improve soil health, raise yields, and trap carbon in the atmosphere back down in the soil.

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US Infrastructure Is Broken. Here’s an $830 Million Plan to Fix It Apr 18, 2024

WIRED spoke with US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg about recent grants to fix ancient roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure before it’s too late.

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The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision Apr 17, 2024

Elon Musk’s Neuralink and others are developing devices that could provide blind people with a crude sense of sight.

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The Paradox That's Supercharging Climate Change Apr 16, 2024

Humanity needs to burn less fossil fuels. But that means fewer aerosols to help cool the planet—and a potential acceleration of global warming.

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Can You Really Run on Top of a Train, Like in the Movies? Apr 15, 2024

To pull off this classic Hollywood stunt, you gotta know your physics!

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Trump Loyalists Kill Vote on US Wiretap Program Apr 12, 2024

An attempt to reauthorize Section 702, the so-called crown jewel of US spy powers, failed for a third time in the House of Representatives after former president Donald Trump criticized the law.

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Mexico City’s Metro System Is Sinking Fast. Yours Could Be Next Apr 11, 2024

Subsidence is causing parts of Mexico City to sink, and it’s happening at an uneven rate. That’s bad news for its sprawling public transportation system.

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He Got a Pig Kidney Transplant. Now Doctors Need to Keep It Working Apr 10, 2024

Researchers think a combination of genetic edits and an experimental immunosuppressive drug could make the first pig kidney transplant a long-term success.

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Why the East Coast Earthquake Covered So Much Ground Apr 09, 2024

Friday morning's earthquake was felt from New York City all the way to Washington, DC. Blame ancient fault lines and bedrock for the jolt.

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Can You View a Round Solar Eclipse Through a Square Hole? Apr 08, 2024

Here’s a cool way to watch the eclipse—and learn about the weird physics of light while you’re at it.

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‘In 24 Hours, You’ll Have Your Pills:’ American Women Are Traveling to Mexico for Abortions Apr 05, 2024

Since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, more women have been crossing the border to Mexico for abortion medications and procedures.

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How to View April’s Total Solar Eclipse, Online and In Person Apr 04, 2024

Here’s some advice for safely experiencing the total solar eclipse on April 8 as the moon casts a slender shadow across Mexico, the United States, and eastern Canada.

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This Bag of Cells Could Grow New Livers Inside of People Apr 03, 2024

Donor livers are in short supply for transplants. A startup is attempting to grow new ones in people instead.

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Meet the Designer Behind Neuralink’s Surgical Robot Apr 02, 2024

Afshin Mehin has helped design some of the most futuristic neurotech devices.

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The Next Heat Pump Frontier? NYC Apartment Windows Apr 01, 2024

New heat pumps easily fit over window sills, meaning they could replace clunky apartment air-conditioning units.

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The Real Reason Why Some Abortion Pill Patients Go to the ER Mar 29, 2024

The abortion pill mifepristone went in front of the US Supreme Court on Tuesday. Antiabortionists say an increase in emergency room visits shows it’s unsafe. Medical experts disagree.

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The Next Generation of Cancer Drugs Will Be Made in Space Mar 28, 2024

Injectable immunotherapy drugs can be made, in theory, but gravity prevents them from crystallizing correctly. A startup thinks the solution could be right above us.

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Why the Baltimore Bridge Collapsed so Quickly Mar 27, 2024

Steel structures aren’t as strong as you might think—and the immense power of a container ship shouldn’t be underestimated.

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A Gene-Edited Pig Kidney Was Just Transplanted Into a Person for the First Time Mar 26, 2024

A 62-year-old Massachusetts man with failing kidneys is the first living patient to receive a genetically-altered kidney from a pig.

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Are You Noise Sensitive? Here's How to Tell Mar 25, 2024

Every person has a different idea of what makes noise “loud,” but there are some things we all can do to turn the volume down a little.

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Europe Is Struggling to Coexist With Wild Bears Mar 22, 2024

A fatal bear attack in Slovakia reignited accusations that conservationists are protecting the animals at the expense of human safety. Experts argue it's a people problem, not a bear problem.

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The World's E-Waste Has Reached a Crisis Point Mar 21, 2024

A new UN report finds that humanity is generating 137 billion pounds of TVs, smartphones, and other e-waste a year—and recycling less than a quarter of it.

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DeepMind Is Helping Soccer Teams Take the Perfect Corner Mar 20, 2024

A soccer AI model created by Google DeepMind makes predictions about where corners will go, and suggests tweaks to make goals more or less likely.

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The Global Danger of Boring Buildings Mar 19, 2024

Unloved buildings turn to ruin, leading to a deluge of construction waste worldwide. Designer Thomas Heatherwick tells WIRED why cities need to prioritize human health and joy in architecture.

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A Pill That Kills Ticks Is a Promising New Weapon Against Lyme Disease Mar 18, 2024

Your pets can already eat a chewable tablet for tick prevention. Now, a pill that paralyzes and kills ticks has shown positive results in a small human trial.

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Climate Change Is Bad for Your Health, Wherever You Are Mar 15, 2024

Rising temperatures are a threat regardless of where you live on the planet—they’re just dangerous in different ways.

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Stop Misunderstanding the Gender Health Gap Mar 14, 2024

Sex differences explain some of the gaping health inequalities between men and women—but a lot of the time, it’s sexism.

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So You Want to Rewire Brains Mar 13, 2024

When everyone's hooking their brains up to computers, we'll need surgeons to install the hardware.

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Get Ready to Eat Pond Plants Mar 12, 2024

Meet the amazing azolla, a nutritious fern that grows like crazy, capturing carbon in the process. Could it be a food—and fertilizer and biofuel—of the future?

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Is This New 50-Year Battery for Real? Mar 11, 2024

BetaVolt’s nuclear battery lasts for decades, but you won’t see one in your next iPhone—powering a mobile device would require a cell the size of a yak.

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Cities Aren’t Prepared for a Crucial Part of Sea-Level Rise: They’re Also Sinking Mar 08, 2024

Coastal land is dropping, known as subsidence. That could expose hundreds of thousands of additional Americans to inundation by 2050.

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A New Headset Aims to Treat Alzheimer’s With Light and Sound Mar 07, 2024

An experimental device developed by Cognito Therapeutics seeks to slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients using light and sound.

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Forget Carbon Offsets. The Planet Needs Carbon Removal Credits Mar 06, 2024

The carbon removal market is fast growing, with an array of different removal methods available to businesses keen to mitigate their environmental impact.

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Good Climate Solutions Need Good Policy—and AI Can Help With That Mar 05, 2024

Climate Policy Radar's tools scan global environmental laws to see what works and what doesn't. What its AI is discovering today will help shape the regulations of tomorrow.

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A Tragic Tower Block Fire Exposes the World's Failing Fire Regulations Mar 04, 2024

A deadly tower block blaze in Spain has focused attention on notorious flammable building materials—but around the world, there's little momentum to stop using them.

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US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day Mar 01, 2024

With better infrastructure and “spongy” green spaces, urban areas have made progress but should be soaking up way more free stormwater.

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Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat Feb 29, 2024

Extreme heat waves are already here, and they are killing tens of thousands of people. Blasting through 2 degrees Celsius of warming means they’ll happen many times more frequently.

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Alabama IVF Patients Are Running Out of Time Feb 28, 2024

“I feel so powerless in this state.”

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What Would Happen if Every American Got a Heat Pump Feb 27, 2024

Getting these climate superheroes into more US homes would massively cut emissions, and it would be cost-effective. Here’s how the revolution would play out.

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A New Startup Wants to Turn the Sugar You Eat Into Fiber Feb 26, 2024

Americans eat too much sugar. Food tech company Zya is developing a substance to add to sweet foods that can convert some of that sugar into fiber in the digestive system.

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The Transport Companies Leaving Fossil Fuels Behind Feb 23, 2024

Hydrogen-powered planes, more fuel-efficient aircraft designs, and all-electric parcel delivery services are just some of the ways in which the transport sector is looking to decarbonize.

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Metal Prices Are Soaring. So Is Metal Theft Feb 22, 2024

It’s a multibillion-dollar global problem, and in a rapidly electrifying world, the profits—and ease—of stealing metals are only going to increase.

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Tech Still Isn’t Doing Enough to Care for the Environment Feb 21, 2024

Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa, CTO of Greenpeace, says technology firms must shape up—and consumers and business clients should walk away if they don’t.

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Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be Feb 20, 2024

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

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Kyiv Is Using Homegrown Tech to Treat the Trauma of War Feb 19, 2024

Millions of Ukrainians are suffering the mental health implications of two years of Russian bombs and shells. The country’s recovery depends on building systems to help treat the trauma.

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The Leading Lab-Grown-Meat Company Just Paused a Major Expansion Feb 16, 2024

Upside Foods is putting plans for its Illinois-based cultivated-meat factory on hold and laying off staff to focus on its existing plant.

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Why Fake Caviar Could Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution Feb 15, 2024

An alternative to environmentally harmful plastic is already within reach: seaweed.

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Farming Prioritizes Cows and Cars—Not People Feb 14, 2024

Farmers and scientists are getting better at growing more crops on less land, but they’re not focusing on plants that people eat.

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Did Climate Change Help This Skier Achieve the Impossible? Feb 13, 2024

A slalom skier just achieved a remarkable result in the Alpine Ski World Cup—coming from last place to win. As mountains get warmer and conditions less predictable, expect more freak occurrences like this.

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Why Is Our Solar System Flat? Feb 12, 2024

It started as a big old ball of dust, so how did it end up like a giant pancake? Get the true story using fake forces.

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NASA’s New PACE Observatory Searches for Clues to Humanity’s Future Feb 09, 2024

They may be tiny, but phytoplankton and aerosols power pivotal Earth systems. Scientists are about to learn a whole lot more about them at a critical time.

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These States Are Basically Begging You to Get a Heat Pump Feb 08, 2024

You need a heat pump, ASAP. Now nine states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of this climate superhero.

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Dr. Dara Norman Wants to Bring More People Into Science Feb 07, 2024

From data access to scientific merit, Dr. Norman is working to make astronomy—and all STEM fields—more inclusive.

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I Tested a Next-Gen AI Assistant. It Will Blow You Away Feb 06, 2024

WIRED experimented with a new form of voice assistant that can browse the web and perform tasks online. Siri, Alexa, and other virtual helpers could soon be much more powerful.

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A Startup Has Unlocked a Way to Make Cheap Insulin Feb 05, 2024

Houston-based rBIO has invented a new process to churn out insulin at higher yields using custom-made bacteria.

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Inside the Beef Industry’s Campaign to Influence Schoolchildren Feb 02, 2024

Big Beef is wooing science teachers with webinars and lesson plans in an attempt to change kids’ perceptions of the industry.

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Fiber Optics Bring You Internet. Now They’re Also Listening to Trains Feb 01, 2024

“Distributed acoustic sensing” looks for disturbances in fiber to detect earthquakes and even insects. Can it also improve rail safety?

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Elon Musk Says a Human Patient Has Received Neuralink’s Brain Implant Jan 31, 2024

Details are scarce, but Elon Musk says initial results are “promising.”

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Two Nations, a Horrible Accident, and the Urgent Need to Understand the Laws of Space Right Now Jan 30, 2024

Welcome to the world’s foremost training ground for saving space from disasters, disputes, and—perhaps one day—colonizers named Musk.

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6 Deaf Children Can Now Hear After a Single Injection Jan 29, 2024

Several gene therapies aim to restore a protein necessary for transmitting sound signals from the ear to the brain.

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The Extreme Sport of Ice Climbing Is at Risk of Extinction Jan 26, 2024

The winter sport is becoming more treacherous as the world warms and icefalls become less and less stable.

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The World’s Essential Aquifers Are in Deep Trouble Jan 25, 2024

New research finds that the groundwater systems that hydrate your life are in rapid, sometimes accelerating decline around the globe. Here’s how to stop the retreat.

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The World's First Malaria Vaccine Program for Children Starts Now Jan 24, 2024

On Monday, Cameroon became the first nation to establish routine childhood malaria immunizations. The race is on to give protection to as many people as possible.

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Scientists Will Test a Cancer-Hunting mRNA Treatment Jan 23, 2024

Strand Therapeutics has figured out a way to turn the molecule on and off in certain tissues to more precisely treat tumors.

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A Scandal Is Tearing the World of Record-Breaking Dogs Apart Jan 22, 2024

After doubts were raised about a 31-year-old dog, Guinness World Records has paused its records for the world’s oldest dogs, leaving one super-old dog in limbo.

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A Gene-Edited Pig Liver Was Attached to a Person—and Worked for 3 Days Jan 19, 2024

Researchers want to use genetically engineered pig organs to help support people with liver failure.

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Scabies Is Making a Comeback Jan 18, 2024

Cases of scabies, a highly contagious parasitic skin disease, are on the rise across Europe. The UK in particular is struggling with a shortage of treatments.

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The Surprising Things That Helped Make 2023 the Hottest Year Ever Jan 17, 2024

The numbers are in: 2023’s global temperatures not only soared, but smashed the previous record set in 2016. This year could be even hotter.

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The Real Problem With the Boeing 737 Max Jan 16, 2024

Two tragic crashes over the past six years, then a third plane with loose bodywork—the aircraft designed to send Boeing’s reputation soaring has sent it into a tailspin.

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Norway’s Deep-Sea Mining Decision Is a Warning Jan 15, 2024

Politicians claim the move could provide vital minerals for the green transition. Critics say opening up exploration creates geopolitical headaches and is environmentally unsound.

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Why Humans Are Putting a Bunch of ‘Coal’ and ‘Oil’ Back in the Ground Jan 12, 2024

Startups are processing plant waste into concentrated carbon to be buried or injected underground. It’s like fossil fuels, but in reverse.

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There’s a Huge Covid Surge Right Now and Nobody Is Talking About It Jan 11, 2024

The US is in the midst of the largest Covid surge since Omicron, but with minimal testing and good population immunity, the wave is largely being ignored.

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How Your Body Adapts to Extreme Cold Jan 10, 2024

Scientists are finding a dynamic story in human physiology linked to frigid temperatures—a story that climate change may rewrite.

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Yes, the Climate Crisis Is Now ‘Gobsmacking.’ But So Is Some Progress Jan 09, 2024

This is the year that “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” summed up the climate emergency. But dramatic descriptors extend to the huge gains humanity has made too.

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Critical Infrastructure Is Sinking Along the US East Coast Jan 08, 2024

Up and down the Atlantic Coast, the land is steadily sinking, or subsiding. That’s destabilizing levees, roads, and airports, just as sea levels are rising.

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A Gel Injected Into the Scrotum Could Be the Next Male Contraceptive Jan 05, 2024

Biotech company Contraline has safely implanted a sperm-blocking hydrogel in 23 men. It’s designed to be a fully reversible vasectomy.

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Former NBA Star Rick Fox Is Making a Play for Carbon-Neutral Concrete Jan 04, 2024

Carbon-neutral concrete could transform construction’s footprint—if it can scale in time. At Partanna Global, Bahamian basketball star and actor Rick Fox is trying to speed things up.

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Your Eco-Friendly Lifestyle Is a Big Lie Jan 03, 2024

Eating organic and switching to low-energy light bulbs feels like the green thing to do, but are people missing the bigger opportunities right in front of them?

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A Demographic Time Bomb Is About to Hit the Beef Industry Jan 01, 2024

A tiny proportion of Americans—particularly boomers—eat the majority of the nation’s beef. Can clever framing sway a younger generation?

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Why Deleting Carbon From the Atmosphere Is So Controversial Dec 25, 2023

Delegates agreed on a historic climate deal at COP28. But without more ambition, humanity will have to rely ever more on a contentious strategy: carbon removal.

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Snow Sports Are Getting More Dangerous Dec 22, 2023

Extreme conditions caused by climate change are making winter sports more risky. From Colorado to Washington, that’s also making mountain rescue missions even more perilous.

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Energy Drinks Are Out of Control Dec 21, 2023

Highly caffeinated drinks have become a cultural staple. But following a death allegedly related to Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade, has our collective obsession with energy drinks become unsafe?

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You Know It’s a Placebo. So Why Does It Still Work? Dec 20, 2023

As researchers try to make sense of “open-label” placebos—fake drugs that proudly announce their fakeness—the mysterious effect is starting to show up beyond the world of medicine.

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Oh Good, Hurricanes Are Now Made of Microplastics Dec 19, 2023

When Hurricane Larry made landfall two years ago, it dropped over 100,000 microplastics per square meter of land per day. It’s another ominous sign of how plasticized the environment has become.

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Elon Musk’s New Monkey Death Claims Spur Fresh Demands for an SEC Investigation Dec 18, 2023

An animal welfare advocacy group claims in a letter to the SEC that Elon Musk again made statements about the health of Neuralink test subjects that may have misled investors.

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How Dr. Clara Nellist Collides Art and Science Dec 15, 2023

This particle physicist, science communicator, and member of the team who uncovered the Higgs Boson wants everyone to know that art and science aren’t mutually exclusive.

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A Brilliant COP Agreement? It Depends Who You Ask Dec 14, 2023

The agreement at COP28 satisfies no-one. But it’s probably the best that countries could have hoped for.

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Here’s Scientific Proof Your Cat Will Eat Almost Anything Dec 13, 2023

Free-ranging domestic cats eat over 2,000 animal species across the globe, including hundreds at risk of extinction. It’s a problem with no easy solution.

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This Pill Tracks Your Vitals From the Inside Dec 12, 2023

An ingestible “digital pill” that measures heart rate and breathing from inside the stomach could detect the warning signs of sleep apnea, cardiac distress, and even opioid overdoses.

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The First Crispr Medicine Is Now Approved in the US Dec 11, 2023

The one-time gene editing fix is meant to halt debilitating pain crises for sickle cell patients, who formerly could only be cured with a risky stem cell transplant. Read the full story here.

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Don’t Worry, It’s Just ‘Fire Ice’ Dec 08, 2023

Methane hydrate is an ice-like substance you can set on fire. Now scientists have found that more of it may be in danger of melting—and releasing powerful greenhouse gas—than previously realized.

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Dr. Ishwaria Subbiah Is Reimagining Cancer Care Dec 07, 2023

All but raised in oncology wards, Dr. Subbiah is on a mission to make cancer care work for everyone, including those usually overlooked.

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Ozempic Could Also Help You Drink Less Alcohol Dec 06, 2023

Mounting evidence bolsters the idea that drugs like semaglutide—better known as Ozempic or Wegovy—can hamper a thirst for booze.

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Want to Store a Message in DNA? That’ll Be $1,000 Dec 05, 2023

French startup Biomemory is rolling out a credit-card-sized storage device that uses DNA to encode a kilobyte of text data.

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Dr. Nergis Mavalvala Helped Detect the First Gravitational Wave. Her Work Doesn’t Stop There Dec 04, 2023

The dean of MIT’s School of Science embraces skepticism and failure, and she wants the next generation of scientists to jump right in.

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Cicadas Are So Loud, Fiber Optic Cables Can ‘Hear’ Them Dec 01, 2023

In 2021, scientists experimenting with fiber optics picked up a strange signal: the cacophony of cicadas. It could lead to a new way of monitoring insects.

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A Cutting-Edge Cancer Treatment Is Under FDA Investigation—for Cancer Risk Nov 30, 2023

CAR-T cell therapy harnesses the immune system to attack blood cancers. Six years after approving the first treatment, the FDA is investigating whether it can give rise to secondary cancers.

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Dr. Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski Will Change How You Think About Space Nov 29, 2023

Pioneering a new field in cosmology, Dr. Pasterski explores diverse perspectives in physics and astronomy—and whether the universe might actually be a hologram.

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Dr. Paula Johnson Is Breaking Down the Barriers to Better Health Nov 28, 2023

An accomplished cardiologist and the first Black woman president of Wellesley College, Dr. Johnson's life's work is improving quality of care for women and women of color around the world.

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It’s Time to Log Off Nov 27, 2023

There’s a devastating amount of heavy news these days. Psychology experts say you need to know your limits—and when to put down the phone.

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Dr. Jessie Christiansen Wants to Help You Discover the Next Exoplanet Nov 22, 2023

As project scientist on NASA’s Exoplanet Archive, Dr. Christiansen is a huge advocate for citizen science—and making sure anyone can be a planet hunter.

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Emissions Should Be Plummeting. Instead, They’re Breaking Dangerous New Records Nov 21, 2023

Ahead of COP28, a scathing new UN report warns that the world is barreling toward an avoidable catastrophe. It’s a plea for world leaders to step up their ambition.

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The First Crispr Medicine Just Got Approved Nov 20, 2023

The gene-editing therapy, called Casgevy, uses Crispr to prevent debilitating pain in patients with sickle cell disease. It also eliminates the need for regular blood transfusions in people with beta thalassemia.

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Dr. Alison Todd’s Inventions May Save Your Life Nov 17, 2023

An inventor, molecular biologist, and diagnostic scientist, Dr. Todd cofounded SpeedDx, which serves communities worldwide. And that’s just the beginning.

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Dr. Michelle Wong Brings the Science of Skincare to New Audiences Nov 16, 2023

Misinformation about skincare runs rampant on social media. The chemist behind the Lab Muffin Beauty Science blog is here to clear things up.

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A Single Infusion of a Gene-Editing Treatment Lowered High Cholesterol Nov 15, 2023

It’s still early days for a novel form of gene therapy called base editing, but this small study in people with extremely high cholesterol shows striking results.

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Wegovy Slashes the Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke in a Landmark Trial Nov 14, 2023

The drug semaglutide is already widely used for weight loss. Now its maker is presenting new evidence that it can reduce cardiovascular illnesses and deaths.

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The Hidden, Awful Way That Climate Change Imperils Animals Nov 13, 2023

As ocean temperatures climb, so do creatures’ metabolisms. If extra food isn’t available, they’ll starve.

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The FDA Approves Weight Loss Drug Zepbound, a Wegovy and Ozempic Rival Nov 10, 2023

Eli Lilly is about to release Zepbound, a new entrant in the superheated competition for blockbuster weight loss drugs.

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New Jersey Keeps Newborn DNA for 23 Years. Parents Are Suing Nov 09, 2023

All US states take pinpricks of blood from newborns to test for diseases. New Jersey stores them for decades and may allow them to be used in police investigations.

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The Euclid Space Telescope’s Spectacular First Photos of Distant and Hidden Galaxies Nov 08, 2023

Images from the European Space Agency’s newest telescope show the power of instruments that will create 3D surveys of a third of the sky, covering 10 billion years of cosmic history.

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The World’s Broken Food System Costs $12.7 Trillion a Year Nov 07, 2023

The hidden costs of the global food system are equivalent to 10 percent of global GDP, according to new analysis from the United Nations.

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Scientists Have Finally Found the Origins of a Mysterious Asteroid Nov 06, 2023

Astronomers show how a 50-meter space rock orbiting near Earth isn’t a typical asteroid: It probably blasted off the moon millions of years ago. Read this story here.

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The Ultra-Efficient Farm of the Future Is in the Sky Nov 03, 2023

Take a tour of a rooftop laboratory where scientists show how growing crops under solar panels can produce both food and clean energy.

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As Extreme Heat Increases, Heart Attacks Will Rise Nov 02, 2023

Dangerously hot days are becoming more common. That will trigger heart attacks and strokes in people made vulnerable by age, race, and the layout of cities.

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Everyone Was Wrong About Why Cats Purr Nov 01, 2023

Cats purr when they’re happy and kittens purr so their mothers can find them. But it turns out purring may be more like a snore than a smile.

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These Plants Change Color When Exposed to a Pesticide Oct 31, 2023

Genetically engineering plants to change colors when they encounter a contaminant could help scientists better understand their needs—and the environment.

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If You Didn’t Care About Antarctica’s Icy Belly, You Will Now Oct 30, 2023

Scientists are getting an ever-clearer picture of the undersides of deteriorating glaciers. It’s not looking good.

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Why Antidepressants Take So Long to Work Oct 27, 2023

A clinical trial reveals the first evidence of how the brain restructures physically in the first month on SSRIs—and the link between neuroplasticity and depression.

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The Mystery of Cosmic Radio Bursts Gets Bright New Clues Oct 26, 2023

New research from two teams shows that these fleeting blips can be faster and brighter, and come from much further away, than previously thought.

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Glacial Lakes Threaten Millions in a Warming World Oct 25, 2023

A Himalayan lake fed by melting ice just released a devastating flood in northern India. Thousands of other unstable lakes are getting bigger every year.

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The Surprising Way Clean Energy Will Help Save the Snowpack Oct 24, 2023

As if we needed another reason to quickly ditch fossil fuels: Cleaner snow melts much more slowly.

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New Trials Aim to Restore Hearing in Deaf Children—With Gene Therapy Oct 23, 2023

For the first time, researchers are testing an approach that involves replacing a mutated gene in the inner ears of children with severe hearing loss.

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These Gene-Edited Chickens Were Made to Resist Bird Flu Oct 20, 2023

Avian influenza can wipe out entire poultry flocks. An early experiment with Crispr suggests that gene editing can protect chickens against infection.

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Chum Salmon Are Spawning the Arctic. It’s an Ominous Sign Oct 19, 2023

The fish may be a harbinger of dramatic warming in the north—and rapidly transforming ecosystems.

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Inside the Race to Crush Paris’ Bedbug Crisis Oct 18, 2023

Humans are teaming up with dogs to eliminate the blood-sucking pests, but there's no overarching strategy, just eye-watering costs.

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NASA’s Psyche Mission Is Off to Test a Space Laser (for Communications) Oct 17, 2023

The Psyche probe is heading to its namesake metal-rich asteroid. Along the way, it will demonstrate a near-infrared laser system to send high-rate data hundreds of millions of miles home.

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A Groundbreaking Human Brain Cell Atlas Just Dropped Oct 16, 2023

The comprehensive collection of 21 studies attempts to map all the brain’s cell types, and offers hope of one day being able to trace brain diseases to their genetic roots.

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This First Peek Inside NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Capsule Is a Glimpse Back in Time Oct 13, 2023

Scientists finally opened the rock sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx captured a treasure trove of material from the solar system’s earliest days.

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A Monkey Got a New Kidney From a Pig—and Lived for 2 Years Oct 12, 2023

Human donor kidneys are in short supply. A new experiment that tested gene-edited organ transplants in monkeys showed that pig kidneys may one day be viable substitutes.

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Heat Waves in the Ground Are Getting More Extreme—and Perilous Oct 11, 2023

The atmosphere is rapidly warming, but the soil is also prone to heat waves. Scientists are racing to understand the consequences.

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New Malaria Vaccines Offer a Real Shot at Fighting the Disease Oct 10, 2023

A malaria vaccine that could protect millions of children against the parasite-borne disease is expected to roll out early next year. It follows another formula that has already had moderate success.

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How Neuralink Keeps Dead Monkey Photos Secret Oct 09, 2023

Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup conducted years of tests at UC Davis, a public university. A WIRED investigation reveals how Neuralink and the university keep the grisly images of test subjects hidden.

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A Lab Just 3D-Printed a Neural Network of Living Brain Cells Oct 06, 2023

Mini-brains that work and grow like their full-size counterparts could offer an alternative to animal testing, and advance the quest for personalized medicine.

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September's Record-Shattering Heat Was ‘Absolutely Gobsmackingly Bananas’ Oct 05, 2023

Last month was so hot, scientists are struggling to find words for it.

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The ‘Green’ Future of Furniture Is a Sofa Stuffed With Seaweed Oct 04, 2023

Foam rubber—like the filling inside your couch—produces an enormous amount of CO2. A Norwegian company called Agoprene thinks seaweed could be the solution.

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Why It’s Too Soon to Call It Covid Season Oct 03, 2023

Covid seems to spike twice a year—but unlike with flu season, not in a predictable pattern. That could be due to the virus, the environment, or the people it is infecting.

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A Revelation About Trees Is Messing With Climate Calculations Oct 02, 2023

Trees make clouds by releasing small quantities of vapors called “sesquiterpenes.” Scientists are learning more—and it’s making climate models hazy.

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DNA Drives Help Identify Missing People. It’s a Privacy Nightmare Sep 29, 2023

Police are hosting events to collect DNA samples that can help solve missing persons cases. But when people put their DNA in a commercial database, it can used for other purposes.

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How to Make a Pig Heart Transplant Last in a Person Sep 28, 2023

The first human to receive a genetically engineered pig heart survived two months. Surgeons are hoping this transplant will last longer.

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How NASA Is Protecting Its Precious Asteroid Bennu Sample Sep 27, 2023

The OSIRIS-REx capsule containing a “treasure trove” of space rocks has now arrived at Johnson Space Center, where scientists will gingerly unpack it.

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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Is About to Bring Asteroid Pieces Back to Earth Sep 26, 2023

The OSIRIS-REx probe is carrying rock samples from the asteroid Bennu, millions of miles away. If it works, it will be only the third such retrieval in history.

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A Medieval French Skeleton Is Rewriting the History of Syphilis Sep 25, 2023

Christopher Columbus was blamed for bringing syphilis to Europe. New DNA evidence suggests it was already there. Maybe both stories are true.

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The US Is Mobilizing an Army to Fight the Climate Crisis Sep 22, 2023

The American Climate Corps will employ tens of thousands to prepare the country for the pain ahead. But it'll need to get much, much bigger.

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A Pair of Sun Probes Just Got Closer to Solving a Solar Enigma Sep 21, 2023

The solar corona is hotter than expected, and scientists are using European Space Agency and NASA spacecraft to figure out why.

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Here Come the Glow-in-the-Dark Houseplants Sep 20, 2023

Startup Light Bio has created a bioluminescent petunia using mushroom genes and plans to start shipping the plants next spring.

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This Treaty Could Stop Plastic Pollution—or Doom the Earth to Drown in It Sep 19, 2023

The UN has released a draft of what might become a landmark agreement to protect human health and the environment. Emphasis on might.

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NASA Didn’t Find Aliens—but if You See Any UFOs, Holler Sep 18, 2023

The agency assembled a panel of experts to figure out how to handle future sightings, in case the truth is out there.

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Libya’s Deadly Floods Show the Growing Threat of Medicanes Sep 15, 2023

Entire neighborhoods of the Libyan city of Derna have vanished following devastating floods wrought by Storm Daniel. Such storms are rare—but climate change will supersize them.

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Covid Boosters Can’t Outpace New Mutations. Here’s Why They Still Work Sep 14, 2023

The latest vaccines are designed to target XBB.1.5, the dominant variant throughout much of 2023—until now.

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Blue-Green Algae Is Filling Rivers With Toxic Sludge Sep 13, 2023

Harmful algal blooms are taking over as the world warms and grows richer in carbon dioxide—and there’s no easy fix.

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The Investigation of SpaceX’s Starship Explosion Is Complete—and Elon Musk Has More Work to Do Sep 12, 2023

Following a joint “mishap investigation” by SpaceX and the FAA, the federal agency listed 63 issues that must be addressed before launches can resume at the Texas site.

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Scientists Just Tried Growing Human Kidneys in Pigs Sep 11, 2023

Transplant organs are scarce. Could growing ones with human cells in pigs alleviate the shortage?

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What Ever Happened to the Tiny House Movement? Sep 08, 2023

Tiny houses started as a minimalist revolution. They ended up as an Instagram aesthetic.

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A Flesh-Eating Bacterium Is Creeping North as Oceans Warm Sep 07, 2023

The Vibrio vulnificus pathogen thrives in hot coastal waters, and beachgoers can contract it via a small cut or scrape. It can also kill them in two days.

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Weight-Loss Drugs Ozempic and Wegovy Can Also Protect the Heart Sep 06, 2023

A new study shows that semaglutide reduces heart failure symptoms like fatigue and swelling by bringing down body weight.

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The High-Stakes Calculus of Preventing Wildfires by Burying Power Lines Sep 05, 2023

Investigators are eying the Lahaina wildfire as yet another deadly blaze started by electrical equipment. Putting lines underground would help—at a steep cost.

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Paper Coffee Cups Are Just as Toxic for the Environment as Plastic Ones Sep 04, 2023

Supposedly eco-friendly cups are still coated with a thin layer of plastic, which scientists have discovered can leach chemicals that harm living creatures.

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DART Showed How to Smash an Asteroid. So Where Did the Space Shrapnel Go? Aug 31, 2023

Last year’s NASA mission proved it was possible to knock an incoming near-Earth object off course. But that creates debris—which might also be a threat.

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The Massive Campaign to Air-Drop Tiny Rabies Vaccines to Raccoons Aug 30, 2023

Raccoons are a main carrier of rabies in the US. A government effort distributes millions of tasty vaccines to protect both animals and people.

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The Race to Save Yellowknife From Raging Wildfires Aug 29, 2023

Some residents of Yellowknife are staying behind to fight back wildfires that could soon engulf the Canadian city. Others have shared harrowing stories as they race to escape the flames.

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The Battle Against the Fungal Apocalypse Is Just Beginning Aug 28, 2023

Fungal infections are rising worldwide and climate change may be to blame. Medicine isn’t ready.

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India’s Lander Touches Down on the Moon. Russia’s Has Crashed Aug 25, 2023

While India’s spacecraft landed on the lunar surface, the Russian one collided with it. The mixed record shows that developing a lunar economy won’t be easy.

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The Winds That Doomed Lahaina Aug 24, 2023

Gusts primed the Maui landscape to burn, then drove an out-of-control blaze. It’s a worst-case scenario that’s growing increasingly common around the world.

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How Hilary Turned Into a Monster Storm Aug 23, 2023

Mexico and the western US are reeling from record-shattering rainfall. Blame high ocean temperatures—and prepare for worse to come as the planet warms.

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Montana Youth Win a Historic Climate Case Aug 22, 2023

A victory for Montanans’ right to a clean, healthy environment could set a precedent for other climate lawsuits throughout the United States.

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Russia and India Are Racing to Put Landers on the Moon Aug 21, 2023

Robotic spacecraft from both countries are aiming to touch down on the moon’s southern hemisphere, as one’s space program waxes and the other wanes.

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Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals—and It’s Proving Difficult to Detect Aug 18, 2023

Ethics watchdogs are looking out for potentially undisclosed use of generative AI in scientific writing. But there’s no foolproof way to catch it all yet.

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How to Help and Donate to Wildfire Victims in Hawaii Aug 17, 2023

From the Hawaii Community Foundation to the Maui Food Bank, donations to these groups aid people impacted by the recent disaster in Lahaina.

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Cities Aren’t Supposed to Burn Like This Anymore—Especially Lahaina Aug 16, 2023

Humans figured out how to prevent huge fires in urban areas over a century ago. Why have they gotten so bad again?

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Injecting a Gene Into Monkeys’ Brains Curbed Their Alcohol Use Aug 15, 2023

Chronic drinking depletes the brain’s dopamine levels. A single dose of a gene therapy reset them, and stopped the craving for alcohol.

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How NASA Nearly Lost the Voyager 2 Spacecraft Forever Aug 14, 2023

The space agency lost touch with the beloved spacecraft following a faulty command signal. Here’s how it happened—and how engineers worked to bring it back.

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The Scary Science of Maui’s Wildfires Aug 11, 2023

Wildfires were once rare across the Aloha State. But drought, invasive species, and human development have pushed Hawaii into a fiery new age.

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The Weird Way That Human Waste Is Killing Corals Aug 10, 2023

Wastewater fuels blooms of reef-smothering algae. Better engineering and an army of funny-looking fish can come to the rescue.

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The Mystery Genes That Are Keeping You Alive Aug 09, 2023

Nobody knows what around a fifth of your genes actually do. It’s hoped they could hold the secret to fixing developmental disorders, cancer, neurodegeneration, and more.

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Everyone Was Wrong About Antipsychotics Aug 08, 2023

An unprecedented look at dopamine in the brain reveals that psychosis drugs get developed with the wrong neurons in mind.

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Covid’s Summer Wave Is Rising—Again Aug 04, 2023

Covid-19 cases are slowly increasing across the US for the fourth summer in a row.

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This Prosthetic Limb Actually Attaches to the Wearer’s Nerves Aug 03, 2023

A prosthetic arm that connects directly to the nervous system gives the user fine control over the motions of individual fingers—just by thinking and trying to move.

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The First Pill for Postpartum Depression Is Almost Here Aug 02, 2023

Current treatments for depression after giving birth are either slow to work or hard to get. The FDA is considering a new tablet that relieves symptoms within days.

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The Mystery of the Colorado River’s Missing Water Aug 01, 2023

Snow is falling—but it doesn’t show up to replenish the river. In a drying West, researchers are racing to find out where it goes.

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Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder—but Memorability May Be Universal Jul 31, 2023

When humans and a neural network viewed pieces of art, they all found the same images memorable. What those images have in common offers a glimpse into what fascinates the brain.

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Heat Waves Aren’t Just Getting Hotter—They’re Sticker Too Jul 28, 2023

This summer's extraordinary heat is but a preview of what's to come: Humidity not only makes daytime highs more miserable, it extends the hotness through the night.

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Why Scientists Are Clashing Over the Atlantic’s Critical Currents Jul 27, 2023

Is the system of currents that runs through the Atlantic about to shut down, creating climate chaos? Depends on who you ask.

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Coming Soon Near You: Bears Jul 26, 2023

Extreme heat and other weather events are driving bears closer to humans’ campgrounds and hiking trails—and that’s no good for either species.

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This Rare Case of Green Hairy Tongue Is Pure Nightmare Fuel Jul 25, 2023

Patients with hairy tongue syndrome—which can also turn tongues black, brown, yellow, or blue—often report gagging, mouth dryness, or bad breath.

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This Startup Wants to Give Farmers a Closer Look at Crops—From Space Jul 24, 2023

A UK company cofounded by an astrophysicist combines AI with radar satellite imagery to keep track of vegetation, and eventually to make forecasts about its growth.

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Ticks and the Diseases They Carry Are Spreading. Can This Drug Stamp Them Out? Jul 21, 2023

A small study showed that feeding deer a type of ivermectin reduced the number of ticks drinking their blood. (Yes, it’s that ivermectin. No, you shouldn’t eat it.)

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Why Songs Get Stuck in Your Head—and How to Stop Them Jul 20, 2023

Maybe it’s a commercial jingle, a TikTok song, or a new summer bop. Here’s how to trick your brain into hitting pause.

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The US Finally Approved an Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pill. Here’s What to Know Jul 19, 2023

By early 2024, a tablet called Opill will be sold in pharmacies without a prescription, making it easier for uninsured and young buyers to access.

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An Ancient Battle Is Playing Out in the DNA of Every Embryo Jul 18, 2023

Millions of years ago, retroviruses invaded the human genome. Today some of these viral remnants threaten the developing embryo while others fight to defend it.

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Weird Weather Is Making Air Travel Even Worse Jul 17, 2023

Flight delays, cancellations, and violent turbulence are becoming increasingly common as extreme weather ramps up. Things are likely to get worse with climate change.

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The Arctic Is a Freezer That’s Losing Power Jul 14, 2023

As glaciers retreat, methane-rich groundwater is bubbling to the surface. That may be warming the climate, accelerating the Arctic’s rapid decline.

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A Hair Loss Study Raises New Questions About Aging Cells Jul 13, 2023

A protein secreted by seemingly dormant cells in skin moles causes hair to grow again. That’s a big—and potentially useful—surprise.

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Old Memories Can Prime Brains to Make New Ones Jul 12, 2023

Creating a memory takes energy, and brains only have so much. A study using snails shows how they can be primed for future learning.

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The Microplastic Crisis Is Getting Exponentially Worse Jul 11, 2023

Plastic production is skyrocketing, pushing microplastic pollution to dangerous new levels. Now research shows even the Arctic is increasingly contaminated.

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Why People Stop Using Drugs Like Ozempic Jul 10, 2023

Drugs like semaglutide—better known as Ozempic or Wegovy—could be lifelong treatments for obesity, but what little data scientists have suggests that people don't stick with them for long.

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A Rare Domestic Resurgence of Malaria Is Circulating in the US Jul 07, 2023

The mosquito-borne disease was eliminated here long ago. Now “revenge travel,” global migration, poor public funding—and maybe climate change—could help it come back.

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One Shot of a Kidney Protein Gave Monkeys a Brain Boost Jul 06, 2023

An early experiment in older rhesus macaques suggests that an injection of klotho improves working memory. Could it one day help people?

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How a Human Smell Receptor Works Is Finally Revealed Jul 04, 2023

After decades of frustration, researchers have determined how an airborne scent molecule links to shapeshifting olfactory receptors in the nose.

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Scientists Are Gene-Editing Flies to Fight Crop Damage Jul 03, 2023

The spotted-wing drosophila is a threat to fruit growers across the US and Europe. Crispr could thwart the pest’s numbers.

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Air Pollution Is Deadlier Than You Think Jun 30, 2023

Poor air quality doesn’t just cause lung cancer. It may also be responsible for other cancers, strokes, diabetes, and more.

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Health Care Data Is a Researcher’s Gold Mine Jun 29, 2023

Patients and clinicians generate huge amounts of data that could advance care. But turning the system into an R&D powerhouse means ripping up the rules.

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More People Are Going Blind. AI Can Help Fight It Jun 28, 2023

Early detection is crucial for treating eye disease. AI-enhanced eye scan analyses could spot warning signs quicker—and reach patients at scale.

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In the Future, Patients Won’t Go to the Hospital—It Will Come to Them Jun 27, 2023

Virtual wards provide people with remote care and monitoring, allowing patients to go home sooner and hospitals to run more efficiently.

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Heat Waves Are Unleashing a Deadly but Overlooked Pollutant Jun 26, 2023

Indian cities, afflicted by rising temperatures and poor air quality, are becoming hot spots of ozone pollution, which has proven a difficult problem to fix.

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The Pain and Promise of Europe’s Abortion Laws Jun 23, 2023

The continent’s abortion laws are a patchwork of progress and setbacks. And for many, accessing the right care at the right time is still a lottery.

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How to Find the Titanic Sub Before It’s Too Late Jun 22, 2023

Rescue teams are scrambling to find the sub, which has gone missing near the wreckage of the Titanic, before those aboard run out of oxygen.

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Bird Populations Are in Meltdown Jun 21, 2023

Humans rely on birds to eat insects, spread seeds, and pollinate plants—but these feathered friends can’t survive without their habitats.

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Nuclear-Powered Cargo Ships Are Trying to Stage a Comeback Jun 20, 2023

Faced with the difficult task of decarbonizing, some shipping companies are taking another look at a polarizing solution—nuclear fission.

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How to Check the Air Quality Near You Jun 19, 2023

Here’s what to know about wildfire smoke and invisible pollutants, and how you can use your phone to decide whether it’s safe to spend time outside.

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Psychedelic Therapy Is Here. Just Don’t Call It Therapy Jun 16, 2023

Psilocybin is on the cusp of becoming legally available in Oregon—but not as a medical treatment.

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Gentle Brain Stimulation Can Improve Memory During Sleep Jun 15, 2023

Stimulating the frontal lobes of sleeping epilepsy patients improved their recall of information—and may one day help treat Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

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Satellites Keep Photobombing Space Images. Astronomers Need a Fix Jun 14, 2023

A new technique could aid Hubble Space Telescope users, but the problem will get worse for observatories on Earth.

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Bees Get All the Love. Won’t Someone Think of the Moths? Jun 13, 2023

More research is showing that moths are secret, critical pollinators, even of crops that feed humanity. Save the bees, but save the moths too.

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The Kakhovka Dam Collapse Is an Ecological Disaster Jun 12, 2023

Water surging from the broken Ukrainian dam is killing animals, destroying habitats, and unleashing pollution. The effects may be irreversible.

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The Age of Flames Reaches the US East Coast Jun 09, 2023

Canadian wildfires are spewing smoke into New York City and Washington, DC, threatening the health of millions. Welcome to the “Pyrocene.”

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Genomics Are a Lifesaver for Patients With Rare Diseases Jun 08, 2023

The 100,000 Genomes Project has a massive database to help doctors and patients solve baffling medical cases and diagnose cancers.

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The Quest for a Switch to Turn on Hunger Jun 07, 2023

While weight-loss drugs are dialing down the urge to eat for many, others desperately need something that can convince their body to consume more.

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A Secret Key to Saving Species Is Blowing in the Wind Jun 06, 2023

Scientists just figured out that thousands of air quality stations have been accidentally gathering invaluable DNA data on local organisms.

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The Race Is On to Crack an Artist’s ‘Test’ Signal From Aliens Jun 05, 2023

A Sign in Space encourages the public to imagine what a real message from extraterrestrials might be like—and figure out how to interpret it.

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A Pill Version of Ozempic Is Coming Jun 02, 2023

The injectable weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are already popular. Oral forms could lead to even more demand.

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Get Ready for 3D-Printed Organs and a Knife That ‘Smells’ Tumors Jun 01, 2023

Hospitals are evolving at warp speed, and autonomous surgical robots are just the beginning.

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This Machine Makes You Hallucinate May 31, 2023

Prolonged exposure to strobe lights has a psychedelic effect, which researchers are investigating as a way to heal the brain.

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Bring Back the Seabirds, Save the Climate May 30, 2023

The number of oceangoing birds has declined 70 percent since the 1950s, but restoring their populations can bolster marine ecosystems that sequester carbon.

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Antarctic Sea Ice Is at Record Lows. Is It an Alarming Shift? May 29, 2023

Scientists are “watching with bated breath” to see if ice will return to normal levels. The planetary consequences could be huge.

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You’re Allergic to the Modern World May 26, 2023

Allergy rates are on the rise. Blame climate change and people’s urbanized lifestyles.

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New Alzheimer’s Drugs Offer Subtle Benefits—With Real Risks May 25, 2023

Antibody treatments clear amyloid protein from patients’ brains, slowing the progression of their disease but potentially inducing deadly swelling.

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Axiom’s Second Flight Paves the Way for a Commercial Space Station May 23, 2023

The spaceflight sets the stage for the aging International Space Station's private successors, and for an influx of paying customers.

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How Chronic Illness Patients Are ‘Hacking’ Their Wearables May 22, 2023

Fitbits and Apple Watches weren’t designed for people with atypical health conditions. But the tech can be extremely useful—with some creativity.

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The Looming El Niño Could Cost the World Trillions of Dollars May 19, 2023

Warming waters in the Pacific can trigger droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall around the world, potentially leading to $3 trillion in losses in the coming years.

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A New Study Reveals the Traits That Speed Up Evolution May 18, 2023

The first large-scale comparison of DNA mutation rates in 68 different vertebrate species gives insights into how quickly life can evolve.

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The First Crispr-Edited Salad Is Here May 17, 2023

A startup used gene editing to make mustard greens more appetizing to consumers. Next up: fruits.

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This Is the Quietest Sound in the Universe May 16, 2023

Chill materials to extreme temperatures, and their vibrations show properties that could one day be exploited to create memory in quantum computers.

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Voyager 2 Gets a Life-Extending Power Boost in Deep Space May 15, 2023

The NASA team hopes the iconic spacecraft and its twin can continue taking data beyond the solar system past their 50th birthdays.
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Your Dog Is a Secret Weapon in the Fight Against Cancer May 12, 2023

Every year, thousands of pets develop tumors very similar to those found in people. Find drugs that work for canines, and human treatments should follow.

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The Weird Way Australia’s Bushfires Influenced a Weirder La Niña May 11, 2023

In 2019 and 2020, the out-of-control blazes sent clouds of smoke across the Pacific, where they brightened clouds and cooled the ocean.

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The End of the Covid Emergency Is a Warning May 10, 2023

The highest alerts are being unraveled globally. But with some 7 million people dead, there are hard lessons to learn from the pandemic—and a lot of work still to do.

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Everyone Was Wrong About Reverse Osmosis—Until Now May 09, 2023

A new paper showing how water actually travels through a plastic membrane could make desalination more efficient. That’s good news for a thirsty world.

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The Long Covid Mystery Has a New Suspect May 08, 2023

Immune cells called monocytes are triggered to help clear infection—but in some cases they never switch off, leaving patients breathless for months. Read the story here.

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A New Cloned Horse Offers Hope for Endangered Species May 05, 2023

The technique may finally be emerging as a way to preserve species at risk of extinction. Read the story here.

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The Modern World Is Aging Your Brain May 04, 2023

In a remote part of the Amazon, anthropologists and neuroscientists are learning about life and health without an “embarrassment of riches.”

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Is Cosmology Broken? This Map May Be a Crucial Puzzle Piece May 03, 2023

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope could help resolve some cosmic discrepancies: How fast the universe is expanding and how evenly matter is distributed.

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Deadly Heat Threatens the Well-Being of 1 Billion People in India May 02, 2023

Increasingly severe heat waves will imperil the country’s development goals, slow economic growth, and heighten health risks, new research shows.

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An Ominous Heating Event Is Unfolding in the Oceans May 01, 2023

Average sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs, and stayed there. It’s a worrying signal of an ocean in crisis.

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The Quest for Longevity Is Already Over Apr 28, 2023

Studying people who live well beyond the age of 100 could reveal the secret to living longer, healthier lives. But the statistics tell another story.

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As Sea Levels Rise, the East Coast Is Also Sinking Apr 27, 2023

Coastal lands are subsiding and losing elevation—a “hidden vulnerability” that’s making rising seas all the worse.

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This Private Moon Lander Is Kicking Off a Commercial Lunar Race Apr 26, 2023

The Japanese company Ispace could be the first to safely touch down on the moon’s surface, with more spacecraft following later this year.

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Forget Cars, Green Hydrogen Will Supercharge Crops Apr 25, 2023

Renewable generation projects are set to make this future fuel widely available. And it’s much more versatile than you think.

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A Critical Arctic Organism Is Now Infested With Microplastics Apr 24, 2023

The algae Melosira arctica is the foundation of the food chain, and its contamination could have major consequences for ecosystems and the climate.

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The Supreme Court Has Delayed Its Abortion Pill Decision Apr 21, 2023

The court has given itself a deadline extension until late Friday night to decide whether mifepristone should remain legal.

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The Search for Long Covid Treatments Takes a Promising Turn Apr 20, 2023

Scientists believe lasting symptoms following a coronavirus infection are not a single disorder. So new clinical trials are hunting for a range of solutions.

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The Biggest Microbiome Study Sheds New Light on Shared Health Risks Apr 19, 2023

The most comprehensive survey of how we share our microbiomes suggests a new way of thinking about diseases that aren’t usually considered contagious.

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A ‘Morning-After Pill’ for Sexually Transmitted Infections Is Almost Here Apr 18, 2023

The single-dose antibiotic regimen dramatically reduces transmission of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. But it doesn’t have the CDC’s blessing yet.

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Diseases Didn’t Just Shape History, They Control the Future Apr 17, 2023

A new book explores the far-reaching impact of germs and viruses on human society.

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The Abortion Pill Legal Standoff Endangers Access to All Drugs Apr 14, 2023

A Fifth Circuit ruling that keeps mifepristone available, but curtails access to it, is the newest front in a battle over the FDA’s power to approve medications.

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The Massive ‘Batteries’ Hidden Beneath Your Feet Apr 13, 2023

Aquifer thermal energy storage can use groundwater to heat and cool buildings—decarbonizing homes and businesses in the process.

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Genetically Modified Houseplants Are Coming to Clean Your Air Apr 12, 2023

Neoplants says its pothos has superior purification properties—but you’ll still need a lot of them to get the job done.

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Stem Cell ‘Junk Yards’ Reveal a New Clue About Aging Apr 11, 2023

New research shows that the cells’ garbage-clearing function deteriorates with age—and opens the door to reversing the process.

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NASA Is Getting Really Serious About Tracking Air Pollution Apr 10, 2023

With new satellites and programs, the agency is tackling air quality from all angles—for the health of people and the planet.

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Scientists Turned Monkey Stem Cells Into ‘Synthetic Embryos’ Apr 07, 2023

For the first time, researchers transferred them to the wombs of female monkeys, where the embryo-like structures produced a response similar to pregnancy.

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The ‘Little Bang’ Helping Physicists Study the Infant Universe Apr 06, 2023

By recreating an early state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma, scientists hope to understand the conditions that made the universe what it is today.

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Finally, an Honest Conversation About Contraception Apr 05, 2023

Alice Pelton, founder of The Lowdown, the world’s first contraception review platform, discusses the power of equipping women with information.

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Your First Lab-Grown Burger Won’t Contain Much Beef Apr 04, 2023

Meat brewed in bioreactors is on the way, but it’s still too expensive. The solution? Add a whole lot of plants.

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How Do People Live in Orbit? Ask the Space Archeologists Apr 03, 2023

An innovative research project delivers new evidence about the challenging life of astronauts on the International Space Station.

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This Blood Test Targets 50 Types of Cancer Mar 31, 2023

Grail’s Galleri aims to screen for many more types of tumor than was previously possible. Large-scale clinical trials are underway.
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The Chemical Menace Inside Glaciers and Icebergs Mar 30, 2023

Ice can trap pollutants and accelerate their breakdown, with troubling environmental consequences.

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Plastics Are Devastating the Guts of Seabirds Mar 29, 2023

New research shows that seabirds’ ingestion of the pollutant scars their insides—a new disease called “plasticosis”—and may disturb their microbiomes.

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California’s Atmospheric Rivers Are Getting Worse Mar 28, 2023

As climate change makes storms warmer and wetter, the state’s flood control system is struggling to keep up.

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Climate Freeloaders Are Destroying the Planet Mar 27, 2023

Governments are ignoring calls to stop fossil fuel expansion—despite there being little time left to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

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This Is the Lightest Paint in the World Mar 24, 2023

An energy-saving coating needs no pigments, and it keeps the surface beneath it 30 degrees cooler.

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The Quest for Injectable Brain Implants Has Begun Mar 23, 2023

The hard electrodes inserted into the brain to treat Parkinson’s and paralysis damage the organ’s soft tissue. A new invention could change that.

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The Climate Report That Foretells Humanity’s Future Mar 22, 2023

The IPCC’s synopsis of the state of climate science warns that we’re running out of time to avoid ever-worsening disaster.

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Your Tap Water Is Filthy, but That Could Finally Change Mar 21, 2023

The US is proposing bold action to clean thousands of “forever chemicals” out of drinking water. It’s long overdue.

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How a Beam of Pellets Could Blast a Probe Into Deep Space Mar 20, 2023

Researchers seek to develop advanced propulsion systems that can transform long-distance space exploration.

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How to Create Your Optimal Bedtime Routine Mar 17, 2023

We asked experts how to craft a more intentional, peace-filled ritual to support a better night’s sleep.

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How to Lucid Dream (Even if You Think You Can’t) Mar 16, 2023

Want to take control inside your dreams? Turns out it’s a skill you can practice.

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The Electron Is Having a (Magnetic) Moment. It’s a Big Deal Mar 15, 2023

A new experiment pulled off the most precise measurement of an electron’s self-generated magnetic field—and the universe’s subatomic model is at stake.

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The World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket Is About to Launch Mar 14, 2023

Relativity Space’s attempt to reach orbit heralds the increasing use of 3D printing in the space sector.

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No One Knows if You Need Another Covid Booster Mar 13, 2023

It’s cellular immunity, not antibodies, that probably protects against the coronavirus’s worst effects—and scientists haven’t worked out how long it lasts.

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It’s Time for a Flu Vaccine—for Birds Mar 10, 2023

Avian influenza has killed millions of birds. Shots to prevent it already exist. Why isn’t the entire poultry industry using them?

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Tiny, Explosive ‘Jetlets’ Might Be Fueling the Solar Wind Mar 09, 2023

Scientists investigated a weird feature in Parker Solar Probe data—and may have discovered what drives the plasma that pervades the solar system.

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The Food System Is Awful for the Climate. It Doesn’t Have to Be Mar 08, 2023

New modeling estimates that food production could add a degree Celsius to global warming. But it also points to powerful ways to make diets more sustainable.

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As Kenya’s Crops Fail, a Fight Over GMOs Rages Mar 07, 2023

Faced with extreme drought, Kenya’s president approved a controversial new crop for farmers. Then the legal backlash began.

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How Old Are You, Really? New Tests Want to Tell You Mar 06, 2023

About a dozen such consumer tests are now on the market, but the science of reading DNA for insights about longevity is still young.

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The Disruptors Who Want to Make Death Greener Mar 03, 2023

Startups rush to gain a foothold in a burgeoning industry as New York and California move to legalize human composting.

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Cute Animals Are Overrated. Let’s Save the Weird Ones Mar 02, 2023

One million species are at risk of extinction, but a handful of charismatic creatures get all the hype. A new conservation strategy has a different focus.

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You Can Turn Your Backyard Into a Biodiversity Hotspot Mar 01, 2023

New research shows that if done right, urban farms and gardens can support all kinds of species—for the good of people and the environment.

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No One Knows If Decades-Old Nukes Would Actually Work Feb 28, 2023

Atomic weapons are complex, sensitive, and often pretty old. With testing banned, countries have to rely on good simulations to trust their weapons work.

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On-Demand Rocket Launches Are Coming Feb 27, 2023

In a factory on the outskirts of Glasgow, aerospace manufacturer Skyrora is building rockets for a space-bound taxi service for satellites.

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A Stroke Paralyzed Her Arm. This Implant Let Her Use It Again Feb 24, 2023

Electrical stimulation applied to the spinal cord temporarily restored arm and hand movement in two patients.

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Rovers Are So Yesterday. It’s Time to Send a Snakebot to Space Feb 23, 2023

The student winners of a NASA competition designed a serpentine bot that could sidewind across lunar regolith or roll down hills.

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Why Bother Bringing Back the Dodo? Feb 22, 2023

Audacious plans to resurrect the long-extinct bird could be lucrative. But the moonshot raises thorny philosophical questions.

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A Bold Plan to Beam Solar Energy Down From Space Feb 21, 2023

The European Space Agency is exploring a unique way to dramatically cut carbon emissions by tapping sunlight closer to the source.

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MDMA and Psilocybin Are Approved as Medicines for the First Time Feb 20, 2023

Many are celebrating Australia’s decision to pave the way for these psychedelic therapies, but questions around accessibility remain.

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The Secret to Making Concrete That Lasts 1,000 Years Feb 17, 2023

Scientists have uncovered the Roman recipe for self-repairing cement—which could massively reduce the carbon footprint of the material today.

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Did the Seeds of Life Ride to Earth Inside an Asteroid? Feb 16, 2023

Biological amino acids could have celestial or terrestrial roots. An experiment simulated their formation in deep space—but the mystery isn’t solved yet.

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How Sensor-Dangling Helicopters Can Help Beat the Water Crisis Feb 15, 2023

A simultaneous solution to California’s extreme drought and flooding is to bank more water underground. Send in the choppers (and a few ATVs).

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A Looming El Niño Could Dry the Amazon Feb 14, 2023

When a warm band of water develops in the Pacific, drought grips the rainforest. The Amazon, devastated by deforestation and fires, is especially vulnerable.

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Scientists Grew Mini Human Guts Inside Mice Feb 13, 2023

These tiny organoids with working immune systems mimic the function of the GI tract and could be used to study intestinal diseases and drugs to treat them.

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At Last, the Milky Way Gets a Better Close Up Feb 10, 2023

The largest catalog ever collected by a single telescope maps Earth’s 3 billion stellar neighbors—and helps track the dust that warps how we see them.

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The World’s Farms Are Hooked on Phosphorus. It’s a Problem Feb 09, 2023

Half of the globe’s crop productivity comes from a key fertilizer ingredient that’s non-renewable—and literally washing away.

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Why Not Cover Ugly Parking Lots With Solar Panels? Feb 08, 2023

In France, a plan to cover swaths of asphalt with photovoltaics will bring renewable energy even closer to urban areas where it’s needed.

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Hey EV Owners: It’d Take a Fraction of You to Prop Up the Grid Feb 07, 2023

If you agree to provide some of your car’s battery power in times of high energy demand, you’ll get paid, and help make the grid more stable.

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It’s Not Sci-Fi—NASA Is Funding These Mind-Blowing Projects Feb 06, 2023

The space agency gave money to researchers working on liquid telescope mirrors, a lunar oxygen pipeline, and Martian building blocks made of fungi.

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Medieval monks were, in many ways, the original LinkedIn power users Feb 03, 2023

Focusing wasn’t much easier in the time before electricity or on-demand TV. In fact, you probably have a lot in common with these super-distracted monks.

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Scientific Fraud Is Slippery to Catch—but Easier to Combat Feb 02, 2023

Fakery spans “beautified” data, photoshopped images, and “paper mills.” Experts and institutions are employing tools to spot deceptive research and mitigate its reach.

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Lasers Are Mapping Scotland’s Mysterious Iron Age Passages Feb 01, 2023

Digitized archaeology is making souterrains—subterranean passages in the Highlands—accessible in a way Indiana Jones could only dream of.

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The Tonga Eruption Is Still Revealing New Volcanic Dangers Jan 31, 2023

One year later, researchers are still marveling at the power of the Hunga Tonga explosion—and wondering how to monitor hundreds of other undersea volcanoes.

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This Seriously Hipster Bean Is Coffee’s Best Hope for Survival Jan 30, 2023

Climate change is straining the world’s two favorite coffee species. Could a resilient 19th-century alternative solve the brew’s existential crisis?

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The Key to California's Survival Is Hidden Underground Jan 27, 2023

The state is ping-ponging between severe drought and catastrophic flooding. The solution to both? Making the landscape spongier.

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Why the Search for Life in Space Starts With Ancient Earth Jan 26, 2023

Need to estimate, from trillions of miles away, how likely another world is to host life? There’s a flowchart for that.

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The US Just Greenlit High-Tech Alternatives to Animal Testing Jan 25, 2023

Lab animals have long borne the brunt of drug safety trials. A new law allows drugmakers to use miniature tissue models or "organs on chips" instead.

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What This Fearsome Weapon Reveals About Early Americans Jan 24, 2023

The hottest West Coast tech 16,000 years ago was a “projectile point” for hunting game. Though tiny, the artifact tells an outsize tale.

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Meet the Earth’s Lawyers Jan 23, 2023

ClientEarth helps shape new laws and enforce old ones to protect the planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants.

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Climate Enforcers Need Hard Evidence. Friederike Otto Has It Jan 20, 2023

World Weather Attribution ties disasters and extreme conditions to climate change—providing crucial leverage for legal and policy battles.

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Why Do You Get Sick in the Winter? Blame Your Nose Jan 19, 2023

A new study shows that as temperatures drop, nasal cells release fewer of the tiny protectors that bind and neutralize invading germs.

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Drug Shortages Aren’t New. The Tripledemic Just Made You Look Jan 18, 2023

Flu meds and prescription drugs have been in short supply all winter—but the problem goes back over a decade.

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In the Next Pandemic, Let’s Pay People to Get Vaccinated Jan 17, 2023

Data from Sweden and the US suggests cash incentives increase uptake without denting people’s trust in vaccines or future willingness to get them.

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2022 Wasn't the Hottest on Record. That's Nothing to Celebrate Jan 16, 2023

Last year was one of the warmest measured, say NASA and NOAA. It would have been even more sweltering if not for La Niña, which will soon fade away.

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Let’s Go to Mars. Let’s Not Live There Jan 13, 2023

Space agencies and companies aim to send people to the Red Planet. But settling there would be hell on—well, you know what we mean.

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You Don’t Need to Fear a World of 8 Billion Humans Jan 12, 2023

Some environmentalists warn the planet can’t handle so many people, but we may need to rethink our approach to rising populations.

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Here’s What’s Next for Pig Organ Transplants Jan 11, 2023

2022 was a breakthrough year for xenotransplantation, a procedure that could be a lifeline for patients in desperate need of a donor.

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Eating Too Much Salt Could Cause Stress Levels to Rise Jan 10, 2023

Holiday feasts tend to be salt-heavy—but early animal experiments are finding that overindulging in the condiment could take an emotional toll.

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A More Elegant Form of Gene Editing Progresses to Human Testing Jan 09, 2023

Instead of cutting out chunks of the genome to disable malfunctioning genes, base editing makes a smaller, more precise swap.

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The Bittersweet Defeat of Mpox Jan 06, 2023

The epidemic has largely subsided, but largely because queer men seem to have learned more from AIDS and Covid-19 than the authorities did.

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Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw Jan 05, 2023

Europe’s energy crisis is forcing companies to switch strategies or close down. The industry’s future hangs in the balance.

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Russia Has Turned Eastern Ukraine Into a Giant Minefield Jan 04, 2023

Vast swathes of the country have been vindictively laced with explosives, threatening the civilian population both physically and mentally.

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The Mystery of Nevada’s Ancient Reptilian Boneyard Jan 02, 2023

Whale-sized shonisaurs dominated the ocean 230 million years ago. A fossil cluster offers a fascinating glimpse at how they lived—based on where they died.

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Bio-Based Plastics Aim to Capture Carbon. But at What Cost? Dec 30, 2022

Growing crops to make plastic could theoretically reduce reliance on fossil fuels and even pull carbon out of the atmosphere, but at an enormous environmental cost.

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How Far Can You Fly a Battery-Powered Jumbo Jet? Dec 29, 2022

The answer explains why electric cars are everywhere, but electric aircraft are still a novelty.

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How the UN’s ‘Sex Agency’ Uses Tech to Save Mothers’ Lives Dec 28, 2022

Big Data, drones, diagnostics—the United Nations and other groups hope to innovate the world out of a maternal and reproductive health crisis.

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The Grim Origins of an Ominous Methane Surge Dec 23, 2022

During the coronavirus lockdowns, emissions of the potent greenhouse gas somehow soared. The culprit wasn't humans—but the Earth itself.

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Antihelium Offers Hope in the Search for Dark Matter Dec 22, 2022

An experiment at the Large Hadron Collider suggests there’s a chance of catching this elusive evidence as it floats through our galactic neighborhood.

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A Smart Way to Get Ahead of the Next Flu Surge Dec 21, 2022

Internet-connected thermometers can quickly show how influenza is spreading—so measures to control the disease can be targeted more effectively.

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The Real Fusion Energy Breakthrough Is Still Decades Away Dec 20, 2022

US nuclear scientists have achieved the long-sought goal of a fusion ignition—but don't expect this clean technology to power the grid yet.

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How Do You Prove There’s Ice on the Moon? With a Lunar Flashlight Dec 19, 2022

A briefcase-sized satellite will ping lasers at the lunar South Pole to locate ice and map it for future human explorers.

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The Orion Moon Capsule Is Back. What Happens Next? Dec 16, 2022

The craft survived a 26-day voyage and a scorching descent. Now it’s time for NASA engineers to learn what went wrong—and what went right.

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‘Solar Twins’ Reveal the Consistency of the Universe Dec 15, 2022

Physicists study starlight to find whether the fine structure constant,Â whose value makes our universe possible, really is the same everywhere.

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The Next Great Overdose-Reversing Drug Might Already Exist Dec 14, 2022

Fentanyl-related substances have a bad reputation, but they could also save lives. In the US, a legislative battle to expedite research is heating up.

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The Extraordinary Shelf Life of the Deep Sea Sandwiches Dec 13, 2022

How did a lunch last underwater for 10 months? The answer relates to how carbon moves in the deep sea, and has implications for fighting climate change.

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This Low-Cost Test for Hearing Loss Lives on a Smartphone Dec 12, 2022

Audiology screening can be inaccessible for kids in low-resource areas. By utilizing off-the-shelf products, these scientists are trying to change that.

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Electronic Second Skins Are the Wearables of the Future Dec 09, 2022

Flexible e-skins could be used to measure wearers’ blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels in real time, assisting with diagnoses and health care.

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The Era of One-Shot, Multimillion-Dollar Genetic Cures Is Here Dec 08, 2022

Gene therapies promise long-term relief from intractable diseases—if insurers agree to pony up.

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A Proactive Way to Detect Cancer at Its Earliest Stages Dec 07, 2022

Medtech firm Earli is working on a way to make tumors announce themselves as they appear—and even provide directions to where they are in the body.

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Pop-Up Farming Pods to Help Colonizers Grow Crops on Mars Dec 05, 2022

Interstellar Lab’s inflatable BioPod is designed to help plants survive inhospitable conditions on Earth and allow explorers to settle on the Red Planet.

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Pliocene-Like Monsoons Are Returning to the American Southwest Dec 05, 2022

As carbon concentrations rise, conditions are becoming more like they were 3 million years ago, when the area was wetter and the rain was heavier.

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'Gold Hydrogen’ Is an Untapped Resource in Depleted Oil Wells Dec 02, 2022

The fuel can be produced by adding bacteria to spent drill holes—meaning there are thousands of potential hydrogen sources worldwide.

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For Alzheimer’s Scientists, the Amyloid Debate Has No Easy Answers Dec 01, 2022

For years, potential therapies that attack this brain protein have failed to help patients in clinical trials. Now—surprisingly—a new drug shows promise.

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Vertical Farming Needs to Grow More Than Salad Nov 30, 2022

Indoor agriculture promises to massively reduce the water and land needed to support crops. But at the moment, it only works for a tiny percentage of foods.

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How to Use a Laser to Kick an Electron out of a Molecule Nov 29, 2022

By firing pulses quintillionths of a second long, physicists study the fleeting motion of an electron leaving two bonded atoms.

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Turns Out Fighting Mosquitoes With Mosquitoes Actually Works Nov 28, 2022

New evidence indicates that an effort to stamp out disease-carrying insects is working. The key? Mosquitoes genetically engineered to kill off their own kind.

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Tiny Aerosols Pose a Big Predicament in a Warming World Nov 24, 2022

Fossil fuels are rapidly heating the planet, but their aerosols also help cool it. Just how much, though, is a major uncertainty in climate science.

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NASA Will Not Change the James Webb Telescope's Name Nov 23, 2022

The moniker, which honors a former agency administrator accused of enforcing anti-LGBTQ policies, has long been controversial.

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Your Phone Can Determine If a Bridge Is Busted Nov 22, 2022

Any smartphone in any car can pick up a span’s unique vibrations. Tracking how that changes over time reveals hidden structural problems.

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Europe’s Cities Are Getting More Crowded—That’s a Good Thing Nov 21, 2022

The sprawling mass of suburbia has been a disaster for the environment. But now smaller, denser cities herald a renaissance in city living.

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No, Qatar’s World Cup Can’t Be Classed as Carbon-Neutral Nov 18, 2022

Despite efforts to reduce emissions, the 2022 FIFA tournament is highly carbon-intensive. And its road to net-zero relies on questionable carbon credits.

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Countries Hit Hardest by Climate Change May Finally Get Their Due Nov 16, 2022

After 30 years of talk about forcing wealthy polluters to compensate those bearing the brunt of climate damage, the COP27 conference seems poised to act.

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Brace Yourself for a Triple Wave of Seasonal Viruses Nov 16, 2022

Many people haven’t been exposed to common respiratory viruses following the pandemic, meaning they might be more vulnerable to getting ill this year.

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This Gulp of Engineered Bacteria Is Meant to Treat Disease Nov 15, 2022

A small study of people with a rare disorder that prevents them from processing protein is an early attempt at creating “living” medicines.

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This Personalized Crispr Therapy Is Designed to Attack Tumors Nov 14, 2022

In a small study, researchers modified patients’ immune cells to target their particular cancer—but it only worked for a third of volunteers.

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How Peaceful Crowds Turn Into a Deadly Crush Nov 11, 2022

It doesn’t take stampeding or unruly behavior to result in massive tragedies like the one in Itaewon.

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The Sci-Fi Dream of a ‘Molecular Computer’ Is Getting More Real Nov 10, 2022

Chemists have long conceptualized tiny machines that could fabricate drugs, plastics, and other polymers that are hard to build with bigger tools.

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A Caustic Shift Is Coming for the Arctic Ocean Nov 09, 2022

Scientists have already begun to observe the ecological effects of acidifying oceans on sea life. The changes ahead may be more drastic.

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How to Detect a Man-Made Biothreat Nov 08, 2022

The US government is funding tech to determine whether genetic alterations in a virus or pest are an evolutionary quirk—or a lab-engineered danger.

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This Platform Makes Sure Companies Stick to Their Climate Pledges Nov 07, 2022

Lubomila Jordanova explains how her carbon-reporting firm—Plan A—uses relentless data analysis to guarantee businesses aren’t greenwashing.

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Thawing Permafrost Exposes Old Pathogens—and New Hosts Nov 04, 2022

Climate change is disrupting delicate arctic habitats, which could unearth frozen viruses and transport them elsewhere.

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The ‘Brightest of All Time’ Gamma-Ray Burst Sparks a Supernova Hunt Nov 03, 2022

Telescopes around the world are capturing photons from the blast, and researchers anticipate exciting discoveries ahead.

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A Clever Way to Map the Moon’s Surface—Using Shadows Nov 02, 2022

How shade is cast reveals details of the rugged lunar landscape, allowing NASA to create 3D models for astronauts and rovers.

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The New Math of Wrinkling Patterns Nov 01, 2022

A comprehensive mathematical framework treats these crinkles as elegant solutions to geometric problems.

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Rats Are Invasive Menaces. These Cameras Spy on Them Oct 31, 2022

Keeping rodents off Santa Cruz Island is an exhausting task. But now, conservationists are getting an assist from an AI-powered surveillance system.

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A New Tool for Eruption Forecasting: Carbon-Catching Drones Oct 28, 2022

In the future, remote-controlled quadcopters might mean that researchers won’t have to crawl inside volcanoes to collect carbon dioxide anymore.

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The US Is Finally Considering Protections Against Salmonella Oct 27, 2022

The bacteria, which contaminate poultry meat, sicken 1.35 million Americans every year. But there’s very little the federal government can do to stop it.

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How Iodine Pills Can—and Can’t—Help Against Radiation Oct 26, 2022

East European governments are starting to distribute the tablets as a precaution, but there are limits to the protection they offer, and who might need them.

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Big Pharma Says Drug Prices Reflect R&D Cost. Researchers Call BS Oct 25, 2022

A new study finds no correlation between research and development spending and outlandish drug prices.

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Lab-Grown Human Brain Tissue Works in Rats Oct 24, 2022

Scientists integrated tiny cell clusters called organoids with the animals’ own tissue, a step toward developing sophisticated mini-models of the brain.

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Gas Drilling Is Disrupting Animal Migration Oct 21, 2022

Scientists are investigating why large animals like the mule deer of Wyoming go where they go—and how humans can get out of their way.

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Robots Are Helping Immunocompromised Kids ‘Go to School’ Oct 20, 2022

Sure, my telepresence robot had some issues—but for students like me who can’t make it to campus because of disability or illness, these tools open new doors.

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Cities Need More Native Bees—Lots and Lots of Adorable Bees Oct 19, 2022

These pollinators can help urban gardens grow. That will be critical for cooling cities as the planet warms.

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Wildfire Smoke May Carry Deadly Fungi Long Distances Oct 18, 2022

Pathogens in soil are a danger to firefighters, but smoke may transport spores that cause valley fever and other infections into cities too.

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It’s Time to Treat Housing Insecurity as a Health Risk Oct 17, 2022

A new study shows that cancer patients in precarious living situations are twice as likely to die from their illness, underscoring the harms of unstable housing.

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The FCC's Rules on Space Junk Just Got Stricter Oct 14, 2022

A new and contentious five-year limit for getting rid of dead satellites could slow the growing orbital litter problem—if people actually abide by it.

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A Bold Effort to Cure HIV—Using Crispr Oct 13, 2022

An experiment tests whether the gene-editing technology can stop the virus from replicating, which would ultimately wipe out the infection.

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Scientists Have Discovered a New Set of Blood Groups Oct 12, 2022

The ‘Er’ grouping could help doctors identify and treat some rare cases of blood incompatibility, including between pregnant mothers and fetuses.

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A Huge New Data Set Pushes the Limits of Neuroscience Oct 11, 2022

The Allen Institute’s release includes recordings from a whopping 300,000 mouse neurons. Now the challenge is figuring out what to do with all that data.

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The Problem With Mental Health Bots Oct 10, 2022

With human therapists in short supply, AI chatbots are trying to plug the gap—but it’s not clear how well they work.

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Sofia, the Historic Airplane-Borne Telescope, Lands for the Last Time Oct 07, 2022

Astronomers mourn the end of an infrared observatory that flew aboard a jumbo jet. It was expensive, but it saw what Earth-based telescopes can’t.

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The Era of Fast, Cheap Genome Sequencing Is Here Oct 06, 2022

Illumina just announced a machine that can crack genomes twice as fast as its current version—and drive the cost down to $200 a pop.

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Climate Change Is Burying Archaeological Sites Under Tons of Sand Oct 05, 2022

Desertification can wear down ancient ruins or hide them under dunes—leaving researchers scrambling to keep track of where they’re buried.

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What Is a Wetland Worth? Oct 04, 2022

As the Supreme Court considers the fate of American wetlands, Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog, and Swamp offers an elegiac love letter to overlooked ecosystems.

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How to Find Your Vaccine History—and Store It Safely Oct 03, 2022

Worries about polio, monkeypox, and Covid-19 are rising. Here’s how toÂ gather your health information, even if you’ve lost the paper records.

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There’s New Proof Crispr Can Edit Genes Inside Human Bodies Sep 30, 2022

The technique had largely been limited to editing patients’ cells in the lab. New research shows promise for treating diseases more directly.

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Lawns Are Dumb. But Ripping Them Out May Come With a Catch Sep 29, 2022

Meticulous turf is environmentally terrible. Yet grass does have one charm: It “sweats,” helping cool the local area.

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The Fungus That Killed Frogs—and Led to a Surge in Malaria Sep 28, 2022

A global fungal pandemic wiped out amphibians, destroyed biodiversity, and ultimately increased human illness. Now a second similar pathogen is on the way.

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The US Is Measuring Extreme Heat Wrong Sep 27, 2022

Recent studies have revealed flaws in the heat index. With rising temperatures and humidity, maybe it’s time for a more holistic approach.

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To Understand Brain Disorders, Consider the Astrocyte Sep 26, 2022

Neurons get a lot of attention—butÂ researchers think this star-shaped brain cell type could hold the key to treating some disorders.

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How to Design the Perfect Queue, According to Crowd Science Sep 23, 2022

The line to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state is snaking across central London. Could it have been done better?

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Teaching ‘Selfish’ Wind Turbines to Share Can Boost Productivity Sep 22, 2022

A software update can help turbines become less disruptive to their neighbors and distribute the wind more efficiently.

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New Reservoirs Could Help Battle Droughts, but at What Cost? Sep 21, 2022

Storing more water to deal with climate change seems like a no-brainer, but such reservoirs are complex undertakings with environmental issues of their own.

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The Legendary Frank Drake Shaped the Search for Alien Life Sep 20, 2022

The influential astronomer led the hunt for extraterrestrial signals and helped make the field of astrobiology what it is today.

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Forget Silicon. This Computer Is Made of Fabric Sep 19, 2022

The jacket can raise and lower its own hood—without chips or batteries—and might one day help disabled wearers move.

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Why Pain Feels Worse at Night Sep 16, 2022

Many people report that their aches and pains intensify when they’re trying to sleep, but new research into the circadian clock helps explain this mystery.

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Humanity Is Doing Its Best Impression of a Black Hole Sep 15, 2022

Daniel Holz studies the universe’s ultimate catastrophes. And he knows a thing or two about existential threats on Earth, since he helps set the Doomsday Clock.

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This Follicle-Hacking Drug Could One Day Treat Baldness Sep 14, 2022

Researchers are working on an injectable that could get dormant follicles growing again. Trials on mice show promise.

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Greenland’s Melting Glaciers Spew a Complicated Treasure: Sand Sep 13, 2022

Meltwater from the island’s ice sheet is loaded with the right kind of sand for concrete production—which further warms the planet.

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To Fight Severe Drought, China Is Turning to Technology Sep 12, 2022

The country is exploring cloud seeding, GM crops, and a multibillion-dollar water-transfer system to address its worst water shortages on record.

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Can a Particle Accelerator Trace the Origins of Printing? Sep 09, 2022

Movable metal type is often traced back to Gutenberg’s workshop, but its history is far older in Asia. Researchers are using atomic-scale tools to rewrite the narrative.

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Is the Psychedelic Therapy Bubble About to Burst? Sep 08, 2022

A new paper argues that excitement has veered into misinformation—and scientists should be the ones to set things straight.

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The Long, Leguminous Quest to Give Crops Nitrogen Superpowers Sep 07, 2022

Farmers have to apply heaps of emissions-heavy fertilizer to provide crops with enough nitrogen. Scientists are looking to legumes for help.

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Swarms of Satellites Are Tracking Illegal Fishing and Logging Sep 06, 2022

In some of the world’s most inaccessible places, tiny satellites are watching—and listening—for signs of destruction.

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Satellites Keep the World’s Clocks on Time. What if They Fail? Sep 02, 2022

Standardized time is broadcast by satellite networks around the world, but their signals are vulnerable to interference—so the UK is building a more resilient system.

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This Giant Sprinkler System Can Protect Cities from Wildfires Sep 01, 2022

Two Spanish towns have built a network of towers that douseÂ surrounding trees with recycled water—stopping fire in its tracks.

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Egg and Sperm Donors Could Be Required to Share Their Medical Records Aug 31, 2022

In much of the US, donors aren’t obliged to disclose potentially inheritable health conditions. A proposed law could change that.

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At Some Colleges, the Fall of Roe Will Weaken Student Health Care Aug 30, 2022

As students return to school, many will find restricted campus access to abortion services and information—and perhaps reproductive care in general.

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How Long Droughts Make Flooding Worse Aug 29, 2022

Parched ground is less likely to absorb water and increases the risk of dangerous flash floods. But there are ways to mitigate these conditions.

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New Evidence Points to the Moon Once Being Part of Earth Aug 25, 2022

Gases trapped in lunar meteorites hint that the moon was formed out of material displaced from Earth after a planetary collision.

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Is Oxygen the Answer to Long Covid? Aug 24, 2022

Treatment options for lasting Covid symptoms are limited, but initial studies suggest hyperbaric oxygen could help.

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As Wildfires Get More Extreme, Observatories Are at Greater Risk Aug 23, 2022

Climate change is making fire season worse. Now astronomers are feeling the heat.

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Doctors Are Pioneering a Better Way to Perform Autopsies on Kids Aug 22, 2022

Hi-res imaging can help determine cause of death in very young babies—giving parents answers without the distress of an invasive autopsy.

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What If Cells Kept Receipts of Their Gene Expression? Aug 19, 2022

Researchers have found a new way to keep records of when a cell’s genes turn on and off—by harnessing systems that bacteria already use for self-defense.

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This Laser-Firing Truck Could Help Make Hot Cities More Livable Aug 18, 2022

Scientists are driving around in a specialized observatory to better understand how urban heat varies not only block to block, but door to door.

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The Psychology of Inspiring Everyday Climate Action Aug 17, 2022

Individual choices and habits help the climate. Understanding how people think can make it happen.

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Swarms of Mini Robots Could Dig the Tunnels of the Future Aug 16, 2022

The underground excavation industry is exploring mini robots, plasma torches, and superheated gas to replace the massive boring machines now in use.

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Monkeypox Originated in Animals. Could It Spill Back Into Them? Aug 12, 2022

The zoonotic disease is now spreading from person to person. But if it finds a home in new wildlife species, it could settle in to become a permanent risk.

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The Pigs Died. Then Scientists Revived Their Cells Aug 11, 2022

A new system for keeping body tissues functional after death could help make more organs available for transplant.

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A Minimalist Approach to the Hunt for Dark Matter Aug 10, 2022

In a new experiment, researchers looked for tiny flickers in the fundamental constants of nature.

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NASA is Crowdsourcing Cloud Research—on Mars Aug 09, 2022

Space fans around the world can help analyze data collected by the Mars Climate Sounder.

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How to Prevent Another European Transport Meltdown Aug 08, 2022

This summer’s heat wave knocked roads, railways, and runways out of action. But existing solutions could help shore up critical infrastructure.

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This Stamp-Sized Ultrasound Patch Can Image Internal Organs Aug 05, 2022

Getting a scan usually means a visit to a doctor and some giant equipment. What if that gear was wearable?

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NASA Delayed the Psyche Launch. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal Aug 04, 2022

Heavenly bodies are always in motion: Pushing back the asteroid probe’s blastoff date could require a new trajectory, longer travel time, and much more power.

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California Wants to Make Cheap Insulin. Here’s How It Could Work Aug 03, 2022

The state plans to roll out “biosimilars” that mimic brand-name versions at a dramatically reduced price.

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Ring Vaccination Beat Smallpox. Could It Work for Monkeypox? Aug 02, 2022

The strategy prioritizes inoculating an infected person’s closest contacts, but it can’t succeed without good contact tracing and enough vaccines.

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Nuclear Power Plants Are Struggling to Stay Cool Aug 01, 2022

Climate change is reducing output and raising safety concerns at nuclear facilities from France to the US. But experts say adapting is possible—and necessary.

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Europe Has Descended Into the Age of Fire Jul 29, 2022

Climate change has primed the landscape to burn. But human migration has made Europe’s wildfires increasingly catastrophic.

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Glacier Collapses Are a Growing but Hard-to-Predict Threat Jul 28, 2022

After 11 people were killed and eight hospitalized by a glacier in early July, Italian scientists are asking how future tragedies can be avoided.

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Gender-Affirming Care Improves Mental Health—and May Save Lives Jul 27, 2022

Scores of bills in US states aim to block medical treatments for trans youth. But research shows that these bans could have dire consequences.

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What Turtles Can Teach Humans About the Science of Slow Aging Jul 26, 2022

7/26 New data shows that several types of the shelled reptiles can slow—and even stop—aging if the environmental conditions are right.

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Why the Arctic Is Warming 4 Times as Fast as the Rest of Earth Jul 25, 2022

The loss of sea ice is exposing darker waters, which absorb more of the sun’s energy. It’s a devastating feedback loop with major consequences for the planet.

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How Heat Waves Are Messing Up Your Sleep Jul 22, 2022

Higher nighttime temperatures don’t just make it harder to drift off, they can disrupt your sleep cycles and leave you with low-quality rest.

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Can Reengineered Aluminum Help Fill the Demand for Copper? Jul 21, 2022

As the world converts to electric vehicles and renewable energy, molecular tweaks to aluminum could improve its conductivity.

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Texas’ Precarious Power Grid Exposes a Nasty Feedback Loop Jul 20, 2022

Air conditioning saves lives. But as the planet warms, more AC use stresses the grid and drives up emissions, accelerating climate change.

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What Humans Can Learn From the Sea Cucumber’s Toxic Arsenal Jul 18, 2022

Sea cucumbers are squishy and soft. They also employ lethal strategies to protect themselves.

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Turkey Probably Hasn’t Found the Rare Earth Metals It Says It Has Jul 15, 2022

The deposits discovered reportedly contain enough resources to meet global demand for 1,000 years—surpassing even China’s reserves. But experts are skeptical.

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Is There Good News for Monarch Butterflies? Scientists Disagree Jul 14, 2022

A recent study suggests that gains during the summer breeding season are making up for losses during migration. But the insects’ fate is far from assured.

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Abortion Pills May Force States and the FDA Into a Standoff Jul 13, 2022

Under the Constitution, federal laws overrule state ones. But challenges to medication abortion will test the agency’s ability to make nationwide regulations.

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Scientists Are Trying to Grow Crops in the Dark Jul 12, 2022

Powering plant growth with solar panels instead of photosynthesis could be a more efficient way of using the sun’s energy for food. But it’s not all good news.

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The Secrets of Covid ‘Brain Fog’ Are Starting to Lift Jul 11, 2022

Scientists are getting closer to understanding the neurology behind the memory problems and cognitive fuzziness that an infection can trigger.

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Why the Search for Life on Mars Is Happening in Canada’s Arctic Jul 08, 2022

Scientists show how microbes living in a salty spring near the North Pole might resemble those that could have survived on the Red Planet—or in ocean worlds.

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What the DNA of Ancient Humans Reveals About Pandemics Jul 07, 2022

Genomic analysis of ancient remains has shed light on the origins of the black death and offers insights into the coevolution of humans and diseases.

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Behold the Weird Physics of Double-Impact Asteroids Jul 06, 2022

Mars is littered with craters made by binary asteroids. These collisions are as intriguing as they are powerful.

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Forget Lasers. The Hot New Tool for Physicists Is Sound Jul 04, 2022

From acoustic tweezers to holograms, engineers are taking inspiration from the field of optics—and riding the sound wave.

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Covid Shots for Little Kids Are Finally Here. Now for the Hardest Part Jul 01, 2022

Hesitancy, bureaucracy, inequity, and the need to explain new formulas could slow down vaccine delivery to the last unprotected group.

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Do Birth Control Pills Affect Your Mood? Scientists Can’t Agree Jun 30, 2022

Over 100 million women are estimated to use oral contraceptives, but studies on the pill’s mental health effects raise more questions than answers.

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This Year’s Extreme Weather Is Just Getting Started Jun 29, 2022

Climate change and natural variabilityÂ are making 2022 a year of big weather events—so get ready for more heat waves, droughts, and hurricanes.

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How the Sugars In Spit Tame the Body’s Unruly Fungi Jun 28, 2022

Mucus keeps the microbiome healthy. Now scientists have clues about how it stops good microbes from going bad.

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The Black Carbon Cost of Rocket Launches Jun 27, 2022

Researchers say that the rising number of space launches around the world will warm parts of the atmosphere and thin the ozone layer.

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Particle Hunters Can Spend a Lifetime Searching for Answers Jun 24, 2022

In physics, experiments to answer the big questions can take decades to run—and might not produce any findings at all.

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The US Can Halve Its Emissions by 2030—if It Wants To Jun 23, 2022

The economics are clear: Renewables are cheap enough for the country to rapidly decarbonize. Less evident is the political will to pull it off.

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Australia Has Finally Woken Up to Climate Change Jun 22, 2022

The newly elected government has promised stricter emission limits and more renewables in the wake of fires, droughts, and floods.

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The FAA Says SpaceX Can't Expand Its Texas Launch Site—Yet Jun 21, 2022

SpaceX must address dozens of environmental issues before it can upgrade Starbase in Boca Chica. The launch license needed for the Starship program remains pending.

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Monkeypox Can Be Contained—but Time Is Running Out Jun 20, 2022

Testing, vaccinating, and contact tracing can control the virus in Europe and North America—unless complacency allows it to take hold.

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The Secret to Tastier Fake Meat? Breeding Better Beans Jun 16, 2022

Scientists are using genomics to create high-protein soybeans and peas. Their aim? To make meat and milk substitutes that can rival the real thing.

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A New Kind of Genome Editing Is Here to Fine-Tune DNA Jun 15, 2022

Instead of deleting genes, epigenetic editing modulates their activity. A new paper tests if it’s able to undo a genetic effect of early alcohol exposure.

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The First Privately Funded Killer Asteroid Spotter Is Here Jun 14, 2022

Researchers at the B612 Foundation’s Asteroid Institute developed a new tool for tracking space-rock trajectories—even with limited data.

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Welcome to the Great Reinfection Jun 13, 2022

A repeat encounter with Covid used to be a rarity. But now that Omicron has changed the game, expect reinfections to be the new normal.

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Rising Food Prices Will Make Obesity Rates Worse, Not Better Jun 10, 2022

When faced with food insecurity, studies show that people opt for cheap, energy-dense meals that are bad for their health.

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How Ants Inspired a New Way to Measure Snow With Space Lasers Jun 09, 2022

Photons wander through snow like ants through a nest. That inspired a clever new NASA technique for measuring the fluffy stuff from orbit.

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This Startup Wants You to Eat Ground-Up Chicken Bones Jun 08, 2022

A Finnish company says it has found a way to incorporate bone into ground chicken, lowering the production cost and environmental impact of the meat. But will anyone eat it?

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Nuclear Fusion Is Already Facing a Fuel Crisis Jun 07, 2022

It doesn’t even work yet, but nuclear fusion has encountered a shortage of tritium, the key fuel source for the most prominent experimental reactors.

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Why Was the Tonga Eruption So Massive? Scientists Have New Clues Jun 06, 2022

Early theories suggested an underwater landslide caused a catastrophic mix of magma and seawater. Recent evidence reveals an explosion unlike anything studied before.

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The Story of Abortion Pills and How They Work Jun 03, 2022

Mifepristone and misoprostol are a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy, but many people around the world still don’t know these drugs exist.

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Undersea Cables Are Carrying Scientific Secrets Jun 02, 2022

Rumbles and tides create tiny, detectable disturbances in fiber optics. The world’s cables could form a vast network for detecting earthquakes and tsunamis.

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A Puzzling Quantum Scenario Appears to Violate a Law of Physics Jun 01, 2022

By resolving a paradox about light in a box, researchers hope to clarify the concept of energy in quantum theory.

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The Wetlands Are Drowning May 31, 2022

A long-term study of a marsh was meant to ask whether rising levels of CO2 could help wetlands thrive despite rising seas. The plants aren’t keeping up.

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This Is Where Dirty Old Cars Go to Die May 27, 2022

The electric vehicle revolution is gathering speed—but what happens to all those polluting cars already on the road?

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Carbon-Rich Peat Is Disappearing. But Is It Also Growing? May 26, 2022

Scientists have discovered “proto-peat” forming in the Arctic as the Earth naturally sequesters carbon, but it could take centuries to mature.

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With Dusty Solar Panels, InSight’s Days on Mars Are Numbered May 25, 2022

After the InSight lander studied the strongest marsquake ever detected, scientists gave the space robot a negative prognosis because of its dwindling solar power.

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This Gene Mutation Breaks the Immune System. Why Has It Survived? May 24, 2022

Two new studies found genetic mutations that cause severe immune deficiencies are common in some remote populations, leaving them highly vulnerable to viruses.

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A Powerful ISS Instrument Will Hunt for Minerals in Dusty Lands May 23, 2022

NASA’s EMIT mission will better analyze the grime from dust-spewing regions, a critically understudied factor in climate change.

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Researchers Grew Tiny Plants in Moon Dirt Collected Decades Ago May 20, 2022

The seedlings sprouted in the regolith scooped up in the 1960s and ’70s, but astronauts won’t be harvesting lunar spuds anytime soon.

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An Elusive Gravity Signal Could Mean Faster Earthquake Warnings May 19, 2022

Tiny wobbles in Earth’s gravitational field could help detect big tremors faster, but they’re hard to tease out from the planet’s seismic noise.

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These Nanobots Can Swim Around a Wound and Kill Bacteria May 18, 2022

Researchers have created autonomous particles covered with patches of protein “motors.” They hope these bots will tote lifesaving drugs through bodily fluids.

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Ticks Are Spreading in the US—and Taking New Diseases With Them May 17, 2022

The vast majority of tick-borne disease goes unrecorded, meaning life-threatening pathogens are traveling under the radar to new locations.

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Delegates at the United Nations Have Begun Forging New Rules for Space May 16, 2022

International experts are using earthly policies as models to hash out regulations for orbiting spacecraft, from preventing conflict to limiting trash.

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Burning Crops to Capture Carbon? Good Luck Finding Water May 13, 2022

The technique uses plants as fuel and sequesters the emitted CO2, removing it from the atmosphere. But scaling up would use gobs of water and land.

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The Desert’s Fragile Skin Can’t Take Much More Heat May 12, 2022

Climate change and human activity are destroying the layers of fungi, lichen, and bacteria that protect deserts from erosion.

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A Vast Underground Water System Helps Drive Antarctica’s Glaciers May 11, 2022

Scientists have finally found Antarctica’s missing groundwater, which will help them predict ice flows on the continent.

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You Don’t Have to Quit Meat to Save the Planet—Just Eat Less May 10, 2022

If everyone ate just 20 percent less beef, deforestation rates by 2050 could be half as bad.

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Australia Moves Ahead Cautiously With '3-Parent IVF' May 09, 2022

The nation follows the UK in permitting mitochondrial donation, which aims to prevent the transmission of rare but often fatal conditions.

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Everyone Wants to Build Green Energy Projects. What's the Holdup? May 05, 2022

Proposals for wind, solar, and battery storage projects are running into a logjam of paperwork and grid connection issues.

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Give Fitbits (of Sorts) to the Trees May 04, 2022

You can tell a lot about a tree by its sway, so scientists are outfitting them with accelerometers. That could help the West better manage its water.

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Hepatitis Cases in Kids Have Scientists Hunting for Answers May 03, 2022

Young children across the world are inexplicably coming down with the liver illness, putting parents and doctors on alert.

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This Blood Test Detects Cancer in Dogs. But Do You Want to Know? May 02, 2022

A startup just showed that its OncoK9 test accurately sounds the alarm for aggressive and advanced cancers. The catch? These often have no cure.

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The Surprising Climate Cost of the Humblest Battery Material Apr 28, 2022

Graphite is made in blazing-hot furnaces powered by dirty energy. Until recently, there has been no good tally of the carbon emissions.

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Making Science More Open Is Good for Research—but Bad for Security Apr 27, 2022

The open science movement pushes for making scientific knowledge quickly accessible to all. But a new paper warns that speed can come at a cost.

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For mRNA, Covid Vaccines Are Just the Beginning Apr 26, 2022

With clinical vaccine trials for everything from HIV to Zika, messenger RNA could transform medicine—or widen health care inequalities.

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Drones Have Transformed Blood Delivery in Rwanda Apr 25, 2022

The autonomous aircraft have shuttled blood to rural, mountainous areas for years. A new analysis proves they’re faster than driving.

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The Energy Crisis Is Pushing Solar Adoption—for Those Who Can Pay Apr 22, 2022

Rooftop solar panels are gaining popularity as the UK faces higher energy prices. But lower-income people are being left behind once again.

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NASA Rolls Back Its SLS Rocket for Repairs Apr 21, 2022

After three attempts to run through a test of the Space Launch System, engineers spotted a leak and a faulty valve. The fixes may delay the first Artemis moon mission.

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For Kids Fleeing Ukraine, Wartime Trauma May Leave Lasting Wounds Apr 20, 2022

Volunteers are rushing to provide online counseling, art therapy, and stress relief for the more than 2 million Ukrainian children who have become refugees.

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Chernobyl Was a Wildlife Haven. Then Russian Troops Arrived Apr 19, 2022

The area around the defunct power plant has been an unexpected rewilding success story. Now attempts to monitor progress are hampered by the war.

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How Does a Newt Cross the Road? With Lots of Human Help Apr 18, 2022

Brigades of volunteers are coming to the rescue of thousands of Pacific newts that perish each year as they migrate to their breeding grounds.

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A Global Boom in Fences Is Harming Wildlife Apr 15, 2022

Barriers are going up rapidly as border projects and livestock farming increase, but they impede wildlife migrations and genetically isolate threatened species.

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The First Drug-Releasing Contact Lens Is Here Apr 14, 2022

The FDA has approved daily disposables that release anti-allergy medication. Experts hope lenses could one day help treat cataracts and glaucoma.

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A Killer Parasite Is Wiping Out Hordes of Ants—in a Good Way Apr 13, 2022

A microsporidian pathogen is annihilating tawny crazy ants, an invasive menace of the highest order.

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Companies May Soon Have to Reveal a Hidden Risk: Carbon Emissions Apr 12, 2022

Big businesses set splashy climate targets but don’t always reveal their data. The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to change that—to protect investors.

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A Bold Idea to Stall the Climate Crisis—by Building Better Trees Apr 11, 2022

Changing the genetic makeup of trees could supercharge their ability to suck up carbon dioxide. But are forests of frankentrees really a good idea?

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Math’s ‘Oldest Problem Ever’ Gets a New Answer Apr 08, 2022

A new proof significantly strengthens a decades-old result about the ubiquity of ways to represent whole numbers as sums of fractions.

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How Boa Constrictors Can Breathe Even as They Crush Their Prey Apr 07, 2022

New research shows the snakes activate different sections of their rib cage, using their lungs as bellows to pull in air.

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The Farthest Star Sheds New Light on the Early Universe Apr 06, 2022

A cosmic fluke helped Hubble spy Earendel, a giant star at the edge of the known universe that could tell us more about what happened after the Big Bang.

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How to Navigate Online Mental Health Resources Apr 05, 2022

Finding therapy and support can be confusing. Here are some tips on how to get help, from understanding insurance websites to keeping track of the bills.

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Scientists Map Yellowstone’s Plumbing With … a Helicopter Apr 04, 2022

For the first time, scientists get a look at what's going on under the park's geysers. It may even help them better understand the origin of life on Earth.

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This Cheetah Robot Taught Itself How to Sprint in a Weird Way Apr 01, 2022

Researchers got the machine to run nearly 13 feet per second. It ain't graceful, but this powerful technique is preparing robots for the chaos of the world.

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Astronomers Tally the Growing Carbon Footprint of Space Science Mar 31, 2022

Observatories require electricity and computing power to process data from deep space. Is there a way to make them run greener?

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How to Tell If Your Spaghetti Is Done Using Just a Ruler Mar 30, 2022

Keep throwing noodles against the wall if you want, but this tactic ensures the pasta's texture is just right every single time.

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Scientists Watch a Memory Form in a Living Brain Mar 29, 2022

While observing fearful memories take shape in the brains of fish, neuroscientists saw an unexpected level of synaptic rewiring.

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Climate Change Is Disrupting the Global Supply Chain Too Mar 28, 2022

Extreme weather, from floods to wildfires, is increasingly hammering ports, highways, and factories. It’s expected to get worse.

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The War Puts Ukraine's Clinical Trials—and Patients—in Jeopardy Mar 25, 2022

Hundreds of trials have been disrupted in the medical research hub. Some patients are at risk of losing their last chance at survival.

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4 Years On, a New Experiment Sees No Sign of ‘Cosmic Dawn’ Mar 24, 2022

Astronomers tried to confirm a signal from the birth of the first stars after the Big Bang. They saw nothing.

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The EPA May Extend the Use of Pesticides that Paralyze Bees Mar 23, 2022

Later this year, the agency will decide whether to allow four chemicals, which have been banned in Europe, to continue being used on US farms.

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The War in Ukraine Is Threatening the Breadbasket of Europe Mar 22, 2022

Millions of tons of grain may not make it out of the country this year. The shortfall could spread hunger and civil unrest worldwide.

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To Test Cancer Drugs, These Scientists Grew ‘Avatars’ of Tumors Mar 21, 2022

Growing organoids in dishes and xenografts in mice lets scientists re-create a living person’s tumor—and test dozens of drugs against them at the same time.

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Are These Chimpanzees Using Insects as Medicine? Mar 18, 2022

Researchers observed chimps in Gabon applying insects to wounds—and it’s raising big questions about animal altruism and self-medication.

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The Amazon Rainforest May Be Nearing a Point of No Return Mar 17, 2022

Satellites spot troubling signals that may portend a transformation from rainforest to savanna, with profound implications for the planet.

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Iceland Bets on Herd Immunity Mar 16, 2022

The island nation's government joins several other European countries in dropping Covid restrictions—but not everyone is sure the timing’s right.

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Offshore Wind Turbines Could Mess With Ships’ Radar Signals Mar 15, 2022

A new study finds that turbines can muddle ships' navigational systems, obscuring the location of smaller boats or creating misleading images on radar screens.

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The Pandemic Tanked Rates of Childhood Vaccination—for Everything Mar 14, 2022

Routine shots are down for everything from measles to tetanus to polio, leaving kids unprotected and raising the risk of outbreaks.

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Genetic Databases Are Too White. Here’s What It’ll Take to Fix It Mar 11, 2022

Most genetic research is done on people of European descent. That’s led to misdiagnoses, inaccurate tests, and missed opportunities for new treatments.

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Cities Are Unlikely Yet Powerful Weapons to Fight Climate Change Mar 10, 2022

The UN's latest IPCC report paints a dire picture for the species of Earth. But it also suggests how urban areas can help humanity face down the threat.

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Neural Noise Shows the Uncertainty of Our Memories Mar 09, 2022

The electrical chatter of our working memories reflects our lack of confidence about their contents.

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In Alaska, Beavers Are Engineering a New Tundra Mar 08, 2022

Once nonexistent in the northwest part of the state, beavers are both benefiting from and changing a warming landscape.

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What Neurodivergence Teaches Us About How to Live Mar 07, 2022

Scientist and writer Camilla Pang explains what the rationality of science showed her about making better decisions, processing feedback, and feeling like an outlier.

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Air Pollution May Keep Insects From Stopping to Smell the Flowers Mar 04, 2022

Researchers ran an outdoor experiment to see if diesel exhaust and ozone would interfere with pollinators’ search for floral scents.

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What It Would Take to Bring the ISS Back to Earth in One Piece Mar 03, 2022

NASA plans to deorbit the International Space Station in 2031 by crashing it into the ocean. But is there another way?

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This Plastic Dot Sniffs Out Infections Doctors Can’t See Mar 02, 2022

Keeping wounds covered can help them stay clean. But if bacteria grow beneath the bandages, things can get dangerous.

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Gene-Edited Brain Organoids Are Unlocking the Secrets of Autism Mar 01, 2022

Harvard researchers used lab-grown clumps of neurons called organoids to reveal how three genes linked to autism affect the timing of brain development.

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Any Single Galaxy Reveals the Composition of an Entire Universe Feb 28, 2022

In computer simulations, researchers have discovered that a neural network can infer the amount of matter in a whole universe by studying just one galaxy.

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DeepMind Has Trained an AI to Control Nuclear Fusion Feb 25, 2022

The Google-backed firm taught a reinforcement learning algorithm to control the fiery plasma inside a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.

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Serious, Salty Trouble Is Brewing Under Antarctic Glaciers Feb 24, 2022

Alarming new research suggests warm seawater is rushing under the ice, perhaps doubling the rate of melting.

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Huge Sponges Are Eating an Extinct Arctic Ecosystem Feb 23, 2022

Thousands of years ago, hydrothermal vents fed worms deep below the ice. Scientists have found 300-year-old sponges feeding on the worms’ fossilized remains.

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They Lived in a Pandemic Bubble. Now Covid Has Arrived Feb 22, 2022

Some remote Pacific island nations haven't had a single case of Covid-19 for the past two years. Now they're reopening to the world, but can they handle an outbreak?

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Astronomers Want to Save Dark Skies from Satellite Swarms Feb 21, 2022

The International Astronomical Union launched a new organization tasked with limiting reflected light and radio interference from big satellite networks.

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The Brutal Reason Some Primates Are Born a Weird Color Feb 18, 2022

When species have babies with conspicuous fur, it can attract good attention—or bad. A new theory could explain why.

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How the Physics of Resonance Shapes Reality Feb 17, 2022

The same phenomenon by which an opera singer can shatter a wineglass also underlies the very existence of subatomic particles.

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A New Database Reveals How Much Humans Are Messing With Evolution Feb 16, 2022

Some animals and plants are rapidly adapting to our warming, polluted world. How alarming that is depends on your perspective.

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Extreme Heat in the Oceans Is Out of Control Feb 15, 2022

More than half of the sea now logs temperatures once considered extreme, threatening countless species, livelihoods, and the air we breathe.

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Maybe Green Energy Needs ‘Information Batteries' Too Feb 14, 2022

Researchers are exploring whether tech giants can precompute certain data when the grid is humming with solar or wind power, then stash it away for later use.

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How to Deal With Rocket Boosters and Other Giant Space Garbage Feb 11, 2022

As an errant SpaceX rocket booster careens toward the moon, here are some of the ways space agencies and companies are trying to deal with huge pieces of debris.

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Kombucha Cultures Could Be the Key to Better Water Filters Feb 10, 2022

A study found that filtration membranes formed from SCOBYs are more effective at preventing bacterial growth than commercial equivalents.

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Inside the International Effort to Save One Tiny Mexican Fish Feb 09, 2022

Scientists and schoolchildren worked together to bring the tequila fish back from extinction in the wild.

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What It's Like to Give Up Air Travel to Curb Climate Change Feb 08, 2022

These three families gave up flying to reduce their emissions. Here's how it's shaping their relationship to people and places.

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Politicians Say It’s Time to Live With Covid. Are You Ready? Feb 07, 2022

As countries declare endemicity and drop restrictions, how does a battered and bruised society embrace a sudden return to normality?

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NASA’s Newest Spinoff Tech Comes Back to Earth Feb 04, 2022

While the space agency didn't actually develop Tang, its R&D includes everything from robot gloves to vertical farming—with commercial benefits back home.

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Bird Flu Is Back in the US. No One Knows What Comes Next Feb 03, 2022

The fast-moving pathogen, which has already invaded Europe, was found in East Coast ducks. The last outbreak that tore through the US killed 50 million birds.

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Got an Invasive Army of Crayfish Clones? Try Eating Them Feb 02, 2022

The marbled crayfish is a threat to the native species, but the “Berlin lobster” may also offer a sustainable food source and help stop the spread of parasites.

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What Happens If a Space Elevator Breaks Feb 01, 2022

These structures are a sci-fi solution to the problem of getting objects into orbit without a rocket—but you don’t want to be under one if the cable snaps.

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Europe Is in the Middle of a Messy Nuclear Slowdown Jan 31, 2022

Germany has almost finished phasing out nuclear plants, and aging infrastructure is leading neighbors down the same path. But will green energy goals suffer?

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An Injection of Chaos Solves a Decades-Old Fluid Mystery Jan 28, 2022

In the 1960s, drillers noticed that certain fluids would firm up if they flowed too fast. Researchers have finally explained why.

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How to Prepare for Climate Change's Most Immediate Impacts Jan 27, 2022

The effects of the climate crisis are happening right now. From natural disasters to supply chain shortages, here's how to cope.

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Astronomers Discover a Strange Galaxy Without Dark Matter Jan 26, 2022

New, high-resolution observations of a faint, fluffy galaxy suggest that dark matter’s not as ubiquitous as scientists thought.

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Pregnant People Are Still Not Getting Vaccinated Against Covid Jan 25, 2022

Misinformation and muddled public health messaging have failed expectant parents. Now Omicron's surge is putting both carriers and babies at risk.

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How Explosives, a Robot, and a Sled Expose a Doomsday Glacier Jan 24, 2022

Thwaites Glacier is crumbling, and fast—if it melts entirely, it could add 10 feet to sea levels. Now Antarctic scientists are racing to survey the damage.

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How Do You Design a Better Hospital? Start With the Light Jan 21, 2022

A new trend in patient-centered design focuses on making environments more comfortable and less scary.

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Could Being Cold Actually Be Good for You? Jan 20, 2022

Researchers are exploring the health benefits of literally chilling out.

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Scientists Settled a Century-Old Family Drama Using DNA From Postcards Jan 19, 2022

Swiss forensic geneticists analyzed DNA recovered from postage stamps dating back to World War I and solved a century-old paternity puzzle.

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How Body Farms and Human Composting Can Help Communities Jan 18, 2022

Like every other aspect of our society, how we handle death and dying needs to change in the face of climate change. This method may be a path forward.

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At the Dawn of Life, Heat May Have Driven Cell Division Jan 17, 2022

A mathematical model shows how a thermodynamic mechanism could have made protocells split in two.

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Why Paleontologists Are Getting Into Florida’s Oyster Business Jan 14, 2022

Conservationists are teaming up with fossil experts to help the bivalves—and the state’s oyster economy—survive.

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Where Parents Can Get Help with Climate Anxiety Jan 13, 2022

If you're looking to the future and wondering exactly how to prepare your children for a changing world, these resources can help.

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The Physics of Wile E. Coyote’s 10 Billion-Volt Electromagnet Jan 12, 2022

The famous cartoon schemer has an ingenious plan to lure Bugs Bunny out of his hole—and it involves a giant magnet and an iron carrot.

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Covid Will Become Endemic. The World Must Decide What That Means Jan 11, 2022

The task of 2022 will be figuring out how much action we’re willing to take and how much disease and death we’ll tolerate.

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To Fight Climate Change, First You Need to Measure It Jan 10, 2022

Scientists at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory are using monitoring equipment to track our impact on the planet more accurately than ever before.

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Wildfires Are Digging Carbon-Spewing Holes in the Arctic Jan 07, 2022

Soaring temperatures are rapidly thawing permafrost, leading to huge sinkholes called thermokarst. Northern fires are making the situation even worse.

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A Clean Industrial Revolution Is the Only Way to Hit Net Zero Jan 06, 2022

Governments and companies around the world are finally acting to create a green economy and avoid climate catastrophe.

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2021 Was a Huge Missed Opportunity on Climate Action Jan 05, 2022

The pandemic should have been a wake-up call—instead, emissions have climbed once more. Here's how the US could have seized the opportunity.

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The Algorithm That Lets Particle Physicists Count Higher Than 2 Jan 04, 2022

Through his encyclopedic study of the electron, an obscure figure named Stefano Laporta found a handle on the subatomic world’s fearsome complexity.

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The World Is Messy. Idealizations Make the Physics Simple Jan 03, 2022

Even ordinary actions, like tossing a tennis ball, can be extraordinarily complex to calculate. The trick is knowing what to leave out.

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Growing Peppers on the ISS Is Just the Start of Space Farming Dec 30, 2021

The chili peppers thrived in a controlled microgravity environment. But to develop agriculture away from Earth, NASA will have to think outside the box.

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These Lemurs Have Got Rhythm. Scientists Have Got Questions Dec 29, 2021

Studying how and why rhythm evolved in these primates could help unravel the mysteries of human musicality.

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This Startup Is Making—and Programming—Human Cells Dec 28, 2021

Creating bespoke cells could transform testing and help develop new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

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A Gene-Tweaked Jellyfish Offers a Glimpse at Other Minds Dec 23, 2021

Researchers have created jellyfish whose nerve cells light up when they fire, offering a tantalizing view of neurology before the rise of the brain.

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Fleeing Global Warming? ‘Climate Havens’ Aren’t Ready Yet Dec 22, 2021

Climate migration is already underway. Here's how cities can prepare.

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To See Proteins Change in Quadrillionths of a Second, Use AI Dec 21, 2021

Researchers have long wanted to capture how protein structures contort in response to light. But getting a clear image was impossible—until now.

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When It Comes to Buses, Will Hydrogen or Electric Win? Dec 20, 2021

Clean transport needs clean vehicles. New power developments are crucial for a mass transit revolution, and each has pros and cons.

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Gravitational Waves Should Permanently Distort Spacetime Dec 17, 2021

Physicists have linked the “gravitational memory effect” to fundamental cosmic symmetries and a potential solution to the black hole information paradox.

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Are Instagram’s Aesthetic Moms Hindering Kids’ Development? Dec 16, 2021

Taupe and cream nurseries are in vogue right now. They’re beautifully beige, but some worry they might be bad for babies.

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Here's How 3 Space Companies Aim to Replace the ISS Dec 15, 2021

NASA is investing in Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman as they develop competing designs for a next-generation space station.

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Can Gambia Turn the Tide to Save Its Shrinking Beaches? Dec 14, 2021

In an economically developing country reliant on tourism, the rapidly eroding “smiling coast” shows the urgent need for action on climate change.

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Why Buzz Lightyear’s Rocket Launch Looks Better Than Reality Dec 13, 2021

We use video analysis to compare an animated liftoff to an actual one, proving that truth is more boring than fiction.

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This Is What It Will Take to End Deforestation by 2030 Dec 10, 2021

Nations around the world made a vital climate crisis declaration to save forests within the next decade. Can they actually do it?

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More Companies Offer Fertility Benefits. It’s Only the Beginning Dec 09, 2021

Employer support for staff who wish to freeze their eggs has great potential—but broader support for parents still lags behind.

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Meet the Cyberpunk Albatrosses Scanning for Secret Explosions Dec 08, 2021

Acoustic waves can detect all kinds of explosions and volcanic activity, but it’s hard to place sensors at sea—unless you’ve got a bird with a backpack.

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Hints of New Life in the Shadows of Venezuela's Last Glacier Dec 07, 2021

When ice goes, lichens and mosses move in and an entirely new ecosystem starts to take shape.

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A New Dementia Test Raises More Questions Than Answers Dec 06, 2021

A 5-minute assessment on an iPad could transform how we screen for dementia—or overwhelm the health care system with worried test-takers.

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Inside the Negotiations to Decide the Fate of Our Planet Dec 03, 2021

At COP26 in Glasgow, negotiators can easily lose track of what day it is as they scramble to save us from climate chaos.

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Want to Lie on a Bed of Nails? Physics Has Your Back Dec 02, 2021

This is the science of why you can recline on an array of very sharp things without getting the pointy end of the stick.

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Lidar Uncovers Hundreds of Lost Maya and Olmec Ruins Dec 01, 2021

An aerial survey in southern Mexico discovered a host of ceremonial sites that could date as far back as 1100 BC.

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The Next Big Thing for RNA? Fixing Moldy Food Nov 30, 2021

Our addiction to chemical pesticides comes with a bunch of downsides. New sprays made from RNA might offer a smarter, cleaner way to wage war on pests.

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The Cutest Way to Fight Climate Change? Send in the Otters Nov 29, 2021

Saving California's adorable (and very hungry) sea otters helps control other species, leading to the growth of more carbon-sequestering vegetation.

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This Groundbreaking Simulator Generates a Huge Indoor Ocean Nov 23, 2021

It’s a 32,000-gallon concrete tank with a wind tunnel grafted on top. With it, researchers can study the seas—and climate change—like never before.

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Are Green Jet Fuels Finally Ready for Takeoff? Nov 22, 2021

A first commercial test flight shows how fuel made from plants, not petroleum, could make flying cleaner.

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A Strange Radio Signal Was Just From Earth, Not Aliens Nov 19, 2021

Astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project scan the sky for signs of extraterrestrial life, but a promising lead turned out to be a false alarm.

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California Condors Are Capable of Asexual Reproduction Nov 18, 2021

A new study shows that two captive birds had only maternal DNA and survived early development—a first for the critically endangered species.

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A Deadly Microbe Mystery Leads to a Spray Sold at Walmart Nov 17, 2021

A series of puzzling infections has been traced to the presence of a dangerous bacterium in an aromatherapy spray.

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How Parents Can Deal With Climate Anxiety Nov 16, 2021

Fears of ecological disaster are real, but it's especially hard on people raising children. Here's what parents should know, and where to turn for help.

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New England’s Moose Are Losing the Fight Against Winter Ticks Nov 15, 2021

Climate change has given a tiny parasite a new advantage over the mighty beasts.

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A Water Crisis Reveals You Can't Recycle in the Arctic Nov 12, 2021

Fuel contamination forced the residents of Iqaluit to rely on bottled water—and now they're having a hard time getting rid of the plastic.

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Tree Rings Show Modern Cyclones Are the Rainiest in Centuries Nov 11, 2021

A study of trees, some over 300 years old, indicate that precipitation levels are up as much as 5 inches compared to the early 1700s.

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How to Talk to Children About Climate Change Nov 10, 2021

Young people already know more than you might think. Here are some ways to approach the conversation, tailored for every age group.

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Neuron Bursts Can Mimic a Famous AI Learning Strategy Nov 09, 2021

A new model of learning centers on blasts of neural activity that act as teaching signals—approximating an algorithm called backpropagation.

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Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change Nov 08, 2021

Many young people feel like their future is in peril. To make progress on climate change, we must move past doomsday scenarios.

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Merck’s Antiviral Could Be Just What Covid Was Waiting For Nov 05, 2021

The pharmaceutical giant is making its oral antiviral drug widely available for all the world. But could Covid outsmart it?

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Jupiter's Great Red Spot Extends Deep into the Gas Giant Nov 04, 2021

Scientists used NASA’s Juno spacecraft to probe the massive storm, finding that it’s not as shallow as previously thought.

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This Atomic Clock Will Transform Deep Space Exploration Nov 03, 2021

The toaster-sized device could help make human travel to Mars—and beyond—a reality.

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This Protein Predicts a Brain’s Future After Traumatic Injury Nov 02, 2021

A blood test of “NfL” proteins answers questions about damage severity that doctors—and families—desperately need.

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Microplastics May Be Cooling—and Heating—Earth’s Climate Nov 01, 2021

Tiny bits of plastic are swirling in the sky, and a new model suggests they could be subtly affecting the climate.

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The FAA Weighs the SpaceX Launch Site's Environmental Effects Oct 29, 2021

The Federal Aviation Administration is conducting a review and public hearings involving the space company's expanded site in Boca Chica, Texas.

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Could MJ Really Hang on During Spider-Man’s Swing? Oct 28, 2021

Shooting a web from your hands requires Spidey powers. But does keeping your grip on one of them require Spidey strength?

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The Malaria Vaccine Is a Big Deal, but Not a Silver Bullet Oct 27, 2021

RTS,S proves that shots can work against parasites. But to eradicate this disease, scientists say we need more than just one tool.

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Growing Crops Under Solar Panels? Now There’s a Bright Idea Oct 26, 2021

In the new scientific (and literal) field of agrivoltaics, researchers are showing how panels can increase yields and reduce water use on a warming planet.

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NASA Is Preparing for the Ravages of Climate Change Oct 25, 2021

The agency knows it needs to adapt to climate-driven events that will increasingly threaten coastal launch sites and other key space infrastructure.

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Another Global Pandemic Is Spreading—Among Pigs Oct 22, 2021

African swine fever killed half the pigs in China. There is no vaccine and no treatment. Now it’s in the Caribbean and on the doorstep of the US.

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Deadly Heat Is Baking Cities. Here’s How to Cool Them Down Oct 21, 2021

Urban areas can be 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding country. But green spaces and reflective pavement can make city life more bearable.

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A Huge Subterranean ‘Tree’ Is Moving Magma to Earth’s Surface Oct 20, 2021

Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity.

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Astronomers Get Ready to Probe Europa’s Hidden Ocean for Life Oct 19, 2021

Jupiter’s most enigmatic moon, one of a few ocean worlds in the solar system, will be the target of upcoming missions by NASA and the European Space Agency.

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The Grid Isn’t Ready for the Renewable Revolution Oct 18, 2021

The massive deployment of wind and solar will turn you, the humble homeowner, into a critical actor in the operation of the US power grid.

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The Controversial Quest to Make Cow Burps Less Noxious Oct 15, 2021

Their incessant belching loads the atmosphere with planet-warming methane. But it’s not so simple as just feeding them gas-busting seaweed.

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How Healthy Is a Farm's Soil? Check How Active Its Microbes Are Oct 14, 2021

Researchers developed a probe that could help farmers better understand their land by measuring the electric current from the tiny creatures in the dirt.

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Pandemic Bird-Watching Created a Data Boom—and a Conundrum Oct 13, 2021

Avid amateurs are generating a wealth of information on avian activity. But does that data reflect new trends in bird behavior, or in people’s?

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The Llama, the Hamster, and a New Path for Covid Treatment Oct 12, 2021

A set of papers show that llama-derived antibodies protect the rodent against the virus—which bodes well for making a version for people.

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In New Zealand, People (and Moths) Rediscover Dark Skies Oct 11, 2021

A massive South Island stargazing reserve is a respite from light pollution for many species, including our own.

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What If Getting a Kids' Vaccine Approved Is the Easy Part? Oct 08, 2021

Just because something has the FDA’S green light doesn’t mean it’s simple to obtain—or that everyone wants it.

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What Is ‘Fire Weather,’ and Why Is It Getting Worse? Oct 07, 2021

A new study of the American West shows that climate change is driving more days that are hot, dry, and windy—the perfect conditions for deadly wildfires.

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A Flawed, Strange Covid-19 Origin Theory Is Gaining Traction Oct 06, 2021

A spate of studies claim that the disease was circulating in Italy long before the pandemic—but they struggle to support the theory.Â

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As Covid Cases Rise, So Do Hospital-Related Infections Oct 05, 2021

A decade of work helped limit the spread of dangerous pathogens in medical settings. Overcrowding from Covid care is allowing infections to rise again.

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A Third of Shark and Ray Species May Face Extinction Oct 04, 2021

Overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change are driving species collectively known as chondrichthyan fishes toward a global crisis.

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How a Duck Learned to Say ‘You Bloody Fool’ Oct 01, 2021

Voice analysis of a 34-year-old recording proves that Ripper the musk duck “independently evolved” to mimic his human caretakers.

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‘Neurograins’ Could be the Next Brain-Computer Interfaces Sep 30, 2021

Dozens of microchips scattered over the cortical surface might allow researchers to listen in on thousands of neurons at the same time.

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Why It’s So Hard to Predict Where the Pandemic Is Headed Next Sep 29, 2021

Human behavior has changed along with the virus and public health measures to contain it. For modelers, it’s a curveball.

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The Dark Asteroid Ryugu Finally Comes Into the Light Sep 28, 2021

Using cameras aboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, Japanese scientists get a rare, close-up glimpse of a space rock’s structure.

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Better Data on Ivermectin Is Finally on Its Way Sep 27, 2021

Studies have been small and often not great. The best info so far says don’t use it, get vaccinated, and hang in there for the more promising meds being tested.

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3D Printing Helps Ultracold Quantum Experiments Go Small Sep 24, 2021

Cutting-edge devices used for quantum experiments have been bulky, finicky, and confined to academic labs—so far.

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Biologists Unlock the Secrets of ‘Invisible’ Animals Sep 23, 2021

From glasswing butterflies to vanishing octopuses, evolution sometimes paints with colors that aren’t there.

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SpaceX's Inspiration4 Returns After 3 Days in Orbit Sep 22, 2021

The first all-civilian, all-private spaceflight splashed down off the coast of Florida.

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Dolphins Eavesdrop on Each Other to Avoid Awkward Run-Ins Sep 21, 2021

The new finding underscores the complexity of marine mammals’ social life and cognition. It may also help save the snoopy cetaceans.

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21st-Century Storms Are Overwhelming 20th-Century Cities Sep 20, 2021

Deadly flooding in and around New York City dramatizes the risks to infrastructure that was wasn’t built to handle warmer, wetter climate.

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They Watched a YouTuber With Tourette’s—Then Adopted His Tics Sep 17, 2021

Hundreds of people are displaying similar behaviors to that of YouTube star Jan Zimmermann. Do they have a disorder or something more mysterious?

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Nothing Can Eat Australia’s Cane Toads—So They Eat Each Other Sep 16, 2021

The species' relentless invasion of the continent has taken a turn toward cannibalism.

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You’re Not Alone: Monkeys Choke Under Pressure Too Sep 15, 2021

Now you can blame the primate brain. And neuroscientists are eager for a deeper look.

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Radioactive Rat Snakes Could Help Monitor Fukushima Fallout Sep 14, 2021

Scientists have attached dosimeters to the reptiles so they can serve as living “bioindicators” to gauge contamination levels near the shuttered nuclear power plant.

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The Delta Variant Is Making Covid a Pandemic of the Young Sep 13, 2021

Children and teens have been spared the worst of the pandemic, but without vaccines they’re sitting ducks as the virus rages. What risks are they facing?

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Would the Free Guy Inflatable Bubble Protect a Real Person? Sep 10, 2021

In the movie’s video game world, a whole-body airbag protects Ryan Reynolds as he falls off of a building and onto a car. Would that … work?

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How the Cuttlefish’s Robust Memory System Defies Old Age Sep 09, 2021

This cephalopod is the only known animal that doesn’t exhibit age-related deterioration when recalling specific events.

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This Barnacle-Inspired Glue Seals Bleeding Organs in Seconds Sep 08, 2021

The paste sticks onto wet tissue firmly by repelling blood. Surgeons hope it can save time—and lives.

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Would It Be Fair to Treat Vaccinated Covid Patients First? Sep 07, 2021

Last week, Texas health care policymakers discussed taking vaccination status into account for Covid triage. It’s a larger conversation ethicists are bracing for.

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The FDA OKs an Extra Covid Vaccine Dose for Immunosuppressed People Sep 06, 2021

The federal agency will allow people living with organ transplants, undergoing cancer treatments and taking some medications to get a third shot.

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This AI Helps Detect Wildlife Health Issues in Real Time Sep 03, 2021

A system that scans animal rehabilitation center data could provide early alerts when a disease is spreading.

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The Next Big Challenge for Lunar Astronauts? Moon Dust Sep 02, 2021

NASA is trying out sonic waves, electrostatic devices, and extra-slick coatings as ways to repel pesky space dirt.

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An Experimental Birth Control Attacks Sperm Like a Virus Sep 01, 2021

Monoclonal antibodies have been touted for their potential to fight off infections like Covid-19. Could they be used as contraceptives, too?

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Wildfires Used to Be Helpful. How Did They Get So Hellish? Aug 31, 2021

Fires are supposed to reset ecosystems, paving the way for new growth. But human meddling and climate change have turned them into monsters.

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Is the Robot-Filled Future of Farming a Nightmare or Utopia? Aug 30, 2021

A new paper argues that the rise of artificial intelligence in agriculture could be the best—or worst—innovation for our environment.

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Want to Slash Carbon Emissions? Start With These Power Plants Aug 27, 2021

The worst 5 percent of energy producers account for almost 75 percent of the sector’s emissions.

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Eastern Hemlocks Face Extinction. A Tiny Fly Could Save Them Aug 26, 2021

An invasive insect called the woolly adelgid is eating the Northeast’s forests alive. So some researchers are calling in hungry silver flies.

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A Mammoth Tusk Reveals a Woolly (and Unprecedented) Tale Aug 25, 2021

Scientists used something called isotopic mapping to get a first look at how the creatures lived more than 17,000 years ago.

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The IPCC Report's Silver Lining: We Can Tackle Methane Now Aug 24, 2021

The landmark assessment was dire. But it shows that by slashing methane emissions, humanity can make rapid progress in fighting climate change.

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Gymnasts Make the Wolf Turn Look Easy. Physics Shows It’s Not Aug 23, 2021

The spin seems simple if you’re just watching it on TV. But it’s a complex move that requires understanding your center of mass.

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The Squishy, Far-Out New Experiments Headed to the ISS Aug 20, 2021

Muscle cells, 3D-printed lunar regolith, and le Blob will soon orbit 250 miles above Earth.

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Failed Star Called 'The Accident' Puzzles Astronomers Aug 19, 2021

The brown dwarf isn't a starÂ and it's not a planet. But it's illuminating the murky borderlands that separate the two.

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Why Perseverance's First Mars Drilling Attempt Came Up Empty Aug 18, 2021

Far from a failure, the sampling might actually offer tantalizing clues about the geology—and potential past life—of the Red Planet.

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Scientists Could One Day Float an Aerial Robot Above Venus Aug 17, 2021

Researchers recently tested whether a balloon-borne sensor could listen for venusquakes to learn about the planet's makeup.

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Why Even the Fastest Human Can’t Outrun Your House Cat Aug 16, 2021

A new model explains the forces and body design features that limit maximum sprinting speed.

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Exactly How Many People Have Long Covid? Aug 13, 2021

Pinning down the number of “long-haulers” suffering from the mysterious condition is an important task. It’s also proving impossible.

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Sunny-Day Flooding Is About to Become More Than a Nuisance Aug 12, 2021

Sea level rise will soon combine with a host of other environmental factors to produce dozens of floods each fall in US coastal cities.

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Russia’s Latest Space Station Incident Points to Larger Issues Aug 11, 2021

Nauka’s errant firings were likely the result of human error—and they raise concerns about the future of the country’s space program and its partnership with NASA.

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How the Jaguar, King of the Forest, Might Save Its Ecosystem Aug 10, 2021

With a new train line threatening its habitat, the big cat may be the key to protecting this Mexican reserve—and everything else in it.

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The Dam Is Breaking on Vaccine Mandates Aug 09, 2021

Hopes for a “normal” fall have been dashed by variants and low vaccine uptake. Businesses and the White House think requiring shots can turn things around.

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Dogs, Unlike Wolves, Are Born to Communicate With People Aug 06, 2021

Wolf puppies can’t understand human gestures as well as their dog cousins. The difference could help explain what makes dogs so special.

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How Much Will It Cost to Prevent Deaths by Climate-Driven Heat? Aug 05, 2021

A new formula measures the “mortality cost of carbon,” and how much would have to be removed from the atmosphere to save a single life.Â

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Oh Good, Now There's an Outbreak of Wildfire Thunderclouds Aug 04, 2021

Huge pyrocumulonimbus clouds just formed over fires in the West. Here’s why they could become more common on a warmer planet.

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DNA Has Four Bases. Some Viruses Swap in a Fifth Aug 03, 2021

Dozens of viruses don't use the same four nucleotide bases found in all other life. New work shows how this is possible—and perhaps more common than we think.

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How Mockingbirds Compose Songs Just Like Beethoven Aug 02, 2021

The birds aren’t producing sounds at random. Some of their strategies are surprisingly similar to ones used by humans.

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What Causes Gamma-Ray Bursts? Their Ultrabright Flashes Hold Clues Jul 30, 2021

These high-energy explosions, brighter than billions and billions of suns, have recently been tracked for days, upending ideas about the cataclysms that create them.

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Hungry Wild Pigs Are Worsening Climate Change Jul 29, 2021

When the invasive swine root through soils around the world, they release as much carbon dioxide as a million cars. Good luck getting rid of them.

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Why Scientists Love Making Robots Build Ikea Furniture Jul 28, 2021

This robot can help a human assemble a bookcase by predicting what part they’ll want next and handing it over.

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This Device Could Tune Your Heart—Then Dissolve Away Jul 27, 2021

The latest in “electronic medicine” offers an alternative to temporary pacemakers and could help reduce tissue scarring.

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Be Very Careful About Where You Build That Seawall Jul 26, 2021

Walls are meant to keep out rising seas—but that water still has to go somewhere. New modeling shows it could well end up flooding your neighbors.

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Iconic Yellowstone Park Faces Startling Climate Threats Jul 23, 2021

A new report details global warming’s effect on the national park and its surroundings, including everything from its forests to the Old Faithful geyser.

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This Is How Aliens Might Search for Human Life Jul 22, 2021

If habitable worlds exist around certain stars, they’d have just the right vantage point to spy on Earth.

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A Graphene ‘Camera’ Images the Activity of Living Heart Cells Jul 21, 2021

Using a novel device made from carbon atoms and a laser, researchers captured real-time electrical signals from muscle tissue.

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Why Humans See Faces in Everyday Objects Jul 20, 2021

The ability to spot Jesus’ mug in a piece of burnt toast might be a product of evolution.

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Richard Branson Reaches Space on Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity Jul 19, 2021

The historic flight is only the second time that the rocket plane has carried people.

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Which Crops Can Survive Drought? Nanosensors May Offer Clues Jul 16, 2021

The technique can be used to track how water flows through plants—which could be key to breeding more resilient crops in an increasingly hot, dry climate.

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Mystery Solved: How Plant Cells Know When to Stop Growing Jul 15, 2021

The discovery could have a profound effect on cell research for many species of plants and animals, as well as the future of crops.

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An Observatory Spied on LA’s Carbon Emissions—From Space Jul 14, 2021

The instrument reads sunlight intensity to determine carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. Its findings could help reduce our carbon footprint.

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The Coelacanth May Live for a Century. That’s Not Great News Jul 13, 2021

Scale markings reveal that this weird fish's lifespan is double what scientists first estimated. That also means they’re closer to extinction than we thought.

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Why Utilities Want to Control Your Smart Thermostat Sometimes Jul 12, 2021

Don’t mess with Texans’ air conditioning. Here’s why some customers in the state had their thermostats remotely controlled.

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Northern Farms Are Releasing Massive Amounts of Carbon Jul 09, 2021

Humans have been draining peatlands to grow crops for centuries. It's a huge, underestimated source of greenhouse gas, scientists say.Â

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Lakes Are Losing Oxygen—and Their Inhabitants Are in Danger Jul 08, 2021

Hundreds of temperate lakes around the world are showing trends toward anoxia, becoming warmer, murkier, and less hospitable to cold-water species.

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What's With All This Ooey, Gooey Sea Snot? Jul 07, 2021

A phlegmy film is coating the coast around Istanbul—and warmer water could be to blame.

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No, Covid-19 Vaccines Won't Make You Magnetic. Here's Why Jul 06, 2021

No matter how many videos you’ve seen of people sticking spoons to their faces, that’s just not how magnets work.

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The Mystery of Betelgeuse's Dimming Has Finally Been Solved Jul 05, 2021

Astronomers say a cold patch and a stellar burp are behind the star's strange dip in brightness.

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The Delta Variant and Low Vaccine Rates Could Spell Trouble Jul 02, 2021

Vaccines are effective against the variant, but experts worry about states where fewer people are inoculated.

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A Clever Robot Spies on Creatures in the Ocean's ‘Twilight Zone’ Jul 01, 2021

Mesobot looks like a giant AirPods case, but it's in fact a sophisticated machine that tracks animals making the most epic migration on Earth.

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The Challenge of Covid-19 Vaccines for the Immunosuppressed Jun 30, 2021

Recent studies find transplant patients and immune-suppressed people who get the shot don’t make many antibodies. But that research is just beginning.

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How Do You Make a Robot Walk on Mars? It's a Steep Challenge Jun 29, 2021

Meet SpaceBok, a little four-legged machine that's taking the first steps toward walking on the Red Planet's brutal terrain.

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How to Protect Species and Save the Planet—at Once Jun 28, 2021

A major new report calls on humanity to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises simultaneously. Here's what that might look like.

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A New Way to Understand the Brain's Intricate Rhythm Jun 25, 2021

Researchers have found evidence in humans that individual neurons time their firing to a deeper beat. But there’s a mystery: What does it mean?

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A Zombie-Fire Outbreak May Be Growing in the North Jun 24, 2021

“Overwintering” fires smolder under the snow, reigniting vegetation in the spring. New research shows the zombies may proliferate in a warmer world.

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How Risky Is It to Send Jeff Bezos to the Edge of Space? Jun 23, 2021

Today's commercial spacecraft have a safety advantage, thanks to simpler designs and suborbital missions. But with rockets, nothing is certain.

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A New Way to Shape Metal Nanoparticles—With a Magnetic Field Jun 22, 2021

Making the tiny nanoparticles used in everything from electronics to paint isn't easy. But a new experiment creates order out of chaos.

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Tour Clothes Spew Microfibers Before They’re Even Clothes Jun 21, 2021

The clothing supply chain releases some 265 million pounds of microfibers that wash into the environment each year.

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The Drought Is Making the Klamath River’s Baby Salmon Sick Jun 18, 2021

Dry conditions are worsening a warm-water disease that’s sweeping through juvenile fish. Their deaths will create a future crisis for both fish and human populations.

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You Need to Weigh Some Water. All You’ve Got Is a Paper Clip Jun 17, 2021

OK, so you might need a couple other supplies, but your best option is to do what MacGyver would do: Turn it into a scale.

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The Sneaky, Lying Flower That Pretends to Be a Rotting Beetle Jun 16, 2021

Aristolochia microstoma finds love by smelling like death. Coffin flies can’t resist.

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Peanut the Waiter Robot Is Proof That Your Job Is Safe Jun 15, 2021

Restaurants are struggling to hire people, so one Jersey Shore grill employed a machine. It confirms that humans remain indispensable.

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How Many People Die When Polluters Exceed Their Limits? Jun 14, 2021

A new report tallies the death toll from excess emissions by looking at air pollution and spikes in local ozone levels.

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Climate Change Is Erasing Humanity’s Oldest Art Jun 11, 2021

Extreme weather is rapidly eroding the limestone caves where people first drew images 40,000 years ago.

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Nature Can Save Humanity From Climate Doom—but Not On Its Own Jun 10, 2021

By restoring ecosystems, conservationists can help the land sequester carbon. But it's still no substitute for drastically cutting emissions.

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This Evolutionary Gift May Protect Coral From Climate Change Jun 09, 2021

Coral in the Red Sea is unusually heat tolerant. The secret to its success may lie in the lucky confluence of geography and genetics.

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Walden Pond Is Now Teeming With Jellyfish—but Don't Panic Jun 08, 2021

The tiny jellies, which arrived sometime after Henry David Thoreau, are an example of how a non-native species can coexist peacefully with its new environment.

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A New Brain Implant Translates Thoughts of Writing Into Text Jun 07, 2021

In early experiments, a paralyzed man with implants in his premotor cortex typed 90 characters per minute—by envisioning he was writing by hand.

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Mexico City Could Sink Up to 65 Feet Jun 04, 2021

Due to a phenomenon called subsidence, the metropolis's landscape is compacting—and parts of the city are now dropping a foot and a half each year.

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The Yankees Covid Outbreak May Be Bad News for Ditching Masks Jun 03, 2021

The spate of cases is a bad bounce—and it might show that lifting mask mandates for the vaxxed won’t be a grand slam.

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Researchers Shed Light on the Perils of Firefly Tourism Jun 02, 2021

A new study shows how bug spray, flashlights, and foot traffic can spell disaster for the fragile insects.

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What If Gravity Is Actually a Double Copy of Other Forces? Jun 01, 2021

An enigmatic connection between the forces of nature is allowing physicists to explore the quantum side of gravity.

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Bad Weather Forecasts Are a Climate Crisis Disaster May 31, 2021

Predicting the output of solar panels is tricky—but getting it right could slash carbon emissions.

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US Teens Can Get Their Covid Shot. What's Next for Schools? May 28, 2021

Kids as young as 12 are now authorized for Pfizer’s shot. That could make it easier for campuses to reopen this fall—but introduces a whole new set of decisions.

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This Is Your Brain Under Anesthesia May 27, 2021

For the first time, researchers were able to observe, in extra-fine detail, how neurons behave as consciousness shuts down.

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Hurricane ‘Price Tags’ Could Reveal the Cost of Global Warming May 26, 2021

A new study shows that climate-driven sea level rise made the damage from Superstorm Sandy $8 billion worse around New York City.

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What’s the Point of Wasps, Anyway? May 25, 2021

A new study says the reviled stinging insects play a critical ecological role—and their venom might even be useful to people.

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Sharks Use the Earth’s Magnetic Field Like a Compass May 24, 2021

Biologists have long believed that these animals rely on magnetic sensing to migrate across oceans. Someone finally figured out how to prove it.

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It’s Already Time to Stop the Next Pandemic. Can a Prize Help? May 21, 2021

Covid-19 is still raging, but so are efforts to nip its successor in the bud—thanks to data sharing, political cooperation, or a multimillion-dollar challenge.

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How Weird, Bouncy Cell Signals Can Help Track Wildfire Smoke May 20, 2021

A hazy atmosphere makes data ricochet all over the place. Now scientists think they can use that signal to better predict severe smoke events.

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When You Jump to Hyperspace, Make Sure You Wear a Seatbelt May 19, 2021

May the 4th be with you! If you're hitching a ride on theÂ Millennium FalconÂ today,Â you should know a little bit about the bumpy physics of acceleration.

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Why Not Turn Airports Into Giant Solar Farms? May 18, 2021

Airports have vast swaths of empty land and rooftops. But it’s not so easy as just covering everything with solar panels.Â

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The Race to Save St. Mark’s Basilica From Salty Floodwaters May 17, 2021

As Venice faces a four-foot sea level rise, the historic cathedral—and its marble—could succumb to damaging tides.

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The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations May 14, 2021

Some groups of neurons process sensory data and memories at the same time. New work shows how the brain pivots those representations to prevent interference.

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Melting Mountain Glaciers May Not Survive the Century May 13, 2021

Scientists crunched 20 years’ worth of satellite data to estimate the melt rate across the planet, and the news isn’t good.

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35 Years Later, Studies Show a Silver Lining From Chernobyl May 12, 2021

One new study found that radiation exposure didn't genetically harm future generations, while another offers insights into how radiation causes thyroid cancer.

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This Human-Sized Origami Reimagines Emergency Shelters May 11, 2021

When flat, the structure is about the size of a twin mattress. But when it's inflated, walls widen, and a roof snaps into place.

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NASA Launches Astronauts to the ISS on a Reused SpaceX Rocket May 10, 2021

The six-month mission is another step toward an eventual moon landing, and the second time this Crew Dragon capsule has visited the space station.

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After Us the Deluge Captures Images of a Sinking World May 07, 2021

Kadir van Lohuizen photographed nations affected by climate change. His book documents the present, but offers a glimpse of the future.

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Archaeologists Unearth a ‘Lost Golden City’ in Egypt May 06, 2021

The Luxor finding has been called "the second most important archaeological discovery" since King Tut's tomb.

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We’re Starting to See How Covid PPE Litter Affects Wildlife May 05, 2021

More than a year into the pandemic, scientists and environmentalists have the first data on where disposable gloves and masks are turning up in ecosystems.

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Can an App Help Change Your Personality? May 04, 2021

Want to be more sociable or less of a doormat? There's an (experimental) app for that.

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Hungry, Hungry Microbes in Tree Bark Gobble Up Methane May 03, 2021

Bad news: Trees emit methane, a greenhouse gas. Good news: Some are home to bacteria that can't get enough of it.

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NASA Lands Ingenuity, the First Ever Mars Helicopter Apr 30, 2021

The copter safely whirled its way up and back down, demonstrating the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

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What Octopus Dreams Tell Us About the Evolution of Sleep Apr 29, 2021

Understanding how other animals dream could help us figure out why it’s so important to the human brain, and why it may have been preserved throughout history.

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Humble Shrub That’s Predicting a Terrible Fire Season Apr 28, 2021

Chamise may not look (or smell) like much, but it's actually a kind of crystal ball for understanding how badly California might burn.

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Will Future Electric Vehicles Be Powered by Deep-Sea Metals? Apr 27, 2021

Mining companies and marine scientists want to know whether harvesting blobs of useful materials from the seafloor harms ocean life.

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Plastic Is Falling From the Sky. But Where’s It Coming From? Apr 26, 2021

At any given time, 1,100 tons of microplastic are floating over the western US. New modeling shows the surprising sources of the nefarious pollutant.

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How Many Homes Could You Power With Free Doughnuts? Apr 23, 2021

Krispy Kreme is offering a year of treats to anyone who gets the Covid-19 vaccine. What if they worked off the energy on pedal-powered bike generators?

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Pandemic Lockdowns Did Cut Air Pollution—but With a Catch Apr 22, 2021

Studies from all over the globe show short-term improvements in urban air quality, but experts are skeptical about how long they’ll last.

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The High-Powered Thrusters Behind NASA's Mission to Psyche Apr 21, 2021

Hall thrusters have been used in satellites for years. Now, they'll play a crucial role in reaching a metallic asteroid called Psyche.

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Covid-19 Vaccine Passports Are Coming. What Will That Mean? Apr 20, 2021

Scores of plans to verify immunity are in the works. But there are even more questions about how they’ll use data, protect privacy—and who gets certified first.

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This Sticker Absorbs Sweat—and Might Diagnose Cystic Fibrosis Apr 19, 2021

The device may make it easier to quickly test newborns and could open the door to at-home monitoring.

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More Lightning in the Arctic Is Bad News for the Planet Apr 16, 2021

Lightning strikes in the far north could double by 2100. That means more wildfires, which could release massive amounts of planet-warming gas.

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The Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Birthed Today's Rainforests Apr 15, 2021

Plant fossils from Columbia reveal the forests of the Cretaceous period were sparser and less humid than their modern-day counterparts.

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Sneaky New Bacteria on the ISS Could Build a Future on Mars Apr 14, 2021

NASA tracks the microbes that live on the space station, and sometimes it discovers new ones. Those hardy bugs may offer clues about surviving long missions.

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Narwhal Tusks Tell a Troubling Tale Apr 13, 2021

An analysis of the 10-foot-long teeth shows that as the Arctic warms, narwhal diets are changing, and their bodies are accumulating more mercury.

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The Weird Science of Loneliness and Our Brains Apr 12, 2021

Social isolation as been linked to poorer physical and mental health, but scientists are finally starting to understand its neurological impact.Â

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This Robot Could Help Fulfill Your Online Shopping Sprees Apr 09, 2021

Ambi Robotics is using years of research in robot manipulation to teach machines how to get a grip. The secret? Giving them suction cups for fingers.

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The Feds Want You to Destroy This Sneaky Mussel’s Hiding Spot Apr 08, 2021

Moss balls sold for aquariums can hide Zebra mussels, invasive mollusks that quickly overtake waterways. The US government would like you to kill them, please.

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Boston Dynamics’ New Robot Doesn’t Dance. It Has a Warehouse Job Apr 07, 2021

Called Stretch, the machine may look wildly different than its famous cousins Spot and Atlas, but it shares a ton of their DNA.

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Scientists Finally Identify a Deadly Toxin That's Been Killing Birds Apr 06, 2021

Thousands of eagles and other fowl have died from a mysterious condition that attacks their nervous systems. Now, after decades of investigation, we know why.

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How to Kill a Zombie Fire Apr 05, 2021

Underground peat fires refuse to die, even when flooded with water. So scientists developed a new weapon to put them down for good.

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Even Mild Brain Injuries Raise the Risk of Dementia Apr 02, 2021

A new study shows that concussions and other head traumas can have long-lasting effects on our health.

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Fossils in a Forgotten Ice Core Rewrite Greenland’s Icy Past Apr 01, 2021

A secret Cold War project led to signs of ancient life—and a new warning about the future of the climate.

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How Food Waste Could Be Turned Into Climate-Friendly Jet Fuel Mar 31, 2021

Humans dump an estimated 10 billion gallons of potential biofuel into landfills every year. Researchers found a way to capitalize on it.

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Why Covering Canals With Solar Panels Is a Power Move Mar 30, 2021

Covering waterways would, in a sense, make solar panels water-cooled, boosting their efficiency.

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Satellites Can Help Detect When a Volcano's About to Blow Mar 29, 2021

Researchers used thermal radiation data to find patterns in recent eruptions—providing another metric to help get ahead of a potentially deadly blast.

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An Ultracold Plasma Models the Universe’s Most Extreme Places Mar 26, 2021

The super cool, dense particle swarm gives physicists a way to study the insides of stars and gas giants—without ever leaving the lab.

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NASA Gets a Quick Peek at a Mysterious Layer of the Sun Mar 25, 2021

A new map of the chromosphere’s magnetic field could help us predict solar weather patterns—and anticipate flares that wreak havoc on the power grid.

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New Kind of Space Explosion Reveals the Birth of a Black Hole Mar 24, 2021

A supernova-like explosion dubbed the Camel appears to be the result of a newborn black hole eating a star from the inside out.

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Offshore Energy Gets a Second Wind Under Biden Mar 23, 2021

New turbines proposed for a development off Cape Cod could provide green energy, but the science of how they might affect the environment is a bit murky.

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How to Find a Covid-19 Vaccine Appointment in Your Area Mar 22, 2021

Vaccination rollout has been a challenge across the US. These tips should help you figure out when you’re eligible, where to go, and what to expect.

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This Fingertip for Robots Uses Magnets to ‘Feel’ Things Mar 19, 2021

By sensing the subtle changes in the finger’s own magnetic field, this new technology could one day make for ultra-sensitive prosthetic hands.

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Hey, So These Sea Slugs Decapitate Themselves and Grow New Bodies Mar 18, 2021

Showing off their best impressions of Deadpool, the animals survived for weeks without organs, only to regrow everything and go about their business.

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‘We’re Vaccinated. Everyone Wants to Visit. Now What?’ Mar 16, 2021

My mom and stepdad got their two doses. They want to know why their New Normal isn’t normal at all.

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The Tide Is High–and Getting Higher Mar 15, 2021

A trove of historic records show that dredging and sea level rise are making nuisance high tides worse along the US coasts.

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If You Transplant a Human Head, Does Its Consciousness Follow? Mar 12, 2021

In her new book, Brandy Schillace recalls the unbelievable legacy of a Cold War era neurosurgeon’s mission to preserve the soul.

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Sleuths Read Old Booby-Trapped Letters Without Opening Them Mar 11, 2021

People once folded their correspondence in intricate ways, known as “letterlocking,” to keep out snoops. A fancy new imaging technique sees right through it.

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Anthony Fauci Pleads: Don’t Declare Victory Mar 10, 2021

The Covidologist-in-chief says we can’t relax on masks and social distancing yet. Hear that, Texas?

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This Is What It's Like to Live Without Smell Mar 09, 2021

Losing any sense can be devastating, even if you never appreciated it before it was gone.

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The Mantis Shrimp Inspires a New Material—Made by Bacteria Mar 08, 2021

By 3D-printing scaffolds and dipping them in microbe juice, scientists make robust structures that could one day lead to self-growing roads.Â

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Million-Year-Old DNA Rewrites Mammoths' Evolutionary Tree Mar 05, 2021

The oldest DNA ever sequenced shows how the genus split off into new species.

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When the Grid Goes Down, Can a Fleet of Batteries Replace It? Mar 04, 2021

In a power crisis, maybe the solution is a network of smaller energy sources distributed across multiple places—like your garage.

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Nature Makes Wood. Could a Lab Make It Better? Mar 03, 2021

For millennia, humans have been chopping down trees and harvesting plants. Lab-grown plant material might change that.

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Birders’ Tweets Are Causing an Online Flap Mar 02, 2021

Sharing photos and location details of rare bird sightings is boosting the birdwatching community. But some worry that the exposure threatens the animals.

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Researchers Are Studying These Worm Blobs to Build Robots Mar 01, 2021

These crawlers form clumps to protect the collective. Understanding their movement gives engineers a model for shape-shifting robot swarms.

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Don’t Tell Einstein, but Black Holes Might Have ‘Hair’ Feb 26, 2021

The general theory of relativity states that black holes have only three observable properties; additional ones, or “hair,” do not exist. Or do they?

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What Happens When You Swap a Human Gene With a Neanderthal’s? Feb 25, 2021

Now that we’ve gotten a look at the genomes of archaic humans, researchers are trying to determine whether our differences are due to genetics.Â

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NASA Wants to Set a New Radiation Limit for Astronauts Feb 24, 2021

As the agency considers sending people to the moon and Mars, it’s taking a fresh look at the research on cancer risk and recalculating acceptable thresholds.

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How Steel Might Finally Kick Its Coal Habit Feb 23, 2021

In order to curb the industry's prolific carbon emissions, the sector will have to transform how the material is traditionally made.

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How to Make a Fitbit for an Elephant Feb 22, 2021

The accelerometers give scientists information about whether animals are swimming, walking, running, or even sprinting up a hill.

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How This Teeny-Tiny Sea Critter Punches Like Mike Tyson Feb 19, 2021

Using a camera shooting 300,000 frames per second, researchers catch the amphipod snapping its extraordinarily powerful claw.

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How Did They Find the Secret Space Lab in Captain Marvel? Feb 18, 2021

They talk about something called state vectors. What the heck are those, and would it really work?

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More Covid Vaccine Choices Mean New Equity Challenges Feb 17, 2021

Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine can be delivered in a single dose, but it’s also slightly less effective. Who should get it?

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American Cities Are Way Underreporting Their Carbon Footprints Feb 16, 2021

A modeling system called Vulcan shows that on average, cities across the country pollute 18.3 percent more than they’ve estimated.Â

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How Universes Might Bubble Up and Collide Feb 15, 2021

To understand how universes might inflate and bump into each other in the hypothetical multiverse, physicists are studying digital and physical analogs of the process.

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Dozens of Egyptian Tombs Will Be Unearthed at Saqqara Necropolis Feb 12, 2021

Archaeologists found the entrance to the unexplored burial shaft earlier this week.

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Why Kids Matter in the Quest to Stamp Out Covid-19 Feb 11, 2021

Testing a vaccine on children takes longer and comes with more challenges. But inoculating kids can protect an entire population.

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The Trump Administration Left Biden With a Rocket Dilemma Feb 10, 2021

Mike Pence promised to land on the moon in 2024, but that’s fallen out of reach. So what now?Â

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Sun-Loving Bacteria May Be Accelerating Glacial Melting Feb 09, 2021

Scientists find that cyanobacteria cause sediments on glaciers to clump, thus absorbing more sunlight. It's not great news for fans of lower sea levels.

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The Secret Ingredient That Powers Supernovas Feb 08, 2021

Three-dimensional computer simulations have solved the mystery of why doomed stars explode at all.

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Is It Time for an Emergency Rollout of Carbon-Eating Machines? Feb 05, 2021

Facilities that suck carbon dioxide out of the air could be powerful weapons for fighting climate change. But their deployment requires a huge wartime-style investment.

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Are Mass Clinics the Solution for Covid-19 Vaccination? Feb 04, 2021

Mega-sites need a lot of personnel and pose problems of access and equity.Â ButÂ other vaccination campaigns might point us in the right direction.

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A Year Ago I Asked: How Bad Could Covid Get? Now We Know Feb 03, 2021

No one was calling it a pandemic yet, at least publicly. Then came more troubling evidence about transmission, as the US ignored warning signs.

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These Recharge Rooms Are Helping Health Care Workers Cope Feb 02, 2021

Using voice-activation tech and nature-inspired soundscapes, these space are designed to give medical workers some respite from the Covid-19 front lines.

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NASA Is Training an AI to Detect Fresh Craters on Mars Feb 01, 2021

An algorithm discovered dozens of Martian craters. It’s a promising remote method for exploring our solar system and understanding planetary history.

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Is This a Fossilized Lair of the Dreaded Bobbit Worm? Jan 29, 2021

Scientists say they've got 20-million-year-old evidence of giant worms that hunted in pretty much the most nightmarish way possible.

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Can an AI Predict the Language of Viral Mutation? Jan 28, 2021

Computational biologists used an algorithm meant to model human language to instead predict how viruses could evolve to evade the immune system.

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The Arctic Ocean Is Teeming With Microfibers From Clothes Jan 27, 2021

Scientists find an average of 40 microplastic particles per cubic meter of the northern water. The likely source? The synthetic clothing in our washing machines.

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Virgin Orbit Just Launched a Rocket From a 747 Jan 26, 2021

Launching rockets from planes is a decades-old concept that never really took off. Billionaire Richard Branson thinks its time has come.

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The Ongoing Collapse of the World's Aquifers Jan 25, 2021

When humans over-exploit underground water supplies, the ground collapses like a huge empty water bottles. It's called subsidence, and it could affect 1.6 billion people by 2040.

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Vaping Doesn't Keep Young People From Smoking Cigarettes Later Jan 22, 2021

It won't prevent teens from later becoming smokers. But some health experts say that focusing on the risk of addicting new smokers cuts off a chance to help adults quit.

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What Would It Take to Run a City on 100 Percent Clean Energy? Jan 21, 2021

Most claims of running on “clean” electricity come with caveats, and many technologies required for round-the-clock renewable energy aren’t quite ready yet.

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The Mystery of the World’s Loneliest Penguins Jan 20, 2021

A small group of king penguins have appeared on Martillo Island in Argentina. How they got there, and whether they will stay, is unknown.

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How Long Would It Take for a 747 to Stop, Like in Tenet? Jan 19, 2021

The airplane in the movie is stripped down and doesn't have all of its brakes installed, making the calculations even more fun.

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Climate Change Is Turning Cities Into Ovens Jan 18, 2021

A new model estimates that by 2100, cities across the world could warm as much as 4.4 degrees Celsius. It’s a deadly consequence of the “heat island” effect.

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These Adorable Fish Robots Form Schools Like the Real Thing Jan 15, 2021

Meet Bluebot, a friendly swimming robot with big camera eyes. Put a few in a tank together and they’ll collaborate to complete surprisingly complex tasks.

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This Drone Sniffs Out Odors With a Real Moth Antenna Jan 14, 2021

Researchers slap a living antenna on a drone to give the machine an insanely keen sense of smell. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the “Smellicopter.”

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In a Pandemic, Medical Illustrators Made Science Accessible Jan 13, 2021

With lots of research, arrows, and an inviting color palette, artists helped transform complex research into useful information.

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A Bold Plan to Save the Last Whitebark Pines Jan 12, 2021

The high-altitude tree is vital to its ecosystem, but it’s being decimated by a fungus. Its admirers are fusing old and new methods to bring it back.

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A New Field Guide for Earth’s Wild Microbes Jan 11, 2021

The most massive database of microbial gene sequences so far shows that the tree of life is much larger than we knew.

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2020 Was a Breakout Year for Crispr Jan 08, 2021

Between glimpses of a medical cure and winning science’s shiniest prize, this proved to the gene-editing technology’s biggest year yet.

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A Unique Alliance Could Help Warn Us of Toxic Algae Jan 07, 2021

In Washington state, scientists, coastal communities, and state agencies are banding together to manage the growing threat of harmful algal blooms.

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Could Carbon Dioxide Be Turned Into Jet Fuel? Jan 06, 2021

A team at Oxford University has reverse engineered fuel from the greenhouse gas—but so far just in the lab.

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The Universe Is Expanding Faster Than Expected Jan 05, 2021

Astronomers get their wish—new ultra-precise distance measurements between Earth and the stars—but that only intensifies a cosmic crisis.

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Wildfire Smoke Is Loaded With Microbes. Is That Dangerous? Dec 31, 2020

Researchers are putting out a call to study the potential effects of bacteria- and fungi-filled haze on human health.

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Super Slow Computer Programs Reveal Math's Fundamental Limits Dec 30, 2020

The goal of the “busy beaver” game is to find the longest-running computer program. Its pursuit has surprising connections to profound questions in math.

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All the Stuff Humans Make Now Outweighs Earth’s Organisms Dec 29, 2020

Anthropogenic mass—concrete, metal, and other human creations—has grown to be heavier than plants, animals, and microbes combined. Planet Earth is not happy.

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Vaccines Are Here. We Have to Talk About Side Effects Dec 28, 2020

Disinformation could thwart distribution before government messages have a chance to push back. Debunking might turn out to be everyone’s job.

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A Rocket From 1966 Has Found Its Way Back to Earth’s Orbit Dec 24, 2020

More than 50 years after its course correction failure, Surveyor 2’s rocket booster seems to have reappeared.Â

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An Atlas Reveals Climate Change Is Pushing Birds Further North Dec 23, 2020

Data from 120,000 birdwatchers in 48 countries shows forest birds have expanded their range while area occupied by farmland birds has shrunk.

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Physicists Are Closer to Knowing the Size of a Proton … Sort of Dec 22, 2020

A new and potentially improved measurement of a proton’s charge radius brings scientists closer to an answer. But the issue is still unresolved.Â

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Bees Paint Animal Poo on Their Homes to Repel Giant Hornets Dec 21, 2020

What at first seems like terrible housekeeping turns out to be a clever ploy to fend off huge predators, which can otherwise easily destroy a hive.

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Who Will We Be When This Is All Over? Dec 18, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought incalculable suffering and trauma. But it also offers ways for people—and even societies—to change for the better.

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For the Second Time Ever, an Asteroid Sample Returns to Earth Dec 17, 2020

The Japanese Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid Ryugu marks a major milestone this weekend with the return of pristine space rock.

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Another Victim of Global Warming: The Great British Bake Off Dec 16, 2020

Increasing summer temperatures are proving a menace to butter, chocolates, and baked Alaska.

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Underground Brine Could Be a Source of Oxygen on Mars Dec 15, 2020

A new study tests a device that can efficiently split the resource’s water into pure oxygen and hydrogen in Martian conditions.

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The Incredible Journey of the Electronic Plastic Bottle Dec 14, 2020

Researchers loaded containers with trackers and released them in the Ganges and the Bay of Bengal, giving new insight into how plastic pollution travels.

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Endangered Vancouver Island Marmots Are Making a Comeback Dec 11, 2020

Canada’s most endangered mammal is back from the brink of extinction—and offers hope as an “ambassador” for the conservation of less adorable species.

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What's a Semi-Log Plot and How Can You Use It for Covid Data? Dec 10, 2020

It is very useful for showing data that spans different orders of magnitude—like case numbers in South Korea compared to the numbers in the United States.

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Physicists Pin Down the Nuclear Reaction Just After the Big Bang Dec 09, 2020

The newly measured rate of a key nuclear fusion process that forged the first atomic nuclei matches the picture of the universe 380,000 years later.

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Meet the Microbes Living on Da Vinci’s Iconic Sketches Dec 08, 2020

Think you’ve got an interesting microbiome? Your body ain’t got nothing on what’s accumulated on Leonardo’s drawings over 500 years.

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This Squishy 3D-Printed Human Heart Feels Like the Real Thing Dec 07, 2020

A clever technique allows scientists to scan a heart and reconstruct it in a soup of gelatin. It's like making jello, only way more useful for surgeons.

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Climate Change Is Intensifying the Tsunami Threat in Alaska Dec 04, 2020

As glaciers retreat and permafrost thaws, massive landslides threaten coastal communities. Those, in turn, could trigger giant sea waves.

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A Solar-Powered Rocket Might Be Our Ticket to Interstellar Space Dec 03, 2020

The idea for solar thermal propulsion has been around for decades, but researchers tapped by NASA just conducted a first test.

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An Enormous Iceberg Is Headed for South Georgia Island—Again Dec 02, 2020

If they collide, it could cause big problems for breeding penguins and seals by cutting off their access to the open sea.

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The Physics of Materials at Minus 80 Degrees Celsius Dec 01, 2020

Pfizer's new vaccine has to be stored at extremely low temperatures. Here's how things work when it gets that cold.Â

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‘Godzilla’ Wasp Swims—So Its Young Can Burst Out of Caterpillars Nov 26, 2020

In non-election news, Microgaster godzilla dives to find a caterpillar, forces it to the surface, and injects it with a baby that eats the host from the inside out.

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Fireball Is Werner Herzog’s Ode to Space Rocks Nov 25, 2020

A new documentary from the German auteur examines the influence of meteorites on cultures around the world.

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Confused About Covid Brain Fog? Doctors Have Questions, Too Nov 24, 2020

Physicians have seen this recovery symptom before, but they still don’t know why so many coronavirus survivors are being affected.

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How to Reduce (but Not Eliminate) Covid Risk at Holiday Gatherings Nov 23, 2020

With a surge in cases, there is no safe way to travel or gather for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But if you must, here are some ways to lower your risk.

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The Genome of Your Pet Fish Is Extremely Weird Nov 20, 2020

Unlike most domestic animals, the goldfish is purely decorative.

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Want to Fight the Zombie Fire Apocalypse? Weaponize Math Nov 19, 2020

Peat fires smolder in the ground for months, suddenly emerging as surface wildfires. New simulations reveal their strange life, death, and reanimation.

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Winning Trust for a Vaccine Means Confronting Medical Racism Nov 18, 2020

The US has a long history of abusing minorities for pharmaceutical profit. Messaging for a Covid-19 inoculation will have to overcome that past.

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These Oceanographers Want to Turn Marine Slime Into Drugs Nov 17, 2020

A California team will use a robotic vehicle to study tiny seafloor creatures, hoping they might yield new compounds to fight viruses and cancer.

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What Happens When You Fly a Science Plane Through Wildfire Smoke Nov 16, 2020

Aboard a decked-out C-130, researchers measure how smoke transforms from “fresh” to “stale” and begin to parse what that means for humans downwind.

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How Humanity Spent Its First 20 Years in Orbit Aboard the ISS Nov 13, 2020

Two decades ago, three explorers arrived at the International Space Station and marked the beginning of a permanent human presence beyond Earth.

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In Embryos, Crispr Can Cut Out Whole Chromosomes—That's Bad Nov 12, 2020

The DNA-cutting tool has been hailed as a way to fix genetic glitches. But a new study suggests it can remove more than scientists bargained for.

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How Octopuses Use Their Suction Cups to Taste Through Touch Nov 11, 2020

A new study reveals that the invertebrates use a novel kind of receptor embedded in their suckers to explore their ocean habitats.

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A New Way to Plug a Human Brain into a Computer: via Veins Nov 10, 2020

Electrodes threaded through the blood vessels that feed the brain let people control gadgets with their minds.

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What to Wear When You’re Battling Giant, Venomous Hornets Nov 09, 2020

The suits worn by Washington state entomologists aren't "official" hornet-fighting armor. But they were affordable—and came up in an Amazon search.

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Mark Kelly’s Been To Space. Can He Make it to Capitol Hill? Nov 06, 2020

Mark Kelly isn’t the first former NASA astronaut to run for office, but if he’s elected he’ll be the only one to make it to Congress on his first shot.

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Babies May Be Drinking Millions of Microplastic Particles a Day Nov 05, 2020

Scientists discover that baby bottles shed up to 16 million bits of plastic per liter of fluid. What that means for infants’ health, no one can yet say.

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Your Brain Prefers Happy Endings. That’s Not Always Smart Nov 04, 2020

People tend to focus on whether an experience ends on an up note or a sour one, even if it leads us to make bad decisions. A new study examines why.

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Can Placebos Work—Even When Patients Know They’re Fake? Nov 03, 2020

Researchers showed that a saline spray “treatment” reduced people’s emotional distress, even though the study subjects knew the spray wouldn’t do anything.

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The Case for Reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps Nov 02, 2020

If the US brought back the Great Depression’s massive worker program, it could put millions of Americans back to work—and help stave off disasters like wildfires.

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How the Venus Flytrap ‘Remembers’ When It Captures Prey Oct 30, 2020

The carnivorous plant is believed to have something akin to a short-term "memory." A team of scientists has uncovered new details on how it works.

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How the Venus Flytrap ‘Remembers’ When It Captures Prey Oct 30, 2020

The carnivorous plant is believed to have something akin to a short-term "memory." A team of scientists has uncovered new details on how it works.

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Uh-Oh. Russia's Laptev Sea Should Have Started to Freeze by Now Oct 29, 2020

Normally, the 'birthplace of ice' freezes by late October. For the first time in recorded history, it hasn't. That could have knock-on effects across the Arctic.

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There May Be Far More Water on the Moon Than NASA Thought Oct 28, 2020

A new pair of studies reveals that the resource isn’t limited to large shadowy craters. That's good news for the upcoming crewed missions.

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How the ‘Diabolical’ Beetle Survives Being Run Over by a Car Oct 27, 2020

The puny insect can withstand forces 39,000 times its body weight. Scientists just discovered its super-strength secret—which could inspire new materials.

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Want Some Eco-Friendly Tips? A New Study Says No, You Don’t Oct 26, 2020

Nagging, giving unsolicited advice, and “ecopiety” are out. But there are better ways to get people to adopt green habits.

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The Preexisting Conditions of the Coronavirus Pandemic Oct 23, 2020

An enormous new data set peers into the health of the world’s population before 2020—and how the coronavirus turned that into a global disaster.

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Wild Predators Are Relying More on Our Food—and Pets Oct 22, 2020

A new study shows that some big carnivores are getting up to half their diet from sources like trash, crops, or small mammals that live near people.

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What Forest Floor Playgrounds Teach Us about Kids and Germs Oct 20, 2020

Finnish researchers just published the first big test of the “biodiversity hypothesis”—that exposure to the microbes in dirt is good for young immune systems.

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What Would Happen if All the Antarctic Ice Melted? Oct 19, 2020

It … let's just say it would not be good. Here, let's do the math.Â

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Meteorite Is a Love Letter to Space Rocks Oct 16, 2020

For centuries, scientists thought meteorites were too fantastical to exist. A new book reveals that they hold even more mysteries.

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The Most Sway-Prone Buildings in LA Aren’t Where You Expect Oct 15, 2020

Using a network of sensors, researchers found that the Los Angeles high-rises most likely to rock in a future quake aren’t downtown.

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New York Is Trying Targeted Lockdowns. Will It Stop a Second Wave? Oct 14, 2020

Instead of shutting down all of New York City, this time officials are taking a block-by-block approach to home in on areas with increasing case numbers.

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A Global Data Effort Probes Whether Covid Causes Diabetes Oct 13, 2020

Dozens of case reports have hinted that the coronavirus might trigger the onset of diabetes in people with no history of the disease.

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This Congresswoman Wants to Rev Up Covid Testing Oct 12, 2020

Mikie Sherrill’s new bill would tie federal reimbursement to testing result times—and reward labs for extra quick turnarounds.

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The Wire Inspired a Fake Turtle Egg That Spies on Poachers Oct 09, 2020

Scientists 3D-printed sea turtle eggs and stuffed transmitters inside. When poachers pulled them out of nests, the devices tracked their every move.

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Anthony Fauci Has Some Very Good Reasons to Be Optimistic Oct 08, 2020

During Day 3 of WIRED25, the public health rock star emphasized the importance of masks, distancing, handwashing … and a positive outlook.

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Taiwan’s Digital Minister Knows How to Crush Covid-19: Trust Oct 07, 2020

On Day 3 of WIRED25, Audrey Tang explains how the Asian nation used open data and transparent governance to empower its citizens to code their own way out of a pandemic.

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Why Is It So Hard to Study Covid-Related Smell Loss? Oct 06, 2020

Patients have long reported the sudden inability to smell. But restrictions on in-person exams are complicating efforts to figure out what's going on.

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Meet Curly, the Curling Robot That Beats the Pros Oct 05, 2020

Curling is one of the world's most precise sports. An ice-going, stone-throwing robot just mastered it.Â

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The Coronavirus Dashboard Creator Has a New Target: Elections Oct 02, 2020

On Day 2 of WIRED25, coder Avi Schiffmann talks about his plans for a site that aggregates candidates' positions—in a way users can understand.

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Want to Save the Whales? Eavesdrop on Their Calls Oct 01, 2020

A clever new system called Whale Safe listens for the cetacean chorus to alert vessels to slow down, potentially preventing deadly ship strikes.

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Colds Nearly Vanished Under Lockdown. Now They’re Coming Back Sep 30, 2020

The return of non-Covid respiratory illnesses is putting a new strain on testing supplies around the world—and is a preview of what’s in store for the US.

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The Cool Physics of a Supersonic Baseball Sep 29, 2020

For one thing, let's build a model of air drag and how it affects the ball differently when it's traveling faster and slower than the speed of sound.

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What’s Causing the Mass Bird Die-Off in the Southwest? Sep 28, 2020

Thousands of migrating birds have died, perhaps starved by drier conditions related to climate change or by having to fly inland to avoid wildfire smoke.

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How the Pandemic Transformed This Songbird’s Call Sep 25, 2020

When the San Francisco Bay Area locked down, urban noise levels plummeted. In response, the white-crowned sparrow changed its tune.

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Is Lightning-Fast Plasma the Key to a Cleaner Car Engine? Sep 24, 2020

Researchers have long experimented with “lean burn” engines, which boostÂ efficiency and reduce the emissions from combustion. But getting them to ignite is tricky.

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If You've Just Had Covid, Exercise Might Not Be Good for You Sep 23, 2020

A growing number of studies are raising concerns about the coronavirus’ long-term effects on the heart. Athletes especially need to heed the warnings.

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What’s in Wildfire Smoke, and How Dangerous Is It? Sep 22, 2020

Blazes on the West Coast are spewing a haze clear across the country. Along the way, the complex chemistry of what we inhale gets even more complex.

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Blood Centers Are Barely Meeting Convalescent Plasma Demand Sep 21, 2020

Despite a lack of scientific studies on its efficacy for Covid-19, interest in the treatment has surged alongside case numbers.

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These New Shape-Shifting Materials Get Super Cool, Super Fast Sep 18, 2020

Shape memory alloys and a kind of plastic crystal chill quickly under force or pressure. They could lead to eco-friendly fridges and air conditioners.

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Your Beloved Blue Jeans Are Polluting the Ocean—Big Time Sep 17, 2020

When you wash denim, tiny fibers shed and flow into the environment. Scientists just found that Arctic waters are now loaded with little bits of jeans.

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Those Orange Western Skies and the Science of Light Sep 16, 2020

Sure, it was wildfire smoke that made parts of California and Oregon change hue. But inside that smoke was alchemy—the chemistry and physics of molecules and wavelengths.

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The Bay Area Just Turned Orange. All Eyes Are on PurpleAir Sep 15, 2020

Catastrophic wildfires are spewing smoke all over the West Coast. This website lets you track the respiratory crisis in real time—with a few caveats.

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Mathematicians Report New Discovery About the Dodecahedron Sep 14, 2020

Starting at a corner, could you walk around the surface of this Platonic solid without crossing other corners? To get the answer, you need an 81-holed doughnut.

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Flu Season and Covid-19 Are About to Collide. Now What? Sep 11, 2020

Hospitals in the US are already stressed. Now, they must brace for a wave of flu patients needing more beds, lab tests, and ventilators.

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Could a Tree Help Find a Decaying Corpse Nearby? Sep 10, 2020

On a “body farm,” researchers are exploring whether the nutrients from human cadavers can change the look of plants, which authorities might use to locate missing persons.

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Climate Change Drove the American Mastodon to Extinction Sep 09, 2020

They migrated north to escape the heat but lost their genetic diversity, making them vulnerable to extinction. Today, some species face the same problem.

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Your Smartphone Can Tell If You’re Drunk-Walking Sep 08, 2020

In a recent study, scientists could tell if people were intoxicated just by looking at their phones’ motion data.

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A Grim Reality of Reopening: More Mold Sep 07, 2020

Unoccupied buildings, abandoned during the coronavirus shutdowns, give fungi a great opportunity to move in.

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A Beautiful Yet Grim Map Shows How Wildfire Smoke Spreads Sep 04, 2020

California’s blazes have sent a haze across the United States. An experimental model shows where that cloud ends up.

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A California Wildfire Nearly Destroyed the Historic Lick Observatory Sep 03, 2020

The state's apocalyptic blazes have burned 2,000 square miles in 10 days. Here's how they almost claimed a 130-year-old astronomical icon.

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California Wildfires Can Create Their Own Terrifying Weather Sep 02, 2020

Sparked by freak thunderstorms, the blazes changed wind patterns and could potentially lead to fire tornadoes and pyrocumulonimbus clouds.

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Elon Musk Is About to Show Off His Neuralink Brain Implant Sep 01, 2020

Musk tweeted that his “V2” update will blow our minds. But how close is he to putting computer chips in them?

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Scientists Want to Ditch Formula for Lab-Grown Breast Milk Aug 31, 2020

Formula has come a long way, but it still lacks many nutrients and takes a toll on the environment. A few companies are hoping to provide an alternative.

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A Postal Slowdown Is Scary for Those Who Get Meds By Mail Aug 28, 2020

Many seniors, veterans, and chronically ill people rely on the USPS for prescriptions and medical supplies. During Covid-19, they can’t just go to a drugstore.

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This Cobalt-Free Battery Is Good for the Planet—and It Actually Works Aug 26, 2020

Reducing the cobalt content in lithium-ion batteries is good for the environment, human rights, and maybe even the performance of the battery itself.

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Want to Save Lives? Name Heat Waves Like Hurricanes Aug 25, 2020

As temperatures soar into the the triple digits, the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance says such names will spark public awareness and encourage safety measures.

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California's Wildfire and Covid-19 Disasters Just Collided Aug 24, 2020

Rare thunderstorms have peppered the California landscape with conflagrations, pouring smoke into the Bay Area—all as the state struggles with the pandemic.

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Wait, How Much Microplastic Is Swirling in the Atlantic? Aug 21, 2020

Scientists calculate that the top 200 meters of ocean alone contains up to 21 million metric tons of plastic. And that wasn't even counting microfibers.

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The Iconic Arecibo Telescope Goes Quiet After Major Damage Aug 20, 2020

A cable cut a large gash into the radio telescope this week and it’s uncertain when it will be back in working order.

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Why Do Solar Farms Kill Birds? Call in the AI Bird Watcher Aug 19, 2020

Solar facilities kill tens of thousands of birds every year, and no one is quite sure why. An artificial-intelligence-powered birder is on the case.

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Should We Conserve Parasites? Apparently, Yes Aug 18, 2020

A group of ecologists and biologists say the world's ticks, leeches, and tapeworms need love and conservation, too. Now they've got a 12-point plan.

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What If the Big Bang Was Actually a Big Bounce? Aug 17, 2020

New computer simulations model an alternate way of thinking about the cosmos: as a cyclic universe that has no beginning or end.

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Should Governments Slap a Tax on Plastic? Aug 14, 2020

More than a billion tons of it could enter the environment in the next 20 years. It's time, advocates say, to put a sin tax on single-use plastic.

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Why Are Plants Green? The Answer Might Work on Any Planet Aug 13, 2020

A new model of photosynthesis points to an evolutionary principle governing light-harvesting organisms that might apply throughout the universe.

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Frog Eats Beetle. Beetle Crawls Through Guts to Escape Aug 12, 2020

Regimbartia attenuata doesn’t take too kindly to being eaten. Once locked inside a frog’s maw, it turns around and starts heading for the exit.

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Archaeologists Have Found the Source of Stonehenge's Boulders Aug 11, 2020

Modern scholars have only been able to speculate about where the huge stones came from—until now.

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What Poetry Means for Doctors and Patients During a Pandemic Aug 10, 2020

The poetry editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association talks about medicine, metaphor, and how literature can even improve patient outcomes.

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What the Science of Animal Networks Reveals About Protests Aug 07, 2020

The movement of demonstrators echoes the fluid collective responses of the animal world, as groups respond to threats and signal across large spaces.

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NASA’s Mars Rover Will Be Powered by US-Made Plutonium Aug 06, 2020

In 2015, Oak Ridge National Laboratory produced the first plutonium fuel in the US in nearly 30 years. Now it’s headed to another planet.

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Mad Scientists Revive 100-Million-Year-Old Microbes Aug 05, 2020

Researchers collected sediment thousands of feet deep, filtered out bacteria, and revived the cells. But fear not—the destruction of humanity by ancient microbes is not nigh.

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These 4 Covid-19 Vaccines Are Closest to Becoming Reality Aug 04, 2020

There are hundreds of trials currently in the works. Here’s everything you need to know about the ones edging ahead in the global race.

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The Sly Psychology Behind Magicians' Card Tricks Aug 03, 2020

Is this your card? A recent study found that participants will select the suit or number they were primed to choose.

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How Quickly Can Atoms Slip, Ghostlike, Through Barriers? Jul 31, 2020

A new experiment on how rapidly atoms can tunnel through a barricade revives a physics debate about how time passes on the quantum scale.

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During Lockdowns, the Earth (Sort of) Stood Still Jul 30, 2020

Seismometers pick up human activity, like driving. When Covid arrived, scientists watched that global seismic noise plummet by 50 percent.

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A Billion More Tons of Plastic Could Blanket Earth by 2040 Jul 29, 2020

Even with immediate action, 710 million metric tons of plastic will enter the environment in the next two decades, scientists show. Welcome to Plastic Planet.

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How NASA Built a Self-Driving Car for Its Next Mars Mission Jul 28, 2020

It’s hard enough to get an autonomous vehicle to work on Earth. It’s even harder on another planet.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Jul 27, 2020

Early results from the team in the UK show their approach is safe and provokes an immune response. But that doesn't mean it works.

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What Happens After a ‘Million-Mile Battery’ Outlasts the Car? Jul 24, 2020

Electric vehicle makers hope to roll out super long-lasting batteries. That raises interesting questions about resources, performance—and a battery's second act.

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Llamas—Yes, Llamas—Could Help Us Fight Covid-19 Jul 23, 2020

These creatures have evolved special "nanobodies" that may have an edge over human antibodies when it comes to developing a new treatment.

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Your Car Is Spewing Microplastics That Blow Around the World Jul 22, 2020

When you drive, tiny bits of plastic fly off your tires and brakes. Now scientists have shown how all that road muck is blowing into “pristine” environments like the Arctic.

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Don't Talk About Covid-19's 'Waves'—This Isn't the Spanish Flu Jul 21, 2020

It’s not useful to think about coronavirus coming in synchronized surges. This is a long, lingering epidemic that is only just getting started.

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You Don't Need Single-Use Plastic Bags. You Need a Mask Jul 20, 2020

Honestly, you should just be disinfecting your reusable bags—the real issue is airborne virus, not infected shopping totes, experts say.

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How to Trick Your Brain to Remember Almost Anything Jul 17, 2020

Four-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis and psychological scientist Julia Shaw explain how to boost your memory skills.

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How a ‘Heat Dome’ Forms—and Why This One Is So Perilous Jul 16, 2020

A massive, intense heat wave is settling over the continental US. The ravages of the Covid pandemic are going to make it all the more deadly.

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Covid-19 Immunity May Rely on a Microscopic Helper: T Cells Jul 15, 2020

Researchers have been looking beyond antibodies to understand how immunity to the new virus might work—and how to design a vaccine.

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Covid Kills More Men Than Women. Experts Still Can’t Explain Why Jul 14, 2020

A new tracker from Harvard’s GenderSci Lab is the first to consolidate sex-separated data from across the US. It may help researchers solve the mystery.

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Will We Recognize Life on Mars When We See It? Jul 13, 2020

If NASA's Perseverance rover finds life on the Red Planet, there's a good chance our first extraterrestrial encounter will be a little ambiguous.

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Astronomers Are Uncovering the Magnetic Soul of the Universe Jul 10, 2020

Researchers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a cosmological mystery.

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The Epic Siberian Journey to Solve a Mass Extinction Mystery Jul 08, 2020

A quarter-billion years ago, huge volcanic eruptions burned coal, leading to the worst extinction in Earth’s history. Here’s how scientists hunted down the evidence.

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Hummingbirds Can See Colors We Can’t Even Imagine Jul 07, 2020

When humans see purple, we’re really seeing a blend of red and blue light. Hummingbirds see purple plus ultraviolet—and lots of other nonspectral colors.

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Nuclear ‘Power Balls’ May Make Meltdowns a Thing of the Past Jul 06, 2020

Triso particles are an alien-looking fuel with built-in safety features that will power a new generation of high-temperature reactors.

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'Carbon Farming' Could Make US Agriculture Truly Green Jul 03, 2020

Today a Senate committee will hear about a bill that would help farmers adopt practices to release less carbon from the soil, reducing planetary warming.

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NASA’s New Moon-Bound Space Suits Will Get a Boost From AI Jul 02, 2020

Engineers are turning to generative design algorithms to build components for NASA’s next-generation space suit—the first major update in decades.

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Stuck at Home, Scientists Discover 9 New Insect Species Jul 01, 2020

Without a DNA sequencer, two Los Angeles entomologists relied on two of biology’s oldest tools: microscopes and lots of free time.

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Who's to Blame for Plastic Microfiber Pollution? Jun 30, 2020

Tiny bits of plastic are corrupting every corner of the planet. The major culprits: cheap synthetic clothing and washing machines.

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Why Massive Saharan Dust Plumes Are Blowing Into the US Jun 29, 2020

Every summer, an atmospheric event propels desert dust thousands of miles across the Atlantic. This year is particularly bad, and timed terribly with Covid-19.

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Why NASA Designed a New $23 Million Space Toilet Jun 26, 2020

Later this year, astronauts on the American module of the ISS will be able to test out the toilet before NASA puts it on crewed vehicles for deep-space missions.

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The Trouble With Counting Aliens Jun 25, 2020

A new study estimates that there might only be 36 communicating extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. But that number doesn’t tell the whole story.

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The Design and Science of Patio Dining During a Pandemic Jun 24, 2020

Public health experts think Covid-19 risk is lower outside, and restaurateurs want to fill tables. It’s an easy solution—except for all the hard parts.

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Covid-19 Is Bad. But It May Not Be the ‘Big One’ Jun 23, 2020

Health experts want a 9/11 Commission-style report on the US pandemic response. They say we must forecast and prepare for outbreaks as we do for wars or weather.

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The FDA Revokes Its Emergency Use Authorization for Hydroxychloroquine Jun 22, 2020

So far, no studies have shown that the anti-malarial drug can fight Covid-19, and agency officials say its potential benefits do not outweigh its risks.

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You Can Now Buy Spot the Robot Dog—If You’ve Got $74,500 Jun 19, 2020

Boston Dynamics is finally making its mechanical canine available for businesses and developers. But know that this puppy ain't for everyone.

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In Alaska, Summer's Getting Too Hot for the Salmon Run Jun 18, 2020

Bristol Bay is heating up, killing fish as they try to swim upriver to spawn. It's a harbinger of climate change and hard times for fisheries.

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Astronomers Track a Fast Radio Burst to Its Source—a Magnetar Jun 17, 2020

The origin of these explosions of radio waves has long been an astrophysics mystery. Now one has been traced to an ultra-dense spinning magnetized stellar core.

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The Covid-19 Economic Slump Is Closing Down Coal Plants Jun 16, 2020

This year, coal usage has dropped in the US, and renewables now generate more electricity. To some experts, the financial crisis is a clean energy opportunity.

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These Bacteria Ate Their Way Through a Really Tricky Maze Jun 15, 2020

Microbes are well known for working together in stressful environments. Scientists wanted to see how they would fare at a labyrinthine brain teaser.

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What's Confusing About Calling Covid-19 Cases ‘Asymptomatic’ Jun 12, 2020

There’s a difference between people who never develop symptoms and people who just don’t have them yet. And that matters when calculating public health risk.

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Archaeologists Discover the Largest, Oldest Maya Monument Yet Jun 11, 2020

The structure, believed to have served as a ceremonial center 3,000 years ago, was discovered in Tabasco, Mexico.

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Police Tactics Could Turn Protests Into Covid-19 Hot Spots Jun 10, 2020

Sure, large crowds already carry a risk of transmission. It's just worse when you teargas people, make them cough on each other, and bus them to jail.

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When Health Care Moves Online, Many Patients Are Left Behind Jun 09, 2020

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, more doctors are turning to telemedicine. That's a problem for tens of millions on the wrong side of the digital divide.

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A Drop in Commercial Flights Is Bad for Hurricane Forecasts Jun 08, 2020

Passenger jets and cruise ships normally gather key weather data. But full docks and empty skies make it hard to predict the details of incoming storms.

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Trump’s New Space Force Missile Might Be Too ‘Super-Duper’ Jun 05, 2020

To go that fast, it would need a ridiculous amount of fuel—and even then, it might never come back down.

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Rigorous Hand-Washing Will Be Part of Covid-19's New Normal Jun 04, 2020

The simplest hygiene tasks are the toughest to maintain—take it from the health care experts who have advice about how to make the habit stick.

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In Minneapolis, Neighbors Are Mobilizing—Offline Jun 03, 2020

Worried about infiltration from extremist groups or police surveillance, residents are turning to pre-internet tactics to help protect homes and local stores.

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Turns Out 4 ‘Blank’ Dead Sea Scrolls Actually Have Text Jun 02, 2020

A new analysis revealed what scientists believe is a passage from the book of Ezekiel.

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Whoooaaa Duuuuude: Why We Stretch Words in Tweets and Texts Jun 01, 2020

Notice you've been elongating your words lately? You're actually loading them with a whooooole lot of meaning.

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How Smart City Planning Could Slow Future Pandemics May 29, 2020

The Covid-19 crisis is an opportunity to rethink how cities are designed—and make them better equipped to stop disease from spreading.Â

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How to Sleep When the World Is Falling Apart May 28, 2020

It's not easy to relax in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. But there are some simple tips and techniques that can help you get some shut-eye.

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What It’s Like to Be First to Fly a Brand New Spacecraft May 27, 2020

Robert Crippen is the only living NASA astronaut to have flown on a new spacecraft for the first time. The Crew Dragon flyers will join his elite club this week.

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Will Wildfire Smoke Worsen the Pandemic? We're About to Find Out May 26, 2020

When seasonal blazes descend on California, millions could be inhaling smoke, which is known to predispose people to lung diseases.

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On the Moon, Astronaut Pee Will Be a Hot Commodity May 25, 2020

Urine can be used for landing pads, gardens, and drinking water. But will there be enough to go around?

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How School Shutdowns Have Longterm Effects on Children May 22, 2020

Similar situations after natural disasters offer clues about the potential academic and mental health impacts of lockdowns.

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Carbon Dioxide Emissions Have Dropped 17 Percent During the Pandemic May 21, 2020

Some regions, like the US and the UK, have seen their outputs fall by a third, due in large part to people driving less.Â

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This Robot Can Guess How You're Feeling by the Way You Walk May 20, 2020

Walk like you're angry, and the emotionally intelligent machine will give you more room, leaving your personal bubble intact.

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‘Milestone’ Evidence for Anyons, a Third Kingdom of Particles May 19, 2020

Physicists have long known that the universe is made from two kinds of particles: fermions and bosons. Now there's a third that behaves totally differently.

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A Secret Space Plane is Carrying a Solar Experiment to Orbit May 18, 2020

The idea of beaming solar energy to Earth with radio waves is decades old. But this weekend, the technology gets its first test in orbit.

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Hungry City Rats Are Looking for a New Lunch Spot Near You May 15, 2020

As restaurants have shuttered, the rats who depend on an eternal garbage buffet are becoming more bold and competitive—and looking for new homes.

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How Albert Einstein's Son Tamed the Mississippi River May 14, 2020

Multiple structures now keep the river from roaring into the Atchafalaya—but they may be inadequate against climate change.Â

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Science Fairs Are Canceled. Maybe That’s Just as Well May 13, 2020

It’s time to reconsider these earnest events—and find ways for kids to experience the joyous, collaborative nature of real scientific discovery.

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This Bizarre Insect Is Building Shelters Out of Microplastic May 12, 2020

Caddisfly larvae typically construct protective cases out of sand grains and silk. Now they're also using microplastic particles.

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NASA's EmDrive Leader Has a New Interstellar Project May 11, 2020

Harold White left NASA in December to join a new nonprofit focused on building the technologies to bring humans to the outer solar system and beyond.

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This Mental Health App Is Tailor-Made for Your Pandemic Woes May 08, 2020

Covid Coach, from the National Center for PTSD, offers exercises and resources for dealing with uncertainty, isolation, and unemployment.

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The Neuroscience of Why You Could Really Use a Hug Right Now May 07, 2020

For those quarantined alone, the lack of human touch can feel agonizing. A neurological phenomenon called "skin hunger" explains why.

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The Race to Get Convalescent Plasma to Covid-19 Patients May 06, 2020

Blood centers across the nation are trying to get antibodies from coronavirus survivors to patients who want this experimental treatment. But it’s not easy.

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Physicists Clear the Air With a Sweet Frickin' Laser Beam May 05, 2020

Fast laser pulses produce a shock wave in air that pushes water vapor aside. That clears channels in clouds for transmitting optical data from satellites.

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The World Is Still Producing More Oil Than It Needs. Why? May 04, 2020

Today, petroleum producers around the world will start shutting down wells after the Covid-19 pandemic caused demand to plummet. What took them so long?

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Covid-19 Was Here Earlier Than Most Americans Thought. Now What? May 01, 2020

Epidemiologists aren't surprised that virus was spreading in the US in early February. But those early days offer lessons for how to catch the next wave.

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The Legacy of Math Luminary John Conway, Lost to Covid-19 Apr 30, 2020

Conway, who passed away on April 11, was known for his rapid computation, his playful approach, and solving problems with “his own bare hands.”

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A Brain Implant Restored This Man's Motion and Sense of Touch Apr 29, 2020

After his accident, Ian Burkhart didn’t think he’d ever be able to move or feel his hand again. A small chip in his brain changed everything.

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Spot the Coronavirus Doctor Robot Dog Will See You Now Apr 28, 2020

Boston Dynamics' famously deft robot gets a job screening patients at a hospital. But there's still much that it and other medical robots can't do.

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The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Fueled a Gulf Science Bonanza Apr 27, 2020

A decade after the worst oil spill in US history, researchers have turned out a massive data set charting the health of the ecosystem.

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The Real Reason Veterinarians Gave a Tiger a Covid-19 Test Apr 24, 2020

It’s hard for humans in New York City to get a test for the coronavirus. So when a Bronx Zoo tiger tested positive for Covid-19, it invited some questions.

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New Covid-19 Antibody Study Results Are In. Are They Right? Apr 23, 2020

Two preprints of California serosurveys offer surprising estimates about the infection rate, and have caused a Twitter “peer review” uproar.

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The Cold, Hard Work of Delivering Oxygen to Ventilators Apr 22, 2020

Oxygen is in the air. Getting it to a Covid-19 patient struggling to breathe can be trickier than it seems.

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Africa's Huge Locust Swarms Are Growing at the Worst Time Apr 21, 2020

As coronavirus takes hold and farmers plant crops, the continent faces a new wave of locusts 20 times larger than one earlier this year.

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‘Common Sense’ Is No Substitute for Science in a Pandemic Apr 20, 2020

The scientific method isn't perfect, but it's better than the alternative when lives are at stake.

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What if Covid-19 Returns Every Year, Like the Common Cold? Apr 17, 2020

A new Harvard study models how long we’d have to keep social distancing if the virus turns out to be seasonal, like its coronavirus cousins. It could be years.

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A New, Plastic-Busting Enzyme Can Break Down Water Bottles Apr 16, 2020

The end result of the reaction is a raw material that can be reused in new products.

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Death Cuts the Degree of Separation Between You and Covid-19 Apr 15, 2020

If knowing someone who has died would make the pandemic concrete for someone in the US—real and actionable—how many have to die? Here's the grim math.

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Turns Out, Traffic Spreads Like the Coronavirus Apr 14, 2020

Researchers use models meant for infectious diseases to show how congestion proliferates. That may mean a vaccine for traffic jams is on the horizon.

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How a Real Dog Taught a Robot Dog to Walk Apr 13, 2020

Instead of coding a mechanical quadruped's movements line by line, Google researchers fed it videos of real-life pups. Now it can even chase its tail.

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The Political Promise of Carbon Taxes Apr 10, 2020

Putting a price on emissions has become a bipartisan issue. Now we just need to do it the right way.

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Solar Power Is Sustainable for the Economy, Too Apr 09, 2020

We've been talking about the potential for the sun's energy for decades. Now it can be more profitable to save the planet than to ruin it.

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The Fishy Fix to a Methane-Spewing Crop Apr 08, 2020

Rice has the biggest carbon footprint of any grain. Bite by bite, bacteria-guzzling minnows can make it much smaller.

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Solar Panels Could Be the Best Fad Ever Apr 07, 2020

Installing an array on your roof is environmental exhibitionism—and it's contagious.

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The Search for the Next Big Idea in Magnetic Field Mapping Apr 06, 2020

A new competition challenges scientists to innovate on how we map Earth's constantly shifting magnetic field—and make navigation safer and more accurate.

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Why Stress-Baking and Cleaning Make You Less Anxious Apr 03, 2020

You're not the only one who finds #quarantinebaking so soothing. Turns out, it has a lot to do with the neuroscience of mindful meditation.

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In Crowded Hospitals, Who Will Get Life-Saving Equipment? Apr 02, 2020

As health care workers prepare for surges of Covid-19 patients, they must grapple with the ethics of rationing critical medical gear.

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Researchers Push For Mass Blood Tests as a Covid-19 Strategy Apr 01, 2020

While it might seem wasteful to test the seemingly-healthy, tracking antibodies could show how widely the virus has spread—and who may now be immune.

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France's Virus Train Moves Patients to Less Hard-Hit Areas Mar 31, 2020

The national railroad system converted a TGV high-speed train to move 20 Covid-19 patients from Strasbourg to calmer hospitals in the Loire Valley.

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The Heady, Intricate Beauty of Watching Whiskey Evaporate Mar 30, 2020

When American whiskey evaporates, it leaves behind webs, or fingerprints of sorts, that could help sleuths identify counterfeit swill.

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If Robots Steal So Many Jobs, Why Aren't They Saving Us Now? Mar 27, 2020

We've been led to believe that robots and AI are replacing humans en masse. But this economic catastrophe is blowing up that myth.

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An Old Source for Potential New Covid-19 Drugs: Blood Serum Mar 26, 2020

A 100-year-old way to beat disease could help researchers figure out how to harness the antibodies from earlier patients to help the newly infected.

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Telemedicine Is a Safety Valve for a Strained Health Care System Mar 25, 2020

“Virtual visits” can be an effective way to decide who needs to be tested for Covid-19. But remote doctors can't diagnose or treat illness.

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The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming Mar 24, 2020

Epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, who warned of pandemic in 2006, says we can beat the novel coronavirus—but first, we need with lots more testing.

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The ‘Surreal’ Frenzy Inside the US’ Biggest Mask Maker Mar 23, 2020

Prestige Ameritech typically makes 250,000 masks a day. Now it's manufacturing 1 million daily, and turning away orders for 100 million more.Â

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Mass Panic Is Unlikely, Even During a Pandemic Mar 20, 2020

Hollywood tells us humans are prone to lose all rationality in a disaster, looting and trampling one another. But that’s not giving our brains any credit.

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How Long Does the Coronavirus Last on Surfaces? Mar 19, 2020

Researchers looked at how long the virus can survive on cardboard, plastic, and stainless steel, as well as after being aerosolized and suspended in midair.

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What's Social Distancing? Flattening the Curve? Your Covid-19 Questions, Answered. Mar 18, 2020

Everything you need to know about the coronavirus.

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Scientists Chase Snowflakes During the Warmest Winter Ever Mar 17, 2020

Inside a cavernous hangar at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility along the Virginia coast, a gleaming white P-3 Orion aircraft sits parked under harsh floodlights. It’s just after midnight and a group of scientists, technicians and graduate students cluster underneath a wing, peering at a 5-inch crack in one of the ailerons that the pilot uses to maneuver the plane. Their disappointment is palpable.

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The Sea Is Getting Warmer. Will the Shrimp Get Louder? Mar 16, 2020

The ocean is normally a fairly noisy place, with the sounds of happy dolphins, lonely whales and diesel-chugging ships saturating the undersea world. But climate change may turn up the volume on this liquid symphony as warmer sea temperatures boost the volume of noise produced by the small but incredibly loud percussionist in this orchestra: the snapping shrimp. This crustacean uses its oversize claw as a bubble-forming pistol of sorts, snapping it at more than 210 decibels.

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How UFO Sightings Became an American Obsession Mar 13, 2020

In 1947, Kenneth Arnold was flying his CallAir A-2 between Chehalis and Yakima, Washington, when he took a detour to search for a downed Marine Corps aircraft. There was a reward for anyone who could find the plane, and who couldn’t use $5,000? Arnold flew around searching for a while, and accidentally found something else—something much stranger than what he’d actually been looking for. As he watched, rapt, nine objects flew through the air in formation.

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Plane Contrails Have a Surprising Effect on Global Warming Mar 12, 2020

Of the varied conspiracy theories regarding contrails—you know, chemtrails—one stands out for being especially wrong: the belief that the plane-made clouds are chemicals the government is secretly spraying to battle climate change, to the peril of those on the ground. First, contrails are nothing but the incidental result of mixing hot, water-vapor-filled jet engine exhaust with cold air. Second, the government has nothing to do with them.

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Hungry Animals Can Change How Badly a Landscape Burns Mar 11, 2020

As California has descended into wildfire hell, with ever bigger blazes burning ever more intensely over the last few years, an unlikely firefighting hero has emerged: the goat. Officials in mountain cities in particular have been hiring herds to hoover up overgrown vegetation, creating fire breaks around the edges of towns. It’s what these ungulates—and their brethren the world over—are born to do.

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Think Flash Floods Are Bad? Buckle Up for Flash Droughts Mar 10, 2020

In late spring of 2012, climactic chaos descended upon the Midwest and Great Plains in the midst of the growing season. A drought is supposed to unfold on a timeline of seasons to years, but in the two weeks between June 12 and 26, the High Plains went from what a monitoring group called “abnormally dry” to “severe drought.

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Spit Kits, Sperm Donors, and the End of Family Secrets Mar 09, 2020

Alice Collins Plebuch, or Grandma Nerd, as her grandkids call her, is good at solving puzzles. She was among the first wave of computer programmers—when that term meant punching information on cards to be fed into mainframes. She has an analytical mind and is at ease with technology. Years ago, she began digging into her father’s history, hoping to find more about the man who’d grown up in an Irish-Catholic orphanage in New York.

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Did a Woman Get Coronavirus Twice? Scientists Are Skeptical Mar 06, 2020

What could be worse than getting the pneumonia-like illness now known as Covid-19? Getting it twice. That’s what Japanese government officials say may have happened to a female tour bus guide in Osaka. The woman was first diagnosed with Covid-19 in late January, according to a statement released by Osaka’s prefectural government Wednesday. She was discharged shortly after, once her symptoms had improved. A subsequent test came back negative for the virus.

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This Clever Robotic Finger Feels With Light Mar 05, 2020

Robots already have us beat in some ways: They’re stronger, more consistent, and they never demand a lunch break. But when it comes to the senses, machines still struggle mightily. They can’t smell particularly well, or taste (though researchers are making progress on robotic tongues), or feel with their robotic grips—and that’s a serious consideration if we don’t want them crushing our dishes or skulls.

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Katherine Johnson’s Math Will Steer NASA Back to the Moon Mar 04, 2020

Katherine Johnson blazed trails, not just as a black female mathematician during the Cold War, but by mapping literal paths through outer space. Her math continues to carve out new paths for spacecraft navigating our solar system, as NASA engineers use evolved versions of her equations that will execute missions to the moon and beyond.

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So, Amphibians Glow. Humans Just Couldn't See It—Until Now Mar 03, 2020

You’ve never seen amphibians in this light before. Like, literally, this specific azure light. Today in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers for the first time show that amphibians glow if you throw blue light on them. The tiger salamander suddenly pops with brilliant green spots. Cranwell's horned frog is striped in a nuclear glow. Even the marbled salamander’s tiny toe bones fluoresce brightly—oh, and as does its cloaca, perhaps as a kind of sexual display.

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Glowing Amphibians, Extreme Weather Satellites, and More News Mar 02, 2020

Frogs are reflecting and satellites are detecting, but first: a cartoon about self-driving without a license. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Amphibians glow. Humans just couldn't see it—until now New research in Scientific Reports reveals that amphibians actually glow, and always have—scientists just couldn't see it.

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Australia's Bushfires Completely Blasted Through the Models Feb 28, 2020

Today in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers are publishing a series of articles as a kind of postmortem of the Australian bushfires. The series is both a diagnosis of what happened as flames swept across the continent, and a call to action for researchers the world over: Climate change is a crisis for people, the natural world at large—and for science itself.

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Bezos’ Earth Fund Should Invest in These Green Technologies Feb 27, 2020

On Monday, Amazon CEO and world’s richest human Jeff Bezos announced he was pledging nearly 8 percent of his net worth to fight climate change. This money, known as the Bezos Earth Fund, will be used to support “any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world,” Bezos wrote in an Instagram post. There are plenty of problems with a billionaire single-handedly dictating how the world community will fight climate change.

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How a Princess Cruise Became a Coronavirus Catastrophe Feb 26, 2020

When the Diamond Princess left the port of Yokohama in Japan on January 20, the 2,666 passengers on board were ready to unwind with a trip to China, Vietnam and Taiwan. But two weeks later they’d find themselves confined to their cabins, allowed out for only a few hours each day, while 542 of their fellow passengers and crew tested positive for Covid-19—the novel virus that has infected 75,000 people worldwide. Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.

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Want to Look Inside a Brain? With Transparent Organs, You Can Feb 25, 2020

Your organs are a lot of things—a powerful computer (in the case of your brain), detoxers (your liver and kidneys), breathing devices (your lungs). But there’s one thing they’re decidedly not: transparent. That’s unless you’re Kevin Bacon in The Invisible Man, or if your organs end up in the lab of Ali Ertürk, director of Helmholtz Munich’s Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

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The Atlantic Ocean's 'Conveyor Belt' Stirs Up a Science Fight Feb 24, 2020

Smack dab between eastern Canada’s Misery Point and Greenland's Cape Desolation is a place where the thrashing of the Atlantic Ocean’s churn sounds about as friendly as the nearby place names. This stretch of water, the Labrador Sea, has long been considered a critical junction in the global circulatory system of the world's oceans. By pumping warm water north and cool water south, the system regulates the planet’s climate.

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'Baby Talk' Can Help Kids Learn Language (Oh Yes It Can!) Feb 21, 2020

Confronted with a baby—or puppy—most adults can’t stop themselves from dissolving into baby talk: “WHO’S the cutest? It’s YOU! YES it IS!” We slow down, increase our pitch by nearly an octave, and milk each vowel for all it’s worth. And even if the baby can’t speak yet, we mimic the turn-taking of a conversation.

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Psychedelic Fiber Offers a New Twist on the Science of Knots Feb 20, 2020

One sunny day last summer, Mathias Kolle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a couple of eminent colleagues out sailing. They talked about their research. They had some drinks. Then Kolle noticed something was off: A rowboat tied to his boat had come loose and was drifting toward the horizon. As he tacked across the water to retrieve the wayward vessel, he realized his mistake. In securing the rowboat, he must have tied the knot wrong.

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A Car ‘Splatometer’ Study Finds Huge Insect Die-Off Feb 19, 2020

This story originally appeared on The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades. The research adds to growing evidence of what some scientists have called an “insect apocalypse,” which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Earth.

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This Marsupial Dies After Marathon Mating. Now It's Got Bigger Worries Feb 18, 2020

What if I told you that in Australia, a mouse-like marsupial called antechinus breeds so manically during its three-week mating season that the males bleed internally and go blind, until every male lies dead? And what if I told you that this isn’t the reason the species is facing an existential threat? Reporting today in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, biologists from University of New England in Australia and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology present troubling evidence that antechinus might be ill-prepared for a warmer world. The researchers set out to...

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NASA Puts a Price on a 2024 Moon Landing Feb 17, 2020

Nearly 10 months after Vice President Mike Pence directed NASA to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024, the space agency has estimated how much its Artemis Program will cost. NASA says it will need an additional $35 billion over the next four years—on top of its existing budget—to develop a Human Landing System to get down to the Moon's surface from lunar orbit while also accelerating other programs to make the 2024 date.

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Europe’s Solar Orbiter Begins Its Journey to the Sun Feb 14, 2020

Just before midnight on Sunday, a spacecraft will depart from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to the sun. Known as Solar Orbiter, this spacecraft will spend the next seven years dipping in and out of the extremely inhospitable environment around the sun. In the process, it will provide us with our first glimpse of the sun’s poles, which will be critical to understanding its topsy-turvy magnetic field.

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The Terrifying Science Behind the Locust Plagues of Africa Feb 13, 2020

Tearing across East Africa right now is a plague of biblical proportions: Hundreds of billions of locusts in swarms the size of major cities are laying waste to the crops in their path. It’s the worst outbreak in 25 years in Ethiopia. In Kenya, make that the worst in seven decades. Fueling the locusts’ destruction is a bounty of vegetation following unusually heavy rains. All that food means the landscape can support a huge number of rapidly breeding insects.

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The Secret to Blowing Massive Soap Bubbles Feb 12, 2020

Everybody loves bubbles, regardless of age—the bigger the better. But to blow really big, world-record-scale bubbles requires a very precise bubble mixture. Physicists have determined that a key ingredient is mixing in polymers of varying strand lengths, according to a new paper in Physical Review Fluids. That produces a soap film able to stretch sufficiently thin to make a giant bubble without breaking.

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A Promising Crispr Trial, Happy-ish Tesla Investors, and More News Feb 11, 2020

Gene-editing trials are optimistic and Tesla stocks are going ballistic, but first: a cartoon about meme cinema. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Crispr-edited cells show promise in first US human safety trial Initial reports on the safety of the nation’s first in-human test of the disease-fighting potential of Crispr gene editing are here: So far, so good.

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Crispr'd Cells Show Promise in First US Human Safety Trial Feb 10, 2020

It’s been over three years since US regulators greenlit the nation’s first in-human test of Crispr’s disease-fighting potential, more than three years of waiting to find out if the much-hyped gene-editing technique could be safely used to beat back tough-to-treat cancers. Today, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford finally revealed the first published report describing the trial.

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Permafrost Is Thawing So Fast, It’s Gouging Holes in the Arctic Feb 07, 2020

It’s perhaps the best known and more worrisome of climate feedback loops: As the planet warms, permafrost—landscapes of frozen soil and rock—begins to thaw. And when it does, microbes consume organic matter, releasing CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, leading to more warming, more thawing, and even more carbon emissions.

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A Bionic Jellyfish Swims With Manic Speed (for a Jellyfish) Feb 06, 2020

No disrespect, but roboticists have got nothing on the animal kingdom. Birds cut through the air with ease, while our drones plummet out of the sky. Humans balance elegantly on two legs, while humanoid robots fall on their faces. It takes roboticists a whole lot of work to even begin to approach the wonders of evolution. But maybe if you can’t beat ‘em, hack ‘em.

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A Tiny Glass Bead Goes as Still as Nature Allows Feb 05, 2020

Inside a small metal box on a laboratory table in Vienna, physicist Markus Aspelmeyer and his team have engineered, perhaps, the quietest place on Earth. The area in question is a microscopic spot in the middle of the box. Here, levitating in midair—except there is no air because the box is in vacuum—is a tiny glass bead a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand. Aspelmeyer’s apparatus uses lasers to render this bead literally motionless.

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Coronavirus Research Is Moving at Top Speed—With a Catch Feb 04, 2020

Jonathan Read admits to being something of a dinosaur when it comes to publishing his work. An epidemiologist at Lancaster University in the UK, Read had always followed the old ways—submit to a journal, get accepted, get comments and edits from peer reviewers, revise the article, publish. But a few years ago, something started nagging at him. That process typically moves a lot slower than a disease outbreak. And even when it moves fast, it can involve considerations besides rigor.

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A Spinning Rocket Slinger, a Bionic Jellyfish, and More News Feb 03, 2020

Rocket ships are spinning and jellyfish are winning, but first: a cartoon about Instagram art. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Inside Spinlaunch, the space industry's best-kept secret A company called Spinlaunch is giving life to a decades-old idea for how to get rockets into space: spin them here on earth and hurl them into the cosmos.

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Would the Coronavirus Quarantine of Wuhan Even Work? Jan 31, 2020

The Chinese government announced Wednesday that it would quarantine the city of Wuhan, the center of an outbreak of a new viral disease that has (officially) killed 17 people and infected more than 500. As of 10 AM Thursday morning in Wuhan—9 PM EST—no flights were leaving the airport. High-speed rail won’t depart for Shanghai, 500 miles to the east, or anywhere else. The bus terminals and roads are closed. Supposedly, it’s no one in or out. To be clear, that’s nuts.

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Spot the Robot Dog Trots Into the Big, Bad World Jan 30, 2020

This autumn, after years of dropping view-amassing videos of Spot the robot dog fending off stick-wielding humans and opening doors for its pals, Boston Dynamics finally announced that the machine was hitting the market—for a select few early adopters, at least. BD’s people would be the first to tell you that they don’t fully know what the hypnotically agile robot will be best at. Things like patrolling job sites, sure.

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The Most Complete Brain Map Ever Is Here: A Fly's 'Connectome' Jan 29, 2020

When asked what’s so special about Drosophila melanogaster, or the common fruit fly, Gerry Rubin quickly gets on a roll. Rubin has poked and prodded flies for decades, including as a leader of the effort to sequence their genome. So permit him to count their merits. They’re expert navigators, for one, zipping around without crashing into walls. They have great memories, too, he adds.

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A Robot Dog With a Job, a Noise-Canceling Car, and More News Jan 28, 2020

Hyundai is solving and robots are evolving, but first: a cartoon about parental phone tracking. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Spot the robot dog trots into the big, bad world You've probably seen the videos of Boston Dynamics' incredible (and creepy) robot dog Spot opening doors, trotting in parking lots, and fending off stick-wielding humans.

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Athletic Authorities Must Reckon With Racing Tech Again Jan 27, 2020

On October 12, 2019, Eliud Kipchoge crossed under a pink finishing arch emblazoned with the time 1:59:40. He had just become the first person to run a marathon in under two hours. For a few hours, this achievement, long unthinkable, was celebrated across the world.

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The Science Behind Crafting a Perfect Espresso Jan 24, 2020

Forgive baristas.

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Could China's New Coronavirus Become a Global Epidemic? Jan 23, 2020

What began in mid-December as a mysterious cluster of respiratory illnesses has now killed at least six people, sickened hundreds more, and spread to five other countries, including the US. On Tuesday, American health officials confirmed the nation’s first case of the novel coronavirus: a Washington man hospitalized outside of Seattle last week with pneumonia-like symptoms.

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Pop Culture May Evolve at the Same Rate as Birds and Bugs Jan 22, 2020

We like to think modern culture moves at a dizzying pace, fueled by a relentless parade of new works of music, literature, and technological design. Change in nature, by contrast, seems to follow a slower trajectory as genetic mutations over generations give animals bigger teeth, say, or a better camouflage. But maybe the opposite is true, and human culture doesn’t move so fast and we consumers are less eager to embrace change than we realize.

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Scientists Fight Back Against Toxic ‘Forever’ Chemicals Jan 21, 2020

On the day Susan Gordon learned Venetucci Farm, in Colorado, was contaminated by toxins, the vegetables looked just as good as ever, the grass as green, and the cattle, hogs, chickens, and goats as healthy. The beauty of the community farm she and her husband managed made the revelation all the more tragic. Chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, invisible and insidious, had tainted the groundwater beneath her feet.

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Meet Xenobot, an Eerie New Kind of Programmable Organism Jan 20, 2020

Under the watchful eye of a microscope, busy little blobs scoot around in a field of liquid—moving forward, turning around, sometimes spinning in circles. Drop cellular debris onto the plain and the blobs will herd them into piles. Flick any blob onto its back and it’ll lie there like a flipped-over turtle.

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A Feral Cat Infestation, Swarms of Snake Emoji, and More News Jan 17, 2020

Cats are in the rubble and snakes are causing trouble, but first: a cartoon about the internet frontier. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Cats are making Australia's bushfire tragedy even worse Animals trying to escape Australia's fires now face a new adversary: cats.

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Cats Are Making Australia's Bushfire Tragedy Even Worse Jan 16, 2020

Cats are scientifically, objectively, monumentally terrible for the planet. In the US alone, free-ranging domestic cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 billion mammals a year, to say nothing of reptiles and amphibians. They are a scourge of the highest order. Now felines are poised to exacerbate the ecological crisis unfolding in Australia as an unprecedented fire season rips across the continent.

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Australia’s Wildfires Might Intensify Future Climate Crises Jan 15, 2020

Australia’s wildfires are burning with such intensity that they’re sparking contained, small-scale weather systems. Thunderstorms triggered by atmospheric disturbance might at first seem to offer relief in the form of raindrops, but instead, bolts of lightning can strike nearby trees and spread the fire even further than before. Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.

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Scientists Made a Nearly Invincible Lithium-Ion Battery Jan 14, 2020

Lithium-ion batteries have shaped the modern world. These power pouches are at the heart of most rechargeable electronics, from cell phones and laptops to vapes and electric cars. But while they’re great at holding charge and have a high energy density, lithium-ion batteries aren’t without their problems. Their reliance on toxic, flammable materials means the smallest defect can result in exploding gadgets.

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The FDA Announces Two More Antacid Recalls Due to Cancer Risk Jan 13, 2020

That burning feeling in your chest after you eat a heavy meal could be heartburn. Or it could be worry over the drugs you’ve taken to treat that heartburn. Among the top medical stories of 2019 was the discovery of contaminants in common medicines, and ranitidine—best known as Zantac—took up a large share of those headlines. A cancer-causing substance known as NDMA has been repeatedly found in one of the most popular antacid drugs in the United States.

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Wildfires Are Obliterating Australia's Iconic Ecosystems Jan 10, 2020

Australians haven’t seen anything like the bushfires currently tearing through their country. The conflagrations are obliterating landscapes and their ecosystems, reshaping the continent in irreparable ways. Bushfires aren’t supposed to behave like this. In a normal world, every so often a lightning-sparked fire will roll through a landscape, clearing away old foliage to make way for the new.

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Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Cosmologists Battle It Out Jan 09, 2020

Dark energy, mysterious as it sounds, has become part of the furniture in cosmology. The evidence that this repulsive energy infuses space has stacked up since 1998. That was the year astronomers first discovered that the expansion of the universe has been speeding up over time, with dark energy acting as the accelerator. As space expands, new space arises, and with it more of this repulsive energy, causing space to expand even faster.

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Science Explains Why We Should All Work Shorter Hours in Winter Jan 08, 2020

For many of us, winter, with its chilly days and long nights, brings with it a general sense of malaise. It’s harder to peel ourselves out of bed in the half-light of morning, and hunched over our desks at work, we can feel our productivity draining away with the remnants of the afternoon sun. Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.

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How the Extreme Art of Dropping Stuff Could Upend Physics Jan 07, 2020

Babies love it, and Galileo supposedly tried it: Drop some objects from on high, and see how fast they fall. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, all objects in Earth’s gravity, regardless of mass, should descend at the same rate in the absence of air resistance. But there are plenty of reasons to believe this might not be true.

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Whales Help Explain the Evolutionary Mystery of Menopause Jan 06, 2020

There's a rare human trait that doesn't often make it into debates about what makes our species unique: menopause. Humans are among just a handful of species where females stop reproducing decades before the end of their lifespan. In evolutionary terms, menopause is intriguing: how could it be advantageous for reproductive ability to end before an individual's life is over? One possible answer: the power of the grandma's guidance and aid to her grandchildren.

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Now Entering Orbit: Tiny Lego-like Modular Satellites Jan 03, 2020

Just about a year ago, SpaceX sent the rocketry equivalent of a clown car to space: A rocket crowded with more than 60 small satellites. Inside one of them, Excite, were even more. It was actually a satellite made of other satellites, all clones of each other, all capable of joining together and working together. It was one of the first in-space tests of such a contraption—but in the coming years, this modular approach is likely to show up on more and more missions.

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It's Not Just You—Wild Swings in Extreme Weather Are Rising Jan 02, 2020

This story originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. From 2011 to 2016, California experienced five years of extreme drought, during which numerous high temperature records were broken. These hot, dry years were followed by the extremely wet winter of 2016 -2017, when, from October to March, an average of 31 inches of rain fell across the state, the second highest winter rainfall on record.

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This Cave Contains the Oldest Story Ever Recorded Jan 01, 2020

At this very moment, you're a participant in one of the things that makes us human: the telling and consumption of stories. It's impossible to say when our species began telling each other stories—or when we first evolved the ability to use language to communicate not only simple, practical concepts but to share vivid accounts of events real or imagined. But by 43,900 years ago, people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi had started painting some of their stories in images on cave walls.

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Giant Surveillance Balloons Are Lurking at the Edge of Space Dec 31, 2019

It’s a brisk December morning at Spaceport Tucson, America’s premiere (only?) dedicated launch pad for stratospheric balloons, and a small army of technicians in reflective vests is milling around on the concrete and dethawing after a long, cold night. Nearby, a white metal tripod the size of a smart car is tethered to two dozen solar panels and hundreds of feet of clear plastic that stretches across the pad.

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We Might Not Be Planting the Right Kinds of Forests Dec 30, 2019

This story originally appeared on Undark and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When most people conjure a forest, they imagine a dense network of trees, their crowns arching high above, with spots of sunshine flashing between the leaves. Some might also think of birdsong and insects, or summon thoughts of thick foliage in the understory, the crunch of leaves or pine needles underfoot, or overgrown trails meandering into the thicket.

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WIRED's 7 Big Science Stories That Shaped 2019 Dec 27, 2019

The practice of science is about progress: Crafting knowledge out of hunches and experiments, finding life-saving remedies, informing sound policies. It doesn't always go as planned.

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Got the Flu? These Doctors Really Want to See You—Virtually Dec 26, 2019

Flu season is good for no one. The infection kills thousands of people every year, while many more spend days suffering in bed. Kids get infected. Then the virus flattens the parents who stay home with them. Even dogs are laid low. Except there is one entity that kinda loves the flu. Telemedicine companies are hoping to use the annual scourge as a lure for new customers. When the days get shorter and the germs run rampant, they start to see more users checking out their services.

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Acidifying Oceans Could Eat Away at Sharks' Skin and Teeth Dec 25, 2019

For hundreds of millions of years, sharks have been roaming Earth’s oceans making meals out of a huge range of critters, from the whale shark gobbling up tiny krill to the 60-foot megalodon that could take down whales. Their ancestral line has survived mass extinctions with ease, most notably the catastrophe that took down the dinosaurs.

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New Tests Use Epigenetics to Guess How Fast You're Aging Dec 24, 2019

From the beginning of time, humankind has searched for the secret to a long life. Now science may have found an answer, in the form of molecular augury. The pattern of chemical chains that attach to the DNA in your cells—on-off switches known as epigenetic markers—can reveal how swiftly you are aging, and perhaps even how much longer you will live. While genetic testing might tell you where you came from, epigenetics promises a glimpse into the future.

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What a 5,700-Year-Old Piece of Gum Reveals About Its Chewer Dec 23, 2019

Nearly 6,000 years ago, in a seaside marshland in what is now southern Denmark, a woman with blue eyes and dark hair and skin popped a piece of chewing gum in her mouth. Not spearmint gum, mind you, but a decidedly less palatable chunk of black-brown pitch, boiled down from the bark of the birch tree. An indispensable tool in her time, birch pitch would solidify as it cooled, so the woman and her comrades would have had to chew it before using it as a sort of superglue for, say, making tools.

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Traveling for the Holidays? Here's How to Not Get Sick Dec 20, 2019

There’s a cruel irony in the fact that holiday travel tends to coincide with the rise of flu season. Yet more than 47 million Americans are preparing to sit for hours inside a tube in the sky, perhaps near someone with a hacking cough. It sounds like the perfect (infectious) storm. But reaching your destination without collecting microbial stowaways isn’t as daunting as it seems.

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Mathematician Terence Tao Cracks a ‘Dangerous’ Problem Dec 19, 2019

Experienced mathematicians warn up-and-comers to stay away from the Collatz conjecture. It’s a siren song, they say: Fall under its trance and you may never do meaningful work again. The Collatz conjecture is quite possibly the simplest unsolved problem in mathematics—which is exactly what makes it so treacherously alluring.

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Nature Deserves Legal Rights—and the Power to Fight Back Dec 18, 2019

In the summer of 2014, Markie Miller discovered she'd been drinking toxic coffee. Miller lives in Toledo, Ohio, where fertilizer runoff from farms had caused blooms of toxic cyanobacteria in Lake Erie, her water supply. The city issued an alert at 2 am, but by the time Miller saw it she'd already been sipping her morning java. “I'm like, shit, what did I just expose myself to?” she says.

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Forget Earth: In Space, Libertarian Ideas Are Thriving Dec 17, 2019

You may have heard the phrase “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” perhaps in conversation with your parents when they wanted you to get a job. Its acronym—TANSTAAFL—pops up in subreddits like r/Anarcho_Capitalism, on sweatshirts from the politically inclined website LibertyManiacs.com, and as a nerdy economics rap on YouTube. Also: For the first eight years of the Libertarian party’s existence, TANSTAAFL was its official slogan.

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The Next Nuclear Plants Will Be Small, Svelte, and Safer Dec 16, 2019

For the last 20 years, the future of nuclear power has stood in a high bay laboratory tucked away on the Oregon State University campus in the western part of the state. Operated by NuScale Power, an Oregon-based energy startup, this prototype reactor represents a new chapter in the conflict-ridden, politically bedeviled saga of nuclear power plants. NuScale’s reactor won’t need massive cooling towers or sprawling emergency zones.

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Scientists Find a Weak Spot in Some Superbugs' Defenses Dec 13, 2019

In 2004, a 64-year-old woman in Indiana had a catheter put in to help with dialysis. Soon after the procedure, she came to a local hospital with low blood pressure and what turned out to be a dangerous antibiotic-resistant infection from a bacteria called Enterococcus faecalis. Today, that woman’s blood samples helped solve a long-standing mystery: how this deadly bacteria neutralizes the most powerful antibiotic used to fight it.

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Melting Ski Resorts Have a Snow Machine Problem Dec 12, 2019

In late October, the snow elves—that is to say, employees—of the Zermatt Bergbahnen AG ski area in Switzerland fire up their secret weapon: a 30-ton snow-generating goliath known as Snowmaker. For 20 days straight it runs around the clock, churning out 1,900 tons of snow per day. That snow is then ferried up the mountain on vehicles with caterpillar tracks called “snow cats.” Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.

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Physics Explains Why You Can’t Open a Plane Door in the Air Dec 11, 2019

It’s the nightmare of travelers sitting near the emergency exit and the inevitable fate of bad guys tussling on a plane with James Bond—the door erupting open mid-flight, sucking them into the cold blue and white. This scenario was no doubt running through the minds of the passengers of a BA flight to Riyadh this week, when a man, reportedly in the grip of a panic attack, tried to pull open the aircraft door.

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The Arctic Is Warming Much Faster Than the Rest of Earth Dec 10, 2019

As climate delegates discuss the planet’s future at the COP25 meeting in Madrid this week, a new study finds the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet. That’s forcing polar bears and walruses to crowd onto shrinking beaches, starving reindeer and caribou, and driving extreme heat, drought, and sea level rise along the US coast. Those are some of the results of a new study published today in the journal Science Advances that reports the Arctic has warmed by 0.

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How to Get Solar Power on a Rainy Day? Beam It From Space Dec 09, 2019

Earlier this year, a small group of spectators gathered in David Taylor Model Basin, the Navy’s cavernous indoor wave pool in Maryland, to watch something they couldn’t see. At each end of the facility there was a 13-foot pole with a small cube perched on top. A powerful infrared laser beam shot out of one of the cubes, striking an array of photovoltaic cells inside the opposite cube. To the naked eye, however, it looked like a whole lot of nothing.

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SpaceX Will Bring the Science of Fire and Beer to the ISS Dec 06, 2019

On Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected to lift off from Cape Canaveral in Florida bound for the International Space Station. The brand new rocket will be carrying a previously flown Dragon capsule loaded with supplies and experiments. It will mark SpaceX’s nineteenth trip to the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program. After the rocket booster sends its payload on its way, it is expected to attempt a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

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A New Way to Make Comfy, Durable Smart Garments Dec 05, 2019

Some so-called smart garments—clothing and accessories outfitted with sensors, Bluetooth, and other gadgetry—flirt with the absurd. Does anyone need a $1,000 touch-interface backpack that alerts you if you accidentally leave your phone somewhere? Or a (now discontinued) sweatshirt that tracks your movements and awards redeemable ‘points’ you can spend on gift cards and “VIP experiences”? Not really.

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Stop Obsessing Over Sleep—Your Brain Will Thank You Dec 04, 2019

Maiken Nedergaard considers herself a pragmatic woman. She’s got kids, a career, and she knows she feels better after a solid night of shut-eye. She’s also a neuroscientist at the forefront of research showing the biological value of sleep. In studies she coauthored in 2013 and 2019, she documented how during sleep, fluid washes over our brains, clearing out toxins like beta amyloid, which is linked to neurodegenerative diseases.

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SUVs Are Worse for the Climate Than You Ever Imagined Dec 03, 2019

This story originally appeared on Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When I pull into a parking lot in my Toyota 4Runner, I hope I won’t see any of my friends who are environmental activists. I hope I’ll fit into the eco-conscious (read small) parking spaces at some of the places I shop. I feel like a skinny-car person in a fat-truck body.

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Our Planet May Be Barreling Toward a Tipping Point Dec 02, 2019

When we’re talking about social justice, a tipping point is a beautiful thing—a court case that shifts public opinion, for example. For a species, a tipping point can spell doom, as an environmental catastrophe pushes a population to the brink. When it comes to climate change, there isn’t just one tipping point but many that scientists are increasingly pulling into view.

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Climate Change Is Brutal for Everyone, But Worse for Women Nov 29, 2019

The climate crisis is so epic, so vicious, so wide-reaching, that at this point there are few aspects of the human experience it isn’t transforming. Supercharged wildfires are devastating California, heatwaves are killing more people and more crops, cities are struggling to adapt to strange new climates. The global transformation currently underway is also increasingly exposing a fundamental yet often hidden factor complicating matters: gender.

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Why Robots Should Learn to Build Crappy Ikea Furniture Nov 28, 2019

It’s become a veritable rite of passage for humans settling into their first apartments: Assemble a piece of Ikea furniture from a cryptic set of pictures without having either you, or the item in question, fall apart. What better way, thought researchers at the University of Southern California, to torture teach robots to manipulate the world around them.

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Are Saturn’s Rings Really as Young as the Dinosaurs? Nov 27, 2019

The Cassini spacecraft perished in a literal blaze of glory on September 15, 2017, when it ended its 13-year study of Saturn by intentionally plunging into the gas giant’s swirling atmosphere. The crash came after a last few months of furious study, during which Cassini performed the Grand Finale — a sensational, death-defying dance that saw the spacecraft dive between the planet and its rings 22 times.

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What Makes an Element? The Frankenstein of Sodium Holds Clues Nov 26, 2019

A few years ago, a group of physicists created an unusual, never-before-seen subatomic particle. Using a particle accelerator at Riken, a Japanese research institute, they slammed streams of calcium nuclei against a metal disk, over and over, for hours at a time. Then, sifting through the aftermath of the collisions, they found their coveted particle. They named their creation: sodium. That’s right, sodium.

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A Solar 'Breakthrough' Won't Solve Cement's Carbon Problem Nov 25, 2019

Anyone who says there’s nothing new under the sun hasn’t made a recent trip to Lancaster, California. There, on the outskirts of the Mojave desert, 400 giant mirrors, each the size of a large flatscreen TV, twitch in the sunlight. Their reflective faces are turned toward a nearby tower that looms over the lot like an industrial eye of Sauron.

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Hey Surgeon, Is That a HoloLens on Your Head? Nov 22, 2019

Imagine maneuvering your car through a dark tunnel that bulges unexpectedly in places and then turns sharply through a maze-like passage. The perilous journey feels safer with a light and camera showing the way ahead. It’s even better if digital lines lay out a track, assuring you stay in your lane. In a rudimentary way, that scenario illustrates the advantage mixed reality (or augmented reality) is bringing to surgery, starting with the delicate pathways of the sinus.

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Astronomers Detect Water Vapor Around Jupiter's Moon Europa Nov 21, 2019

In the search for life in our solar system, Mars tends to steal the spotlight (thanks, David Bowie). But in recent years Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa, has emerged as a promising extraterrestrial nursery. Planetary scientists have long suspected Europa may harbor a vast liquid water ocean beneath its thick, icy crust.

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Can Fake Horns Save the Rhino? That's … Extremely Thorny Nov 20, 2019

The economics of knockoffs is simple: The rich buy Prada bags, while the not so rich opt for fakes, which telegraph to the world they’re just as shallow as the rich, but on a budget. Prada doesn’t like knockoffs because they undercut both the bottom line as well as the purity of its brand. Some scientists have been trying to put this principle to work in the rhino horn trade, by producing a convincing synthetic alternative and one day unleashing it on the market.

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Pinterest Has a New Plan to Address Self-Harm Nov 20, 2019

In an age when so much of the internet feels bad, Pinterest has carved out a niche as the place you come to feel good. So when the company noticed Pinterest users searching for content related to “self-harm”—not a ton, but enough to catch someone’s attention—it decided first to filter out what would show up on the site.

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How Wily Teens Outwit Bathroom Vape Detectors Nov 18, 2019

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Alien Hunters Need the Far Side of the Moon to Stay Quiet Nov 15, 2019

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The EPA's Anti-Science ‘Transparency’ Rule Has a Long History Nov 15, 2019

Sometimes a bad piece of legislation doesn’t die, it just returns in another form. Call it a zombie bill. In this case the zombie is a bill that morphed into a proposed rule that would upend how the federal government uses science in its decision making. It would allow the US Environmental Protection Agency to pick and choose what science it uses to write legislation on air, water, and toxic pollution that affects human health and the environment.

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The Enduring Power of Asperger's, Even as a Non-Diagnosis Nov 14, 2019

Sixteen-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is the symbol of a climate change generation gap, a girl rebuking adults for their inaction in preventing a future apocalypse. Thunberg’s riveting speech at the UN's Climate Action Summit has been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube, and she was considered a viable contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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A Scientist's Tiny Black Hole Brings the Cosmos Into the Lab Nov 14, 2019

Inside his lab in Israel, Jeff Steinhauer crafts microscopic black holes. These objects are but humble specks, lacking the spaghettifying suction strength of an actual dead star. But Steinhauer, a physicist at the research university Technion, assures me that he’s constructed them mathematically to scale. Zoom in far enough, and you’ll see a miniature event horizon restaging the drama of a true black hole.

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Adam Savage on Juggling and How Obsession Makes You Smarter Nov 13, 2019

What sort of noise would juggling pins make if they fell three stories off a roof onto the pavement below? For a moment, it seems as if the adults and children gathered for the WIRED 25 Festival atop San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club will find out. But Adam Savage, tossing the three blue, white, and silver pins into the air over and over again, keeps his distance from the roof’s edge and his juggling on point.

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A Baby Fish Crisis, the Terrible Microsoft Surface Pro X, and More News Nov 13, 2019

Fish are dying and Surface users are crying, but first: a cartoon about a modern-day death wish. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less.

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Baby Fish Feast on Microplastics, and Then Get Eaten Nov 12, 2019

Teeming off Hawaii’s famous beaches is a complex web of life—sharks, turtles, seabirds—that relies enormously on tiny larval fish, the food for many species. In their first few weeks of existence the larvae are at the mercy of currents, still too puny to get around on their own, gathering by their millions in surface “slicks” where currents meet.

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Aerial Scans Help Bust California's Worst Methane Leakers Nov 12, 2019

The air above Earth—especially above California, United States, Earth—might have way more of one particular climate-changing gas in it than anyone thought. And that could actually be good news. The gas is methane, CH4, the main component of natural gas—also a frequent byproduct of oil drilling, agriculture, animal husbandry, garbage decomposition, and farts.

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Icelandic Walruses May Have Been Early Victims of Human-Driven Extinction Nov 11, 2019

There are no walruses in Iceland, but, at one time, there were hundreds. The timing of the walruses' disappearance suggests that the population's loss may be one of the earliest known examples of humans driving a marine species to local extinction. The Ghost of Walruses Past Walruses used to be a major feature of life in Iceland.

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FDA Permits the Sale of a New Smoking Device. Is It Safe? Nov 11, 2019

Not quite an e-cigarette and not the old paper kind either, the Iqos is the latest controversial device to enter the vaping wars.

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This Martini Wants to Kill Climate Change One Sip at a Time Nov 08, 2019

In 2017, Stafford Sheehan was a chemist working on artificial photosynthesis, coming up with metal-based catalysts that’d mimic the way living things acquire energy from the Sun. He did not expect to create a martini that could save the planet. Sheehan had an invention, a box that could electrolyze a burst of carbon dioxide and a dose of water. Run all that over a metal catalyst to goose a biochemical reaction, and, presto: renewable fuel made from air.

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SpaceX and Boeing Still Need a Parachute That Always Works Nov 08, 2019

On Monday, a small capsule launched off its test stand at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, reaching speeds of more than 600 mph in just seconds. The spacecraft was Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule, which will begin carrying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station next year. Later this week, SpaceX will also perform a test of its Crew Dragon capsule, a second try after a catastrophic explosion ended a similar trial run earlier this year.

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Do We Need a Special Language to Talk to Aliens? Nov 07, 2019

In May 2018, a radar facility in Tromsø, Norway trained its antennas on GJ237b, a potentially habitable exoplanet located 12 light years from Earth. Over the course of three days, the radar broadcast a message toward the planet in the hopes that there might be something, or someone, there to receive it. Each message consisted of a selection of short songs and a primer on how to interpret the contents.

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If You Want a Robot to Learn Better, Be a Jerk to It Nov 07, 2019

In what will go down as one of the greatest robotics experiments ever, a few years back researchers in Japan let a robot loose in a mall and watched how kids reacted. Far from the sense of wonder you might expect from children, the mood soured into a sense of concern for the next generation, as the kids proceeded to kick and punch the robot and call it names. Call it unconstructive criticism.

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The Delicate Art—and Evolving Science—of Wildfire Evacuations Nov 06, 2019

On the evening of October 23, in the middle of the kind of dry, windy night that has become more frequent and more terrifying in recent California autumns, a fire began outside the small unincorporated Northern California town of Geyserville. Over the next two days, as winds reached hurricane-like strength, they carried the fire south, burning some 75,000 acres and threatening some 90,000 structures as of Wednesday afternoon.

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Trump Can Now Exit the Paris Accord. It's Still a Bad Idea Nov 06, 2019

When President Trump visited Pittsburgh last month, he complained about how the Paris climate treaty was unfair to the United States. “I withdrew the United States from the terrible, one-sided climate accord, it was a total disaster for our country,” Trump told a cheering crowd at a natural gas conference. “They were taking away our wealth. It was almost as though it was meant to hurt the competitiveness—really, competitiveness of the United States.

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Where Do Hippos Wander? An Aquatic Mystery, Solved Nov 05, 2019

It’d be tough to mistake a hippo for a sensitive type. Weighing more than a Honda Accord and packing massive incisors, it’s one of the most dangerous animals on Earth. But in reality it’s far more vulnerable than it lets on: Habitat loss, climate change, and rampant water extraction are all threatening the African rivers the hippo calls home.

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Here’s What Happens When You Leave Weed Up Your Nose for 18 Years Nov 05, 2019

Nose pickers are often said to be digging for gold. But a 48-year-old Australian man needed an entirely different kind of nugget mined from his schnoz. Doctors excavated from the man's right nasal cavity a 19 mm by 11 mm rock-hard mass—the calcified remains of a small amount of marijuana he tried to smuggle into prison a startling 18 years earlier. ARS TECHNICA This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more.

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How the Measles Virus Induces ‘Immune Amnesia’ Nov 04, 2019

In the summer of 1907, a German doctor named Clemens von Pirquet noticed something strange with one of his patients. The five-year-old boy had previously tested positive for tuberculosis. The test involved injecting a tiny bit of TB protein just under the skin. His antibodies recognized it, activating immune cells which formed a little bump at the injection site. This happens to anyone who has ever been infected with TB. But when Pirquet performed the same test on the boy a second time, no bump.

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Bees, Please: Stop Dying in Your Martian Simulator Nov 04, 2019

Before astronauts head to the International Space Station, they spend years getting ready: They float in pools to practice for spacewalks, learn how to run different types of science experiments, and even practice how to poop. For future missions to the moon and Mars, scientists first try living and working in space-analog environments on volcanoes, deep inside caves, at the South Pole, and even underwater.

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Scientists Now Know How Sleep Cleans Toxins From the Brain Nov 01, 2019

Laura Lewis and her team of researchers have been putting in late nights in their Boston University lab. Lewis ran tests until around three in the morning, then ended up sleeping in the next day. It was like she had jet lag, she says, without changing time zones. It’s not that Lewis doesn’t appreciate the merits of a good night’s sleep. She does. But when you’re trying to map what’s happening in a slumbering human’s brain, you end up making some sacrifices.

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NASA is Getting Serious About an Interstellar Mission Nov 01, 2019

Interstellar space exploration has long been the stuff of science fiction, a technological challenge that many engineers believe humans just aren’t up to yet. But an ongoing study by a group of NASA-affiliated researchers is challenging this assumption. The researchers have a vision for a mission that could be built with existing technology. Indeed, the group says that if their mission is selected by NASA it could fly as soon as 2030.

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Scientists Take Baby Steps Toward Extraterrestrial Babies Oct 31, 2019

In February, the Spanish pilot Daniel González climbed into a small aerobatic plane at the Sabadell Airport outside Barcelona and fired up its single prop engine. Once he was in the air, González began a steep climb for about six seconds before entering a nosedive. The plane’s rapid descent created a microgravity environment in the cockpit and for a few seconds, González felt what it was like to be an astronaut.

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Technology Will Keep Us From Running Out of Stuff Oct 31, 2019

Thirty years from now, we’ll need to feed, clothe, shelter, and otherwise provide for 2 billion more people. Human-caused global warming is going to make these tasks challenging as it produces more deserts, droughts, heatwaves, and other stresses. Even so, I believe we’ll easily meet our challenges and take better care of the people who inhabit the world of the future, without experiencing sustained shortages of food or other important resources.

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California’s Wildfires Are the Doom of Our Own Making Oct 30, 2019

Every generation claims an event that defines it more than any other—winning a World War, or landing humans on the moon, or tearing down the Berlin Wall. But at this very moment, we have the dubious honor of living through an event whose impact will span generations: climate change. Never before has our kind faced such omnipresent peril, from supercharged storms to rising seas to drought to crop failure to biodiversity crises.

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We Should Just Build Giant Telescopes ... in Space Oct 30, 2019

In 2021, a rocket is scheduled to lift off from French Guiana carrying the largest space telescope ever made. Known as the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers will use this beast of an observatory to study everything from habitable exoplanets to the formation of the first galaxies. JWST is the first mega-telescope of its kind to ever launch into space—and it may also be the last. The next behemoth might instead get assembled in space with the help of robots.

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A Secret Space Plane Just Landed After a Record Stay in Orbit Oct 29, 2019

The old space shuttle landing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center received an unusual visitor early Sunday morning when the Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane autonomously returned from orbit after a record-breaking mission. For the last 780 days, the Air Force Research Laboratory used the space plane as an orbital platform for classified experiments.

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Ocean Cleanup’s New Plastic-Catcher … Kinda Already Exists? Oct 29, 2019

A little over a year ago, a group called The Ocean Cleanup launched an unprecedented campaign to rid the seas of plastic, complete with an unprecedented device: a 600-meter-long, U-shaped tube that was meant to passively gather debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for a ship to come along and scoop up and take back to land.

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Kincade Fire: The Age of Flames Is Consuming California Oct 28, 2019

Right on cue, Northern California has plunged back into wildfire hell. This time two years ago, the Tubbs Fire was ripping through Santa Rosa and other communities north of San Francisco, killing 22 and destroying 5,000 homes. And last year on November 8, the Camp Fire virtually obliterated the town of Paradise, killing 86 and burning an astonishing 20,000 structures to the ground.

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Can We Plant 20 Million Trees for 2020? The Math Says Yes Oct 28, 2019

There's a lot of power in a rough estimate. If you’re trying to figure out whether something is worth doing, you could really go deep into the weeds trying to capture all the costs and benefits. But here’s the thing: Usually you don’t need an exact answer in order to make the right decision. For example, say you’re having a big party, a hundred people, and you want to make special decorated cupcakes.

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The Most Diabolical Race and the Rise of Women Endurance Stars Oct 25, 2019

On Monday evening, Maggie Guterl and Will Hayward set out for the 60th time on a four-mile loop through the hickory-covered hills of central Tennessee. It was dark and rainy on day three of the Big’s Backyard Ultra, a running race of fiendish design. There's no set distance, and no set total time, just endless laps around a four-mile course, which participants must complete once an hour. To win, you basically just have to be the last competitor still moving your legs.

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Why Did Oklahoma’s Sooner Schooner Tip Over? Oct 25, 2019

College football is all about traditions, and most schools have some signature thing they do at games. Mississippi State has the headache-inducing din of cowbells. Arkansas fans summon their team to the field with a hog call. “Woooo Pig Soooie!” The Oklahoma Sooners have the Sooner Schooner. It's a little covered wagon pulled by a pair of enthusiastic ponies—you know, a prairie schooner—that careens onto the field whenever the home team scores. It’s pretty exciting.

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NASA Wants to Send a Probe to the Hellish Surface of Venus Oct 24, 2019

With all the talk about sending humans to the moon and eventually Mars, it can be easy to forget there are other planets worth exploring. But a team of researchers at NASA has set its sights on Venus, Earth’s closest neighbor and one of the least understood planets in the solar system. Since the first (crash) landing on Venus in 1966, by a Soviet probe, spacecraft have only survived a total of a few hours on the planet’s surface.

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NASA's New Space Suits Will Fit Men and Women Alike (for Once) Oct 24, 2019

When NASA designed its first space suits, they were tailored to fit the all-male crews who flew in the early 1960s and landed on the moon in 1969. But as NASA has become a more diverse agency, both in space and on the ground, the limitations of its suits have become a growing source of embarrassment. Since the final Moon mission in 1972, more than 40 American women have flown on the space shuttle or spent time on the International Space Station.

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The Bizarre Aye-Aye Isn’t Giving Us the Finger After All Oct 23, 2019

If it seems too good to be true, the old cliché goes, it probably is. And it doesn’t get much gooder than the bizarre hand of the aye-aye, a specialized lemur that uses a hyper-elongated middle finger to tap along hollow tree branches, listens for grubs within, gnaws a hole in the wood, and reaches that middle finger inside to fish out the food.

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Scientists Are Literally Spinning Up Lab-Grown Meat Oct 23, 2019

When Cypher is selling out his compatriots over dinner with Agent Smith in The Matrix, he muses: “I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.” In a simulation like the Matrix, ones and zeroes represent every nuance of that steak—the texture, the smell, the flavor.

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Andrew Yang Wants a Thorium Reactor by 2027. Good Luck, Buddy Oct 22, 2019

Presidential candidates are in the business of making big promises, and few of the Democratic contenders for the 2020 nomination have promised more than Andrew Yang. An entrepreneur turned politico, Yang has styled himself as the techie’s candidate. His platform is defined by its embrace of high-tech solutions for a variety of social problems and earned him endorsements from Silicon Valley heavyweights like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Jack Dorsey.

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A New Crispr Technique Could Fix Almost All Genetic Diseases Oct 22, 2019

Andrew Anzalone was restless. It was late fall, 2017. The year was winding down, and so was his MD/PhD program at Columbia. Trying to figure out what was next in his life, he’d taken to long, leaf-strewn walks in the West Village. One night as he paced up Hudson Street, his stomach filled with La Colombe coffee and his mind with Crispr gene editing papers, an idea began to bubble through the caffeine brume inside his brain.

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How Chaos Will Unfold if Trump Opens the Tongass to Logging Oct 21, 2019

The Trump administration this week proposed ending the so-called Roadless Rule, which banned logging, development, and road construction in Alaska’s Tongass, the biggest national forest in the US. If the USDA Forest Service has its way, it would “remove all 9.2 million acres of inventoried roadless acres and would convert 165,000 old-growth acres and 20,000 young-growth acres previously identified as unsuitable timber lands to suitable timber lands.

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All Hail the Blob, the Smart Slime Mold Confounding Science Oct 21, 2019

It’s official: Humans are canceled. If we’re not intent on slowly destroying the planet, then we’re getting busy being downright nasty to each other online. But in a world increasingly devoid of human role models, there are some unlikely sources of inspiration out there. Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. Enter The Blob—a yellowish chunk of slime mold set to make its debut at the Paris Zoological Park on Saturday.

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The NFL's Helmet Tests Are Brainless Oct 18, 2019

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Ethnobotanists have a new theory on which plant the berserkers ingested. Sep 25, 2019

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AI Could Reinvent Medicine—Or Become a Patient's Nightmare Sep 20, 2019

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Why We Need Guidelines for Brain Scan Data Sep 19, 2019

Opinion: Brain scans, aided by AI, reveal as much about you as your DNA. Grappling with their ethical implications is vital to scientific integrity.

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Physicists Finally Nail the Proton’s Size, and Hope Dies Sep 18, 2019

A new measurement seems to eliminate an anomaly that has captivated physicists for nearly a decade.

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Mass Graves in Russia Tell the Grim Story of Mongol Invasion Sep 16, 2019

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Three Ways to Fix the Drug Industry's Rampant Dysfunction Sep 11, 2019

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Unusual Fluids Flip, Twirl, and Redefine How Liquids Work Sep 10, 2019

New shape-shifting liquids can move or morph on command. One scientist even used them to make liquid cables for his headphones.

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India Is Ready to Touch Down Near the Moon’s South Pole Sep 09, 2019

If successful, India will become the fourth country to put a lander on lunar soil. The spacecraft will then collect data on the south pole's many mysteries.

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This Huge Electric Dump Truck Never Needs to Plug In Sep 06, 2019

Called the eDumper, the massive truck relies on regenerative braking to recover some of its energy as it slows down. Let's break down the physics.

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Scientists Avoid Bias When They Know They're Being Tested Sep 03, 2019

A new paper tracked possible bias among scientists awarding prestigious research positions.

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See How LA Belches Emissions, Block by Block Aug 29, 2019

Researchers quantify the emissions of every road and building in the nearly 5,000 square miles of the Los Angeles metro area. Your city could be next.

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Brazil's Plans for Gene-Edited Cows Got Scrapped—Here's Why Aug 28, 2019

The country was going to start a herd of genetically dehorned cows. Then errors in the cows' DNA cropped up.
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A Single Math Model Explains Many Mysteries of Vision Aug 28, 2019

The first anatomically correct model of the visual cortex seeks to capture how the brain sees the world.

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Vaping May Have Killed Someone, Health Officials Say Aug 27, 2019

An investigation into respiratory illnesses connected to e-cigs by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention turned up the first known death this week.

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The Horrifying Science of the Deforestation Fueling Amazon Fires Aug 27, 2019

At the core of Brazil's out-of-control fires in the Amazon is deforestation. Here's how human meddling fundamentally transforms a rainforest.

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Humans, More Than Drought, Are Fueling the Amazon's Flames Aug 26, 2019

Economic activity appears to be causing the rainforest to burn, unlike the other epic fires ravaging the world.

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Melting Glaciers Are Helping Capture Carbon Aug 23, 2019

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Vaping May Harm Your Blood Flow—Even Without Nicotine Aug 22, 2019

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NASA's Next Martian Rover Is Almost Ready to Rock Aug 21, 2019

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8/19 AM - A Strange Radioactive Cloud Likely Came From Russia Aug 19, 2019

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8/15/19 AM - 3 Animals Hurt By the New Endangered Species Act Aug 15, 2019

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8/14 PM - The Biomechanical Perfection of Simone Biles in Flight Aug 14, 2019

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8/14 AM - Why Lightning Strikes in an Arctic Gone Bizarro Aug 14, 2019

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8/13 pm - Ebola Is Now Curable. Here’s How the New Treatments Work Aug 13, 2019

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8/13 am - A Newfound Neuron Might Help Keep the Brain's Cells in Sync Aug 13, 2019

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8/12 am - New IPCC Report Shows How Our Abuse of Land Drives Climate Change Aug 12, 2019

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8/7 AM How to Reduce Gun Violence: Ask Some Scientists Aug 07, 2019

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Americans Trust Scientists, Until Politics Gets in the Way Aug 06, 2019

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8/5 midnight - Don't Ask How to Pay for Climate Change. Ask Who Aug 05, 2019

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8/2 noon - The Notre Dame Fire Spread Toxic Lead Dust Over Paris Aug 02, 2019

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The World Health Organization Says No More Gene-Edited Babies Aug 01, 2019

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7/31 AM The Bizarre, Peaty Science of Arctic Wildfires Jul 31, 2019

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7/30 AM Physicists Made a Blazing Hot Plasma Doughnut to Study Solar Wind Jul 30, 2019

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7/30 PM SpaceX Just Unleashed Its Starship Rocket for the First Time Jul 29, 2019

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7/30 AM Why Big Banks Could Soon Jump on the Quantum Bandwagon Jul 29, 2019

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7/26 PM Here’s How Elon Musk Plans to Stitch a Computer into Your Brain Jul 26, 2019

Elon Musk doesn’t think his newest endeavor, revealed Tuesday night after two years of relative secrecy, will end all human suffering. Just a lot of it. Eventually. At a presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, hastily announced via Twitter and beginning a half hour late, Musk presented the first product from his company Neuralink. It’s a tiny computer chip attached to ultrafine, electrode-studded wires, stitched into living brains by a clever robot.

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An Alien-Hunting Tech Mogul May Help Solve a Space Mystery Jul 24, 2019

In spring 2007, David Narkevic, a physics student at West Virginia University, was sifting through reams of data churned out by the Parkes telescope—a dish in Australia that had been tracking pulsars, the collapsed, rapidly spinning cores of once massive stars. His professor, astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer, had asked him to search for a recently discovered type of ultra-rapid pulsar dubbed RRAT.

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The Sea Is Consuming Jakarta, and Its People Aren't Insured Jul 24, 2019

Jakarta is sinking at the worst possible time. As sea levels creep higher, the coastal megalopolis continues to pump too much water from its underlying aquifers, and consequently the land is collapsing by almost a foot a year in some places. A modern city, home to 10 million people, is in danger of disappearing: According to one researcher’s models, 95 percent of north Jakarta could be submerged by 2050.

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What Happens When Reproductive Tech Like IVF Goes Awry? Jul 22, 2019

It sounds like the setup to a bad joke: Three couples walk into a fertility clinic. But the punch line—what happened to those families at one Los Angeles medical facility in August 2018—is no laughing matter. The embryos from two couples hoping to conceive were mistakenly implanted into a third patient. That third woman and her husband, both of Korean descent, suspected that something was amiss when their two newborns didn’t look anything like them.

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7/19 Headed to Mars? Pack Some Aerogel—You Know, for Terraforming Jul 19, 2019

Mars attacks. Its wisp of an atmosphere means that if you were standing on the surface, it’d be a race to see if suffocation or the sub-zero temperature killed you first. But that’s all tarring the red planet with too broad a brush, perhaps. It’s not all a rusty, frozen hellscape. At the mid-latitudes, just inches down into the ground, you’d find ice—frozen gases like carbon dioxide, even frozen water.

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The Strange Saga of the Butt Plug Turned Research Device Jul 18, 2019

Take it from sex researcher Nicole Prause: Cobbling together an orgasm detector that works on both men and women ain’t easy. You at least know that it has to go in the anus to detect the muscle contractions that the sexes share, so you begin with a butt plug. Many butt plugs, actually. “We ordered like 20 of these butt plugs off Amazon, and it messed up my recommendation engine for all time,” Prause says. To the butt plugs Prause added piezoelectric discs, which detect deformation.

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A Rocket-Launching Plane, Nintendo's New Switch, and More News Jul 18, 2019

Virgin Orbit is dropping rockets out of a Boeing 747, Nintendo is switching up the Switch, and a new design could make the middle plane seat tolerable. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less.

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Trees Emit a Surprisingly Large Amount of Methane Jul 17, 2019

This story originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. There are many mysteries in the Amazon. Until recently, one of the most troubling was the vast methane emissions emerging from the rainforest that were observed by satellites but that nobody could find on the ground. Around 20 million tons was simply unaccounted for.

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Tropical Storm Barry Pits New Orleans Against Water—Again Jul 16, 2019

If all does not go well this weekend, Tropical Storm Barry will spin into the city of New Orleans, bringing with it (according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) life-threatening storm surge, 40 mile-per-hour winds, and perhaps as much as 25 inches of rain. Barry is a lumbering brute; forecasters expect it to linger. Early coverage of the oncoming storm has focused, understandably, on the seemingly tenuous state of the levees alongside the Mississippi River.

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How Phone Taps and Swipes Train Us to Be Better Consumers Jul 16, 2019

In February, leaked software code predicted the demise of the back button on the latest version of Google's Android smartphone. Apple did away with the iPhone's home button in 2017. LG’s latest handset allows users to control their devices without touching them at all. Now, we scroll, swipe, and tap. Soon, we may never again need to hit a button on our phones.

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Why Dogs Now Play a Big Role in Human Cancer Research Jul 15, 2019

The Cancer Moonshot initiative, launched under the Obama administration, was audacious by design: Supercharge cancer research to encourage innovation, with the mission “to end to cancer as we know it.” Cancer researchers avoid using the word “cure.” From studying cancer at the molecular level, they know that tumors are complex—even personalized. There’s no simple cancer and no single cure. So, no single destination for a “moonshot.

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Virgin Orbit Just Dropped a Rocket From a Boeing 747 Jul 12, 2019

On Wednesday morning, a rather unusual plane could be seen flying high over Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. Unlike the military aircraft endemic to the area, this was a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet, its bright red tail emblazoned with a single word: VIRGIN. A 70-foot rocket was strapped beneath its left wing and about 30 minutes after takeoff, jet pilot Kelly Latimer released the rocket and sent it careening to the desert floor 35,000 feet below.

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NASA Needs to Out-Crazy Elon Musk Jul 10, 2019

On July 20, I will celebrate the 50thanniversary of NASA’s moon landing with my mother, an astronomer at Princeton University and the former chief scientist of NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute. Our family’s ties to NASA run deep. My father, also an astronomer, helped start the Hubble Space Telescope program and protected it over the years from Congressional budget-cutters.

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The Meat-Allergy Tick Also Carries a Mystery Killer Virus Jul 10, 2019

On May 31, 2017, 58-year-old Tamela Wilson checked into Barnes-Jewish Hospital, in St. Louis, with a fever, fatigue, and a strange red rash. She’d been undergoing chemotherapy to treat a relapsing lymphoma, but this exhaustion wasn’t just the cancer or the drugs. She told the doctors she worked at nearby Meramec State Park, tending to its miles of trails through forested river bluffs. And that while there, a week before her symptoms started, she found two ticks burrowed into her body.

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The Colorful Science of Why Fireworks Look Bad on TV Jul 09, 2019

Maybe you figure that 60-inch 4K TV you just bought gives you a good excuse to never leave the house. All the entertainment you could ever need gets caught in its internet-enabled gravity well, orbits your streaming services a few times, and then, thwoomp! Into your eyeballs comes the sweet dopamine hit of fun. But you are being deceived. Color televisions show color, sure—but not real, accurate, bold-as-life, wonderful-world-of color.

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An Itty-Bitty Robot That Lifts Off Like a Sci-Fi Spaceship Jul 05, 2019

Credit where credit is due: Evolution has invented a galaxy of clever adaptations, from fish that swim up sea cucumber butts and eat their gonads, to parasites that mind-control their hosts in wildly complex ways. But it’s never dreamed up ion propulsion, a fantastical new way to power robots by accelerating ions instead of burning fuel or spinning rotors. The technology is in very early development, but it could lead to machines that fly like nothing that’s come before them.

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How Extreme Heat Overwhelms Your Body and Becomes Deadly Jul 04, 2019

The heat wave that scorched Europe last week felt like a red alert of climate change. Death Valley was cooler than southern France, where temperatures reached a record-breaking 114.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But as the heat broke and returned to relatively temperate 80s, another forewarning emerged. Civilizations need to adapt and protect themselves from extreme heat. More than anyone, the French are aware of just how deadly extreme heat can be.

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The Debates Will Be About Climate—Disguised as Other Issues Jul 03, 2019

Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone, but Jay Inslee is going to get a presidential debate focused on climate change. Inslee, the governor of Washington state and one of two dozen candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, has been agitating for such a single-topic debate for months. Other candidates have signed onto the idea, and activists within the party have amplified the message. But Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said nuh-uh.

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Desalination Is Booming as Cities Run out of Water Jul 02, 2019

This story originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Some 30 miles north of San Diego, along the Pacific Coast, sits the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest effort to turn salt water into fresh water in North America. Each day 100 million gallons of seawater are pushed through semi-permeable membranes to create 50 million gallons of water that is piped to municipal users.

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NASA Will Send a Helicopter to Hunt for Life on Saturn's Biggest Moon Jul 02, 2019

On Wednesday, NASA announced it will send a spacecraft to the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and one of the leading candidates for finding extraterrestrial microbial life in our solar system. The Dragonfly mission will involve a small, drone-like rotorcraft lander that will be able to fly in small hops across Titan’s surface, covering more distance during its two-year mission than any planetary rover in history.

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Want Your Kid to Play Pro Soccer? Sign Her Up for Basketball Jul 01, 2019

The Women’s World Cup is in full swing, and today the Americans will face off against France in a battle to advance to the semifinals. This year’s American team is a strong one, both in personality (they are currently engaged in an equal-pay dispute with the US Soccer Federation) and in style—they started the tournament with a 13-0 rout over Thailand.

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Senators Try—Again—to Solve the Nuclear Waste Debacle Jul 01, 2019

On Thursday senators tackled the radioactive question of the nation's nuclear waste, this time with a new plan to circumvent the hot-potato politics that doomed Yucca Mountain and other proposals. A combination of new legislation that spreads out the nuclear waste burden and perhaps new technology could offer a new way forward. Everyday, the Department of Energy sends $2.2 million to the nation’s electric utilities to store spent nuclear fuel that has nowhere to go.

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The Health Effects of Wildfire Smoke May Last a Lifetime Jun 28, 2019

When smoke from California’s deadliest wildfire blew into downtown Sacramento last November, daylight blurred into dusk and the city’s air became among the world’s most polluted. The Camp Fire has long since been extinguished, but the health effects from the tiny particulate matter in the smoke, which penetrates into the lungs and ultimately into the bloodstream, could linger for years.

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What Could Possibly Be Cooler Than RoboBee? RoboBee X-Wing Jun 27, 2019

They used to call it RoboBee—a flying machine half the size of a paperclip that could flap its pair of wings 120 times a second. It was always tethered to a power source, limiting its freedom. Now, though, RoboBee becomes RoboBee X-Wing, as Harvard researchers have added solar cells and an extra pair of wings, freeing the robot to blast off to a galaxy far, far away. Or at least partway across the room, as it can only sustain flight for half a second at the moment, and only indoors.

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A New Kind of Space Camp Teaches the Art of Martian Medicine Jun 27, 2019

Ben Easter was delighted with the way his students were performing. He was especially delighted that a husband had just voted to kill his wife. The couple were both enrolled in the Martian Medical Analogue and Research Simulation, a continuing-education course for medical professionals who wanted to learn about health care in space by pretending to practice medicine in pretend space.

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Fitted With Sensors, Antarctic Seals Track Water Temperatures Jun 26, 2019

On a rocky island just off the coast of West Antarctica, ecologist Lars Boehme is standing face-to-face with a 1,500-pound elephant seal, eyeing the animal’s bulbous nose and jowls to see if he’s finished shedding his fur. When the seal opens his mouth wide to bellow, Boehme waves his hand in front of his face like he’s just smelled something foul.

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We Need a Data-Rich Picture of What's Killing the Planet Jun 25, 2019

You’ve probably heard about the plague of plastic trash in the oceans. You’ve seen YouTube videos of sea turtles with drinking straws in their noses, or whales with stomachs full of marine litter. But how much plastic is out there? Where is it coming from? We don’t really know, because we haven’t measured it. “There’s a paucity of data,” says Marcus Eriksen, cofounder of the 5 Gyres Institute, a nonprofit focused on ending plastic pollution.

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Neptune Is a Windy, Chilly, and Baffling Planet. Let's Go! Jun 24, 2019

It was just after midnight at mission control center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Carl Sagan was exuberant. The Voyager 2 spacecraft had just completed its decade-long mission by making its closest pass to Neptune, before continuing on into interstellar space. It was the first—and so far only—spacecraft to visit the mysterious blue ice giant lurking at the edge of the solar system.

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Lawyers in a Murder Trial Clash Over a DNA Forensics Method Jun 21, 2019

On a large screen inside a packed Snohomish County courtroom, in Washington, a young Canadian couple smiled out at the dimmed room from the relaxed, faded scene of a party. It was the last known picture taken of Tanya Van Cuylenberg and Jay Cook together before they disappeared in November 1987. Their bodies were discovered days after they went missing, more than 60 miles apart. Thirty-one years later, William Talbott II is now standing trial as the first person to be accused of the double murder.

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This Robot Fish Powers Itself With Fake Blood Jun 20, 2019

This story begins thousands of feet up in the air with migratory birds, and ends with a robotic fish swimming through the water below. To prepare for their journeys, birds fatten up big time, perhaps doubling their weight, essentially turning themselves into feathered batteries. Over many days and many miles, they burn that energy reserve to power their wings and keep themselves from starving and freezing. Eventually they reach their destinations emaciated.

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The Midwest's Farms Face an Intense, Crop-Killing Future Jun 19, 2019

The flooding that devastated the Midwest this spring damaged infrastructure and prevented farmers from getting crops planted on time. Though scientists can’t say if one storm or one wet season is the result of climate change, so far this year’s heavy rains are a perfect illustration of what scientific models of climate change predict for the region. And it’s only going to get more intense.

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The Physics of Actually Flying Around in an Iron Man Suit Jun 19, 2019

I was fairly impressed with the first episode of Savage Builds, which is now airing on the Discovery Channel. It's basically a show that lets Adam Savage (from MythBusters) do whatever he wants. In this case, he attempts to build an actual real-life Iron Man suit. SPOILER ALERT: He mostly succeeds. This is accomplished by printing out Iron Man armor pieces in titanium and then adding the jet suit from Gravity Industries on top of that. Yes, there is a real-life flying suit.

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These Sumptuous Images Give Deep Space Data an Old-World Look Jun 18, 2019

Eleanor Lutz has a running list of scientific topics she wants to find data sets for. It’s not her job exactly. A biologist with wide-ranging curiosity, Lutz moonlights as a data-driven illustrator who transforms public data sets into arrestingly beautiful visual objects. She’s made digital trading cards of animated viruses (who knew HPV could be so mesmerizing), and infographics on plant species that have evolved to withstand forest fires.

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A New Fuel for Satellites Is So Safe It Won’t Blow Up Humans Jun 18, 2019

Later this month, a small satellite will hitch a ride on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the world’s first demonstration of “green” satellite propellant in space. The satellite is fueled by AFM-315, which the Air Force first developed more than 20 years ago as an alternative to the typical satellite juice of choice, hydrazine.

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Remembering Gabriele Grunewald, Who Ran For Herself and Others Jun 17, 2019

The image is hard to look at now without crying: a thick red scar, carved across Gabriele Grunewald’s midriff as she flies around the track. At first it looks like it shouldn’t be there; perhaps it’s just an out-of-place shadow. But soon it becomes obvious what it truly is: a symbol of perseverance and pain.

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Blame Utilities for Wildfires. But Blame Everyone Else Too Jun 17, 2019

It’s hard to feel sorry for the California utility PG&E, considering that officials blamed its equipment for starting nearly every major fire in the state in 2017. Last year, it was responsible for igniting the Camp Fire, which killed 85 and destroyed almost 20,000 structures. The problem is typically wind, which jostles electric lines, raining sparks onto parched vegetation below. So just cut the power when it’s particularly hot and dry and windy, right? If only it were so easy.

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Estimate the Energy of an Utterly Massive Wind Turbine Jun 14, 2019

It's amazing that we can get electrical power just from the wind, but that's exactly what happens with a wind farm. It's a collection of wind turbines in a particular location with abundant wind. And as with many things, bigger is better. The Hornsea Wind Farm, for example, is being built 75 miles off the coast of Yorkshire, England, and upon completion it is expected to be the biggest offshore wind farm in the world.

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The Top Secret Cold War Project That Pulled Climate Science From the Ice Jun 13, 2019

In 1961—the year before he became the anchorman for CBS News—Walter Cronkite visited Camp Century, an unusual military compound on the Greenland ice sheet. Carved under the snow and ice, Camp Century had a main street and prefab housing for 250 soldiers and scientists—all powered by a pint-sized nuclear reactor.

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Here’s What a $52 Million Ticket to the ISS Will Get You Jun 13, 2019

So you have $52 million burning a hole in your pocket and just can’t decide what to do with it. Buy a private island? Too cliche. A new McLaren? You have enough of those. Pay off college administrators? Your kids have already graduated.

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More Scientists Now Think Geoengineering May Be Essential Jun 12, 2019

This story originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Once seen as spooky sci-fi, geoengineering to halt runaway climate change is now being looked at with growing urgency.

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New Space Telescopes Could Look Like Giant Beach Balls Jun 12, 2019

If we ever have giant inflatable telescopes in space, you can thank Chris Walker’s mom. Years ago, Walker was making chocolate pudding when he had to interrupt his culinary undertaking to field a phone call from his mother. He took the pudding off the stovetop, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed the pot on the floor by his couch. When the call was finished, he was startled to find an image of a lightbulb from a nearby lamp hovering over the end of the couch.

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The First Murder Case to Use Family Tree Forensics Goes to Trial Jun 11, 2019

On a clear day, from the middle of a well-trafficked stretch of reinforced concrete that spans the Snoqualmie River, you can just make out the hulking, ice-covered flanks of Mount Rainier. Locals bring their dogs here to the “High Bridge” to swim on their lunch breaks; high school kids in oversized hoodies pick their way through the raspberry thickets looking for a shady spot to light up.

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The Heady, Thorny Journey to Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms Jun 11, 2019

In an airy Denver cafe populated almost entirely by young people staring at laptops, Travis Tyler Fluck—dressed in an orange velour jacket, over which is draped a thin braided lock of hair—takes out his phone and pulls up Craigslist. A quick search lands him on a post advertising $10 magic mushrooms, with a poorly lit photo of said mushrooms.

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NASA Is Ready To Get Down To Space Business, and More News Jun 10, 2019

NASA is welcoming for-profit companies to space, Californians are slipping out of their measles vaccinations, and we've got some Father's Day gift ideas for you. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less.

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California’s Vaccination Rate Slips as Medical Exemptions Rise Jun 10, 2019

In the last few years California has gained ground in its fight to protect children from infectious diseases. But new data released this week shows that the state’s vaccination rate declined for the second year in a row. Last fall 94.8 percent of California kindergartners had received all their shots, down from 95.6 in 2016-2017. That drop may look small, but California has about as many kindergartners as Wyoming has people.

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Monterey Bay Is a Natural Wonder—Poisoned With Microplastic Jun 07, 2019

California’s Monterey Bay is one of the more pure, more dynamic coastal ecosystems on Earth. Otters—once hunted nearly to extinction—float among towering kelp forests, which themselves have rebounded thanks to the booming otter population’s appetite for kelp-loving sea urchins. Great whites visit from time to time, as do all manner of whales and dolphins. All told, it’s one of the greatest success stories in the history of oceanic conservation.

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What to Do About CO2? Try Stuffing It Into the Gulf of Mexico Jun 07, 2019

What if Texas oilmen (oilfolks?) could save the planet from climate change? Hardy-har-har. Given that the Lone Star State ranks sixth in heat-trapping carbon emissions worldwide, just behind Germany and ahead of South Korea, the idea sounds pretty far-fetched. But some recent developments have made the prospect a bit more conceivable. Texas is all about oil and gas.

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Telemedicine Makes It Safe to Get Abortion Drugs in the Mail Jun 06, 2019

Every restriction on access to abortion draws the metaphoric walls closer. On who can dispense drugs, on what clinical tests are required first, on how far along the pregnancy can be—the rules are all designed to delay, deter, and delegitimize. It’s a Death Star Trash Compactor. The box around abortion gets smaller and smaller. That’s policymaking; technology, meanwhile, tends to see boxes as something to think outside of.

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A Mythical Form of Space Propulsion Finally Gets a Real Test Jun 06, 2019

Since the birth of the space age, the dream of catching a ride to another solar system has been hobbled by the “tyranny of the rocket equation,” which sets hard limits on the speed and size of the spacecraft we sling into the cosmos. Even with today’s most powerful rocket engines, scientists estimate it would take 50,000 years to reach our closest interstellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. If humans ever hope to see an alien sunrise, transit times will have to drop significantly.

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Drugs That Boost Our Circadian Rhythms Could Save Our Lives Jun 05, 2019

This story is part of a series on how we make time—from productivity hacks and long walks to altering the function of our own circadian clocks. Before there was electricity or the internet or screens illuminated by thousands of liquid crystals rotating polarized pulses of photons, humans mostly lived by the daily comings and goings of the yellow burning ball of gas in the sky.

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Tired: Eating Bugs. Wired: Eating Bug Meat Grown in a Lab Jun 05, 2019

Depending on whom you ask, the future of food is plant-based burgers that bleed. Or we should all be eating insects instead of cows. Or we need to grow hamburgers in the lab by culturing cells, thus avoiding having to feed and hydrate legions of cows burping up greenhouse gases. Or how about we mash these up a bit: What if we grew not beef in the lab, but insect meat? According to a group of researchers at Tufts, culturing bugs could be easier and more efficient than culturing cow cells.

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The Military Is Locked in a Power Struggle With Wind Farms Jun 04, 2019

When Lt. Col. Joseph Goana takes off in his T-38 Talon training jet, he flies a loop north toward the Red River, which forms a meandering border between north Texas and southern Oklahoma. For decades, the remote farming area has been an ideal training ground for Air Force pilots like Goana. But in recent years, he says there’s been a new obstacle: wind turbines that now generate a third of Oklahoma’s electricity and 17 percent of the power in Texas.

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A Study Exposes the Health Risks of Gene-Editing Human Embryos Jun 04, 2019

A missing chunk of DNA, 32 base pairs long and smack in the middle of the CCR5 gene, might be the most studied mutation in human history. The spontaneous deletion, which arose thousands of years ago, has a striking relationship with one of the worst human diseases: HIV/AIDS. People who inherit this mutation from both of their parents are naturally immune. The only two people to have ever been cured both received bone marrow transplants from people who carry the Î”32 mutation.

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Everyone Needs a Good Pillow—Even Astronauts Bound for Mars Jun 03, 2019

By all accounts sleeping in space is a dream. After a long day of running experiments and rigorous exercise, astronauts on the International Space Station retire to their padded sleep pods, which have just enough room to fit the astronaut, a laptop mounted to a wall, and a few practical items. To prevent themselves from drifting through the station while catching some zero-g z’s, astronauts snuggle into a sleeping bag mounted to the wall of their sleep pod.

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Why It’s So Hard to Predict Where a Tornado Will Strike Jun 03, 2019

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about severe weather in the Midwest. We will update it as more information becomes available. This week brings atmospheric devastation to the Midwest: nearly 200 tornadoes have torn through the region since last Friday, including Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri, on Wednesday night. All told, the disasters have left at least three dead and 25 injured.

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Geothermal Energy Could Save the Climate—or Trigger Lots of Quakes May 31, 2019

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Imagine if there was a carbon-free form of energy hiding in the ground beneath you. One that we could turn to anytime, even on cloudy, windless days. There’s no need for imagination: It exists. Research suggests that geothermal energy could be the key to running the country on purely renewable power.

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Military vs. Wind Farms, Facebook vs. Fake Accounts, and More News May 29, 2019

The military is decidedly not here for wind farms, Facebook busted up more fake news accounts, and we have some advice for your next poo. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines The military is locked in a struggle with wind farms Advocates say that wind power is a win-win: wind farms help struggling rural economies with a new source of revenue, while also helping wean utilities off of fossil fuels.

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This AI Uses Echolocation to Identify What You're Doing May 29, 2019

Guo Xinhua wants to teach computers to echolocate. He and his colleagues have built a device, about the size of a thin laptop, that emits sound at frequencies 10 times higher than the shrillest note a piccolo can sustain. The pitches it produces are inaudible to the human ear. When Guo’s team aims the device at a person and fires an ultrasonic pitch, the gadget listens for the echo using its hundreds of embedded microphones.

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These Hidden Women Helped Invent Chaos Theory May 28, 2019

A little over half a century ago, chaos started spilling out of a famous experiment. It came not from a petri dish, a beaker or an astronomical observatory, but from the vacuum tubes and diodes of a Royal McBee LGP-30. This “desk” computer—it was the size of a desk—weighed some 800 pounds and sounded like a passing propeller plane.

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Mysterious Midwest Tornadoes, Airbnb's NYC Truce, and More News May 28, 2019

Tornadoes are tearing up the Midwest, Airbnb calls truce, and we've got some books for your long weekend. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines Tornadoes are tearing up the midwest. So why are they so hard to predict? Over 200 tornadoes have hit the Midwest in the past week alone, wreaking havoc on the towns they pass through.

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For the Midwest, Epic Flooding Is the Face of Climate Change May 27, 2019

Fierce storms lashed across the central US this week, unleashing hundreds of powerful tornadoes that carved a path of destruction through parts of Missouri and Oklahoma Wednesday night and left at least three dead. While the worst of the violent winds have passed, the region is now bracing for massive flooding, following record amounts of rain brought by the severe weather system and with more expected over the weekend.

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Measles Had Been Eliminated. Now It’s Nearly a Daily Threat May 24, 2019

The year 2019 isn’t even halfway over yet, and it’s already the worst year for measles since NBC stopped airing episodes of Saved By The Bell. Since January 1, the rash- and fever-causing virus has sickened 880 people across 24 states. That’s more than all the cases of the past three years combined.

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Scientists Go Back in Time to Find More Troubling News About Earth's Oceans May 24, 2019

Plankton don't get nearly the respect they deserve. These tiny organisms (phytoplankton being plant-like cells that produce much of the world’s oxygen, zooplankton being little animals) float around at the mercy of currents and form the very foundation of the ocean food web. You like whales? They eat krill, which eat, wait for it, plankton. You like your climate? Phytoplankton soak up CO2 and spit out oxygen, helping keep the planet a pleasant human habitat.

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A Rocket Built by Students Reached Space for the First Time May 23, 2019

In the early morning of April 21, 10 students from the University of Southern California’s Rocket Propulsion Lab piled into the back of a pickup truck with a 13-foot rocket wedged between them and drove down a dusty dirt road to a launchpad near Spaceport America, in southern New Mexico. When they arrived, their teammates helped them lift the 300-pound rocket onto a launch rail. Dennis Smalling, the rocket lab’s chief engineer, began the countdown at 7:30 am.

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Abortion Bans Create a Public Health Nightmare May 23, 2019

On Friday, the legislature of Missouri passed a ban on abortions, among the most extreme of any state. It prohibits any abortions after eight weeks of gestation, putting it among the category of misleadingly named “heartbeat bills” that use fetal cardiac activity as a marker for … well, illegality, really. Like a law signed earlier last week in Alabama, the Missouri bill contains no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

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The Mystifying Case of the Missing Planets May 21, 2019

After the sun formed, the dust and gas left over from its natal cloud slowly swirled into the eight planets we have today. Small, rocky things clung close to the sun. Gigantic gas worlds floated in the system’s distant reaches. And around countless stars in the galaxy, a version of this process repeated itself, forging plentiful planets in a spectrum of sizes — except, apparently, worlds just a tad bigger than Earth.

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Inside Facebook's New Robotics Lab, Where AI and Machines Friend One Another May 21, 2019

At first glance, Facebook’s nascent robotic platform looks a bit … chaotic. In a new lab in its palatial Silicon Valley HQ, a red-and-black Sawyer robot arm (from the recently defunct company Rethink Robotics) is waving all over the place with a mechanical whine. It’s supposed to casually move its hand to a spot in space to its right, but it goes up, up, up and way off course, then resets to its starting position. Then the arm goes right, and gets pretty close to its destination.

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Inside Swamp Works, the NASA Lab Learning to Mine the Moon May 21, 2019

This is a story about dust. Dust that can mold into the shape of an astronaut’s boot and remain unchanged for millennia. Dust that cuts like glass. Dust so fine that it brings billion-dollar machines to their pneumatic knees. Moondust. For Jason Schuler, a robotics engineer at NASA’s Swamp Works, in Florida, it’s an obsession. He works on machines that can extract, pulverize, mold, analyze, and protect against extraterrestrial dirt.

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Now Ocean Plastics Could Be Killing Oxygen-Making Bacteria May 20, 2019

This planet has a problem with plastic. Not just the big masses of it accumulating in the Pacific, but with the tiny bits that are blowing into pristine mountaintop habitats. The flecks showing up in a range of sea creatures. The specks materializing even in human feces.

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5G Networks Could Throw Weather Forecasting Into Chaos May 20, 2019

If you had a choice between a better, faster cell phone signal and an accurate weather forecast, which would you pick? That’s the question facing federal officials as they decide whether to auction off more of the wireless spectrum or heed meteorologists who say that such a move could throw US weather forecasting into chaos. On Capitol Hill Thursday, NOAA’s acting chief, Neil Jacobs, said that interference from 5G wireless phones could reduce the accuracy of forecasts by 30 percent.

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'Heartbeat' Bills Get the Science of Fetal Heartbeats All Wrong May 17, 2019

Last week, Georgia governor Brian Kemp—the narrow winner over Stacey Abrams in a contentious, sketchy election last year—signed into law a ban on abortions after more than six weeks of pregnancy. That made Georgia the sixth state to institute such a ban, and the fourth this year (Ohio’s elected officials put theirs in place in April), with seven more states kicking around the idea.

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This Casino's Microgrid Might Be the Future of Energy May 17, 2019

As the Fukushima disaster unfolded in Japan, the Blue Lake Rancheria, in Northern California, was dealing with its own crisis. Several miles inland and uphill from the Pacific Ocean, the 100 acres of tribal land had turned into a haven for roughly 3,000 coastal dwellers who were fleeing a feared tsunami from that same earthquake. A huge line of cars assembled at the Rancheria’s gas station; one young woman ran in circles, holding her baby and weeping.

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NASA Needs $1.6 Billion More to Send a Human to the Moon May 16, 2019

NASA revealed Monday that it needs an additional $1.6 billion in funding for fiscal year 2020 to stay on track for a human return to the moon by 2024. The space agency's budget amendment comes in addition to the $21 billion the Trump administration asked Congress for in March. Ars Technica This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast.

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What's So Special About Human Screams? Ask a Screamologist May 16, 2019

I scream, you scream, we all scream. For ice cream, sure, but also for fear, excitement, sexual pleasure, pain, anger, and—if online commenters are to be believed—memes ðŸ˜±. Screaming is exhibited by many animals, but no species uses this extreme vocalization in as many different contexts as humans. Though we're pretty good at recognizing a scream when we hear one, the wide variety of screams makes it difficult to pin down what defines them.

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The Chernobyl Disaster Might Have Also Built a Paradise May 15, 2019

Until the 19th century, the Pripyat River basin on the border between Ukraine and Belarus was wetland and forest. As usual, humans kind of ruined it. They burned down forest for pasture land, or cut down trees to sell as timber—or for fuel to make glass and vodka. By the middle of the 20th century, most of that industry was gone, and human-driven reforestation efforts had remade the Pripyat region anew.

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Only Two Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Have a Climate Plan May 14, 2019

This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Of the nearly two dozen Democrats running for president, only two campaigns have so far laid out deadlines for transforming American life to slash the pollution that is warming the planet’s climate.

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Jeff Bezos Unveils Blue Origin's Prototype of a Lunar Lander May 14, 2019

When Robert Heinlein wrote his masterpiece of space age realism, The Man Who Sold the Moon, he had no way of knowing how prescient it would be. Published in 1950, it tells the tale of Delos D. Harriman, the “last of the robber barons,” who is hellbent on being the first man on the moon. Harriman drives himself to the brink of bankruptcy and madness chasing his lunar ambitions, which he feels can’t be left to the bumbling government bureaucracy to handle.

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Bad Air Linked To Dementia, Bezos' Lunar Lander, and More News May 13, 2019

Air pollution is worse for us than we thought, the world's richest man unveiled his moon craft, and Mother's Day is around the corner. Here's what you should know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines Evidence suggests air pollution might cause dementia The health conscious among us can eat well, exercise plenty, and abstain vices, like smoking. But the worsening air quality in American cities is increasingly difficult to avoid.

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Seafloor Maps Reveal Underwater Caves, Slopes—and Fault Lines May 10, 2019

Larry Mayer is headed out this week on a ship to explore the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast. Well, he’s actually exploring seafloor formations near the islands, looking for evidence that ancient peoples might have camped out in the caves as they migrated south some 15,000 years ago, a time when the sea level was 600 feet lower than today.

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Scientists Save a Sick Teen, Hackers Steal $40 Million, and More News May 10, 2019

Viruses from a freezer saved a dying teen, hackers stole millions, and Adam Savage has some organization tips for you. Here's what you should know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines Genetically tweaked viruses just saved a sick teen A teenage girl in London found herself in life-threatening peril from cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition where the lungs can’t clear mucus or disease-causing bacteria. She had already had double lung transplants and was running out of options.

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Genetically Tweaked Viruses Just Saved a Very Sick Teen May 09, 2019

In October 2017, Graham Hatfull received an urgent email from across the pond. A microbiologist colleague of his named James Soothill was desperately looking for a way to help two patients at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The pair of teenagers, a girl and a boy, had cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition where the lungs can’t clear mucus or disease-causing bacteria. And they had both recently received double lung transplants as a result.The surgeries had gone well.

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China's Scientists Are the New Kids on the Arctic Block May 09, 2019

For nearly a century, the Arctic has been a scientific playground for American, Canadian, and European researchers studying everything from magnetic fields to krill populations, as well as documenting rising temperatures and a changing climate. But with China increasingly expressing an interest in all things Arctic, a geopolitical storm is brewing. Traditional boundaries between science, commerce, and the military are melting as fast as the region’s sea ice.

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Calculate the G’s of Using an Ejection Seat to Blast Out of a Jet May 08, 2019

I've never been in a situation where I had to choose between the option of crashing in a jet or ejecting from the jet. I hope I would choose the ejection option, since it would more likely lead to a better outcome than crashing. That said, if you look at the ejection systems in modern military aircraft, they look brutal. The acceleration on ejection must be enormous. OK then—let's see if I can measure the acceleration of an ejection seat using video analysis.

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Sunscreen in Your Bloodstream, Google’s Conference, and More News May 08, 2019

Sunscreen chemicals are slipping through your pores, Google has big conference coming, and Game of Thrones made an "oopsie." Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. PSA: Sunscreen chemicals can seep into your bloodstream A new clinical trial from the FDA suggests that, contrary to what sunscreen manufacturers have been saying, the UV blocking chemicals in sunscreen do, in fact, seep into your bloodstream.

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Sunscreen Chemicals Soak All the Way Into Your Bloodstream May 07, 2019

By now, you’ve probably been taught to gird your sun-starved skin for battle with cancer-causing cosmic rays every time you go outside. Choose a spray, choose a lotion, but by heavens, choose something! Legions of doctors, parents, and YouTube beauty influencers are unanimous on this point.

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Legendary Haight Street Gets a New, Legal King of Weed May 07, 2019

This past Valentine’s Day, Shawn Richard stood before the San Francisco Planning Commission and made the case for why the board should let him open the first cannabis dispensary in the city’s legendary Upper Haight neighborhood. Given the Haight’s legacy as the epicenter of the weed-fueled counterculture movement, his shop would be historically significant.

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SpaceX Is Launching 'Organs on a Chip' to the ISS May 06, 2019

Last month, a journal published an n-of-one experiment of unusual origin. It was the study comparing astronaut Scott Kelly’s physiology to that of his Earthbound identical twin brother, Mark. During his time on the International Space Station, Scott gathered reams of data on his own health and took hundreds of samples of his own stool, urine, and blood, for comparison later to those of Mark.

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How to Build, and Keep Building, a Cathedral Like Notre Dame May 06, 2019

The roof of Notre Dame Cathedral wasn’t just a roof. Sure, it kept the rain out. But what burned away in Paris last April was a technical marvel, the height—literally—of 12th- and 13th-century engineering.

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A Programmer Solved a 20-Year-Old Forgotten Crypto Puzzle May 03, 2019

In early April, 1999, a time capsule was delivered to the famed architect Frank Gehry with instructions to incorporate it into his designs for the building that would eventually host MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, or CSAIL. The time capsule was essentially a museum of early computer history, containing 50 items contributed by the likes of Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee.

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Women May Soon Start Using AI to Tell Good Eggs From Bad May 02, 2019

Millennials are increasingly making time in their busy schedules to put their eggs on ice. More effective flash-freezing technologies, micro-optimized ad targeting, and a growing willingness among companies to follow Silicon Valley’s lead of including fertility treatments in benefit packages, have made the practice more attractive to would-be parents.

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These Super-Precise Clocks Help Weave Together Space And Time May 02, 2019

The world’s most precise clock sits on a table in Jun Ye’s lab in Boulder, Colorado. A tangle of electronics, fiber optic cables, and laser beams, the clock is still a prototype, so no one actually uses it to tell time. Ye, who is a physicist at the research institute JILA, and his team have demonstrated that the clock can produce a second with precision in the parts per quintillion—that’s 10-19, some hundred billion times more precise than a quartz wristwatch.

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The Grid Might Survive an Electromagnetic Pulse Just Fine May 01, 2019

Over the past few years, speculation has risen around whether North Korea or any other nation could detonate a nuclear weapon over the United States that would create an electromagnetic pulse, and knock out all electricity for weeks or months. This doomsday hypothesis has been promoted by a former CIA director , a commission set up by Congress, and a book by newsman Ted Koppel.

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RIP, Anki: Yet Another Home Robotics Company Powers Down May 01, 2019

Today brings sad news in the world of consumer robotics. Anki, maker of Vector, a toy-like autonomous countertop robot, is shutting down, and hundreds of people are losing their jobs.

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Meet the Pro-Vaxxers Helping to Stave Off the Next Pandemic Apr 30, 2019

Ken Haller is 64, but he vividly remembers having measles when he was 7. And mumps when he was 10. And chickenpox when he was 11, which required him to keep socks on his hands so he wouldn’t gouge his skin from scratching. He still has a faint scar on his nose from one pustule he scratched too intensely. Haller is also a pediatrician who has treated babies who developed meningitis from Haemophilus influenzae (now vaccine-preventable) and became blind—or died.

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Fighting Measles, LA Pulls a Classic Move: Quarantine Apr 30, 2019

Hardly anyone actually has measles in Los Angeles (so far; thank goodness). Just five people who passed through the airports, and five residents of the county. Four of those residents are “linked cases,” meaning three got it from one. The problem is, one of those people infected with measles spent some time on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Another one spent an afternoon in a library at Cal State LA.

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The Plan to Grab the World's Carbon With Supercharged Plants Apr 29, 2019

In humanity’s battle against man-made climate change, the earth itself provides one of the most important weapons, a natural system that breathes in earth-warming CO2 and exhales oxygen. Yes, I’m talking about plants, engineered by nature itself over the course of millennia to harness the Earth’s natural conditions to turn sunlight and CO2 into oxygen and organic matter. Plants are the key to many climate change-fighting tactics.

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The Meteoric Rise of Family Tree Forensics to Fight Crimes Apr 26, 2019

Three hundred and sixty six days ago, CeCe Moore woke up to the headline that would change her world: “Suspected Golden State Killer, East Area Rapist arrested after eluding authorities for decades.

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The Machine That Reads Your Mind (Kinda) and Talks (Sorta) Apr 25, 2019

Edward Chang keeps a cybernetic implant at his desk, which seems almost calculatedly cool. Chang is a lean, low-voiced neurosurgeon at UC San Francisco. The cybernetic implant—more properly a Brain-Computer Interface—is a floppy, translucent plastic square about the size of my hand, embedded with a 16-by-16 array of titanium dots, each about the size of a cupcake sprinkle. This part sits on top of a brain.

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What’s Known About the SpaceX Crew Dragon Accident Apr 25, 2019

During a series of engine tests of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft this past Saturday, the vehicle experienced what the company has characterized as an "anomaly." Based upon an unauthorized leaked video of the accident, the company was counting down toward a firing of the Dragon's SuperDraco thrusters when the vehicle exploded. SpaceX has not validated the video, but it is consistent with verbal accounts of the failure that have been shared with Ars.

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In Automation, the Last Motion Will Come Before the Last Mile Apr 24, 2019

We talk a lot these days about using robots to manage the problem of the "last mile." Say, getting a package to a doorstep from a local delivery center.Or picking up garbage from a backyard.Or delivering pizza. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Matt Beane is an Assistant Professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara and a Research Affiliate at MIT's Institute for the Digital Economy.

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Offshore Wind Farms Are Spinning Up in the US—At Last Apr 24, 2019

On June 1, the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts will shut down, a victim of rising costs and a technology that is struggling to remain economically viable in the United States. But the electricity generated by the aging nuclear station soon will be replaced by another carbon-free source: a fleet of 84 offshore wind turbines rising nearly 650 feet above the ocean's surface.

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Ancestry.com’s Racist Ad Tumbles Into a Cultural Minefield Apr 23, 2019

On Thursday, the world’s largest DNA testing company, Ancestry.com, pulled a video advertisement amid a cascade of criticism on social media. The ad, titled, “Inseparable” and cinematically shot to portray a gauzy, gothic moment on the streets of the Antebellum South, depicted a white man offering a black woman a ring and imploring her to “escape to the north” with him. In the captions, they are referred to as “lovers.

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AI Could Predict Death. But What If the Algorithm Is Biased? Apr 23, 2019

Earlier this month the University of Nottingham published a study in PloSOne about a new artificial intelligence model that uses machine learning to predict the risk of premature death, using banked health data (on age and lifestyle factors) from Brits aged 40 to 69.

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You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep—and It’s Killing You Apr 22, 2019

The whole world is exhausted. And it’s killing us. But particularly me. As I write this, I’m at TED 2019 in Vancouver, which is a weeklong marathon of talks and workshops and coffee meetings and experiences and demos and late-night trivia contests and networking, networking, networking.

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New York’s Aggressive Climate Law Takes Aim at Skyscrapers Apr 22, 2019

On Thursday, the New York City Council voted into law a sweeping set of rules to fight climate change, a metropolis-scaled version of a Green New Deal. And if the lawmakers and policy wonks who built the bills have their way, they’ll be a model for cities everywhere to cut carbon emissions and save the planet. The Climate Mobilization Act, an omnibus of a half-dozen bills, takes an aggressive posture to reducing carbon emissions from America’s most populous city. Those 8.

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China Finds Phone-Wielding Tourists and Telescopes Don't Mesh Apr 19, 2019

If a giant telescope observes the universe, and no one around can take a picture of it, does it really exist? The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope—located in Guizhou, China—will have to find out. New regulations, put into effect in early April, ban (among other things) cell phones, smart wearables, drones, and digital cameras within 5 kilometers of the dish and impose uncomfortably large fines on those who break the rules.

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Crispr Gene Editing Is Coming for the Womb Apr 18, 2019

William Peranteau is the guy parents call when they’ve received the kind of bad news that sinks stomachs and wrenches hearts. Sometimes it’s a shadow on an ultrasound or a few base pairs out of place on a prenatal genetic test, revealing that an unborn child has a life-threatening developmental defect.

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A Shocking Find Shows Just How Far Wind Can Carry Microplastics Apr 18, 2019

At the top of the French Pyrenees, not far from the border with Spain, is a virtually pristine clearing, home to snow and a weather station—but mostly feet upon feet of snow. The nearest road closes in the winter. The most substantial town within 60 miles tallies just 9,000 people. Look closely at the landscape, though, and you’ll see the place is covered in plastic.

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The Notre Dame Fire and the Future of History Apr 17, 2019

Some of the wood that burned in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on Monday was put in place in the year 1160. The beams and exterior of the roof over the nave, the long main section of the building, date from between 1220 and 1240. Nearly a millennium ago it was forest; today, after a catastrophe that cuts to the heart of French culture and human history, it’s ash.

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First Big Survey of Births Finds Millions of Missing Women Apr 16, 2019

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SpaceX Lands All 3 Boosters of the World's Most Powerful Rocket Apr 16, 2019

The Falcon Heavy rocket is many things, but “timely” is not one of them. Delay after delay have plagued its development. And this week, the same fate befell its launch schedule. Originally planned to liftoff last Sunday, the Falcon Heavy’s first commercial launch was thrice delayed due to unfavorable weather conditions before it finally left launchpad 39-A at Kennedy Space Center today. The wait was worth it.

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Researchers Want to Link Your Genes and Income—Should They? Apr 15, 2019

The UK Biobank is the single largest public genetic repository in the world, with samples of the genetic blueprints of half a million Brits standing by for scientific study. But when David Hill, a statistical geneticist at the University of Edinburgh, went poring through that data, he wasn’t looking for a cure for cancer or deeper insights into the biology of aging. Nothing like that. He was trying to figure out why some people make more money than others.

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Lasers Highlight Ketamine's Depression-Fighting Secrets Apr 12, 2019

Last month, the FDA approved esketamine, the nose spray version of ketamine, for treatment-resistant depression. You probably know by now that ketamine is a party drug, but it actually finds far wider use as an anesthetic on the World Health Organization’s list of Essential Medicines. Scientists have a good idea of how exactly it brings about its anesthetic charms, on account of it interacting with certain receptors in the brain.

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How the Boston Marathon Messes With Runners to Slow Them Down Apr 11, 2019

The Boston Marathon course looks like it should be fast. You start out in the distant suburb of Hopkinton—elevation 490 feet above sea level—and then cruise steadily downhill until about mile 9. The finish line has an elevation of a mere 10 feet above Boston Harbor. Fans pack the sides cheering you on. The route is pretty straight, west to east, with few 90-degree turns of the sort that slow your momentum. The road is asphalt, which is more forgiving than concrete.

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New York's Vaccine Order Shows How Health Laws Are Failing Us Apr 11, 2019

On Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with its latest measles numbers, and let’s be honest, they weren’t great. At least 465 cases across 19 states have been reported nationwide so far this year, including 78 in the last week alone. Nationwide, that means more people have caught the notoriously contagious disease in the past three and a half months than all of last year.

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Sea Levels Are Rising. Time to Build ... Floating Cities? Apr 10, 2019

With sea levels expected to rise at least 26 inches by the end of the century due to human-driven climate change, to say that we have a problem is something of an understatement. By the middle of the next century, many of the world’s major cities will be flooded and in some cases, entire island nations will be underwater.

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The Plan to Save the Rhino With a Cervix-Navigating Robot Apr 09, 2019

The duck is famous for two things: really liking bread (even though they’re not supposed to be eating it), and wielding insanely complicated reproductive bits. More specifically, male ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises, while females’ reproductive tracts corkscrew in the opposite direction. It’s a disturbing consequence of an evolutionary arms race, the females’ countermeasure to notoriously aggressive males.

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Two Unusual Galaxies Shake Up the Dark Matter Debate, Again Apr 09, 2019

When it comes to the nature of dark matter astronomers are still largely, well, in the dark. The existence of this mysterious substance was hypothesized more than forty years ago to explain discrepancies in the calculations of how galaxies ought to behave, based on their mass, and what was actually observed. In short, it seemed like mass was missing.

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Machine Learning for March Madness Is a Competition In Itself Apr 08, 2019

This year, 47 million Americans will spend an estimated $8.5 billion betting on the outcome of the NCAA basketball championships, a cultural ritual appropriately known as March Madness. Before the tournament starts, anyone who wants to place a bet must fill out a bracket, which holds their predictions for each of the 63 championship games. The winner of a betting pool is the one whose bracket most closely mirrors the results of the championship.

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This Tiny Guillotine Decapitates Mosquitoes to Fight Malaria Apr 08, 2019

The idea behind the guillotine is this: If you’re going to execute someone, you may as well do it efficiently and humanely, at least by 18th-century standards. Decapitating the condemned with an ax or sword may take a few swings—unacceptable for carrying out justice in a "civilized" society. The guillotine, on the other hand, is downright surgical, a perversely methodical way to end a life.

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AI Could Scan IVF Embryos to Help Make Babies More Quickly Apr 05, 2019

If a woman (or non-female identifying person with a uterus and visions of starting a family) is struggling to conceive and decides to improve their reproductive odds at an IVF clinic, they’ll likely interact with a doctor, a nurse, and a receptionist. They will probably never meet the army of trained embryologists working behind closed lab doors to collect eggs, fertilize them, and develop the embryos bound for implantation.

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Scientists Need More Cat DNA, and Lil Bub Is Here to Help Apr 04, 2019

Like most people, Daniel Ibrahim remembers exactly where he was the first time he came across a tiny, bug-eyed, toothless, limp-tongued cat called Lil Bub, the internet-breaking Queen of Cute. It was September 2014, during a mild night in Berlin, when the molecular geneticist found himself watching a Vice documentary on social media-famous felines by the blue light of his computer. But unlike most people, Ibrahim’s next move wasn’t to buy a Lil Bub shirt or join the ranks of her 2.

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By 2080, Tropical Diseases Could Be Headed to Alaska Apr 03, 2019

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Nearly a billion people could be newly at risk of tropical diseases like dengue fever and Zika as climate change shifts the range of mosquitoes, according to a new study. Since the life cycle of mosquitoes is temperature sensitive, scientists have long been concerned about how their prevalence might spread as the world continues to warm.

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Data Centers Gobble Energy. Could a ‘Fossil-Free’ Label Help? Apr 02, 2019

As a shopper, you can chose from labels touting a product’s chemical-free nature (Certified Organic), genetic makeup (Non-GMO), and effect on tropical ecosystems (Shade Grown). Now you could start to encounter a label that certifies that your daily internet traffic is sustainable as well.

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The Fungi Decimating Amphibians Is Worse Than We Thought Apr 02, 2019

For nearly 400 million years, amphibians have led a highly successful double life on Earth, foraging on terra and reproducing in water. They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and any number of other worldwide catastrophes, but they’ve never seen a catastrophe quite like humanity. Already stressed by habitat degradation and the wildlife trade, amphibians are now reckoning with the chytrid fungi, pathogens that humans have spread the world over.

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A Human-Spread Fungus Is Killing Amphibians, and More News Apr 01, 2019

Tech news you can use, in two minutes or less: Humans are ruining everything for amphibians Amphibians may have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, and all kinds of other catastrophes, but a fungi that humans helped spread is doing damage. Serious damage. More than 500 species of amphibians are experiencing decline because of chytrid fungi, which infects an amphibian’s skin and disrupts its ability to breathe and absorb water.

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The Failure of NASA's Spacewalk Snafu? How Predictable It Was Mar 29, 2019

When Saralyn Mark heard the news earlier this month that NASA was planning the first all-women spacewalk at the International Space Station on March 29, she started to worry. Mark, an endocrinologist by training, was a senior medical advisor to NASA for 18 years. In that role, she studied the way men and women’s bodies differ, on space and on earth. Within the agency, she advocated for spacesuit and technological design that took these differences to account.

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Why America Wants to Send Astronauts to the Moon's South Pole Mar 28, 2019

In December 2017, roughly a year into his tenure as president, Donald Trump directed NASA to develop a plan to return American astronauts to the moon. Since then, the government has released few details about what this mission would look like. But Tuesday, at the fifth meeting of the National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence doled out a big piece of information: When American astronauts go back to the moon, they will land at the lunar south pole.

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It's Either the Best Time or the Worst Time to Have a Baby Mar 27, 2019

Reproduction is messy. The genetic swaps and recombinations that occur when gametes merge don't always happen perfectly. Babies don't arrive when scheduled. Even preventing reproduction can be complicated, as anyone who has ever wrestled with birth control can attest. That said, It’s arguably a better time than ever to have a baby. Prospective parents struggling with infertility can turn to IVF, or sperm and egg donation.

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Robot ‘Natural Selection’ Recombines Into Something Totally New Mar 27, 2019

Bacteria do it. Viruses do it. Worms, mammals, even bees do it. Every living thing on Earth replicates, whether that be asexually (boring) or sexually (fun). Robots do not do it: The machines are steely and very uninterested in reproduction. But perhaps they can learn. Scientists in a fascinating field known as evolutionary robotics are trying to get machines to adapt to the world, and eventually to reproduce on their own, just like biological organisms.

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We Might Be Reaching 'Peak Indifference' on Climate Change Mar 26, 2019

Something weird is happening around climate change. Republicans are deciding it’s real. Three years ago, only 49 percent of Republicans thought so, but by last December it was 64 percent, as a Monmouth University poll found. That’s a huge jump in a short time and is all the more astonishing given that the Republican president and many of his party’s politicians pooh-pooh the global emergency. Meanwhile, other parts of the electorate are really freaking out.

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Those Midwestern Floods Are Expected to Get Much, Much Worse Mar 25, 2019

The record-setting floods deluging the Midwest are about to get a lot worse. Fueled by rapidly melting snowpack and a forecast of more rainstorms in the next few weeks, federal officials warn that 200 million people in 25 states face a risk through May. Floodwaters coursing through Nebraska have already forced tens of thousands of people to flee and have caused $1.3 billion in damage.

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Costa Rica's Zero-Carbon Plan Could Be a Model for the World Mar 25, 2019

Carlos Alvarado Quesada has heard all the naysayers before. In February, the 39-year-old president of Costa Rica committed to ridding the country of fossil fuels by 2050. If successful, Alvarado's plan could make Costa Rica the first zero-emissions country. But with a population of a mere 5 million, this leafy Central American nation is not a major contributor to the world's climate crisis.

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Scientists Reveal Ancient Social Networks Using AI—and X-Rays Mar 22, 2019

Folded and sealed with a dollop of red wax, the will of Catharuçia Savonario Rivoalti lay in Venice’s State Archives, unread, for more than six and a half centuries. Scholars don’t know why the document, written in 1351, was never opened. But to physicist Fauzia Albertin, the three-page document—six pages, folded—was the perfect thickness for an experiment.

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The First Gene-Edited Food Is Now Being Served Mar 22, 2019

Not long after Calyxt moved into its shiny new steel and glass headquarters on the outskirts of Minneapolis last summer, a woman pulled her car into its freshly poured parking lot and headed for the biotech firm’s front door. She caught the company’s chief science officer, Dan Voytas, just as he was leaving. “Um, is this a medical marijuana facility?” she asked, here eyes drifting to the rows of greenhouses at the back of the property and the high fences surrounding them.

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The WIRED Guide to Cannabis Mar 21, 2019

Humanity just can’t make up its mind about cannabis. For thousands of years, humans have used the stuff as medicine or to travel on spiritual quests. That, though, didn’t quite suit the British, who banned cannabis in colonial India. Then in the 20th century, the United States government declared war on marijuana, and most of the world followed suit.

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Preparing to Unleash Crispr on an Unprepared World Mar 21, 2019

Back in the 1980s, researchers began to notice a strange pattern in the genes of many microbes. There would be a stretch of DNA that read the same forward and backward, then a stretch of what looked like junk, then another palindrome, and so on. No one knew what the segments were for, but they were striking enough that a pair of scientists in Europe dubbed them “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” or Crispr for short.

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Women's Pain Is Different From Men's—the Drugs Could Be Too Mar 20, 2019

Men and women can’t feel each other’s pain. Literally. We have different biological pathways for chronic pain, which means pain-relieving drugs that work for one sex might fail in the other half of the population. So why don’t we have pain medicines designed just for men or women? The reason is simple: Because no one has looked for them. Drug development begins with studies on rats and mice, and until three years ago, almost all that research used only male animals.

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DNA Crime-Solving Is Still New, Yet It May Have Gone Too Far Mar 19, 2019

DNA is one of the most powerful substances in the universe. In the same structure it can encode the instructions to make uranium-munching microbes, giant flying lizards, or a stand of quaking aspens five miles wide. It can store every movie ever made in a single test tube. And it can stick around for tens of thousands of years. Just this week, Japanese scientists revealed they’d awakened some ancient wooly mammoth DNA by sticking it into mice embryos. What is dead may never die, indeed.

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The Uncanny Valley Nobody's Talking About: Eerie Robot Voices Mar 18, 2019

Call it the Great Convergence of Creepiness. The first bit, the uncanny valley, we’re all familiar with by now: If a humanoid robot looks super realistic, but not quite realistic enough, it freaks us out. So far that idea has been applied almost entirely to robot faces and bodies, but it’s less known as a phenomenon in robot voices. Except, that is, to Kozminski University roboticist Aleksandra Przegalinska, also a research fellow at MIT.

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The Arctic's ‘Carbon Bomb’ Could Screw the Climate Even More Mar 15, 2019

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Even in a dream-come-true scenario where we manage to stop all the world’s carbon emissions overnight, the Arctic would inevitably get hotter and hotter. That’s according to a new report by UN Environment, which says the the region is already “locked in” to wintertime warming of 4 to 5 degrees C (7.2 to 9 degrees F) over temperatures of the late 1900s.

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23andMe’s New Diabetes Test Has Experts Asking Who It’s For Mar 14, 2019

On Sunday, the DNA testing company 23andMe revealed a new genetic analysis that it says will tell its customers if they have an elevated risk of developing the most common, and preventable, form of diabetes. The report—which has not been cleared by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose type 2 diabetes—arrives as the disease is becoming an intractable public health crisis in the US. One in four healthcare dollars goes to treating diabetes and its related complications.

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Trump's Budget Guts Science Agencies—But Favors the Moon Mar 13, 2019

Despite two failed attempts in as many years, President Trump has not been moved to change his tactics. At least not when it comes to this year’s federal budget request, a $4.75 trillion spending plan that guts domestic programs and federal scientific research in favor of boosting the US military and building a wall along the Mexican border. For the third straight year, Trump has proposed big cuts to domestic programs—5 percent to most agencies.

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A Teen Started a Global Climate Protest. What Are You Doing? Mar 13, 2019

This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Greta Thunberg cut a frail and lonely figure when she started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish parliament building last August. Her parents tried to dissuade her. Classmates declined to join. Passersby expressed pity and bemusement at the sight of the then unknown 15-year-old sitting on the cobblestones with a hand-painted banner.

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The Genderless Digital Voice the World Needs Right Now Mar 12, 2019

Boot up the options for your digital voice assistant of choice and you’re likely to find two options for the gender you prefer interacting with: male or female. The problem is, that binary choice isn’t an accurate representation of the complexities of gender. Some folks don’t identify as either male or female, and they may want their voice assistant to mirror that identity. As of now, they’re out of luck.

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Astronomers Think They Can Explain Mysterious Cosmic Bursts Mar 11, 2019

Between this past Christmas and New Year’s Day, Brian Metzger realized he had his home to himself—no emails coming in, no classes to teach—and maybe, just maybe, the glimmer of an answer to one of astronomy’s most stubborn mysteries. He chased hard after the lead, worried a little error could unravel everything or that someone else would put together the same pieces first.

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Inside the High-Stakes Race to Make Quantum Computers Work Mar 11, 2019

Deep beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider is sleeping. But it won’t be quiet for long. Over the coming years, the world’s largest particle accelerator will be supercharged, increasing the number of proton collisions per second by a factor of two and a half. Once the work is complete in 2026, researchers hope to unlock some of the most fundamental questions in the universe.

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The Fish on Your Plate May Not Be What You Ordered Mar 08, 2019

This story was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. If you eat seafood, even occasionally, there’s a good chance you’ve been served a fish species you didn’t order. A new months-long investigation by ocean advocacy group Oceana finds widespread and persistent fraud in the US seafood industry.

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Oceans Are 'Spiking a Fever' With Record Heat Waves Mar 08, 2019

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The number of heat waves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest.

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The Gene Mutation That Could Cure HIV Has a Checkered Past Mar 07, 2019

In the three and a half decades since HIV/AIDS was discovered, the deadly disease has killed 35 million people. While drugs now allow patients to live long lives with the virus, only one man, an American named Timothy Ray Brown, otherwise known as the “Berlin patient,” is believed to have been cured. Now, it appears he’s no longer alone.

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A New Method of DNA Testing Could Solve More Shootings Mar 06, 2019

Police found 19 spent shell casings scattered in the San Diego street where Gregory Benton was murdered on April 12, 2014. Benton and his cousin had gone to buy cigarettes, a witness later said. As they returned to a family party, two men pulled up in a car behind them. They got out, and at least one of them opened fire. Witnesses didn’t get a good look at the men or the car, so when police sat down to review their leads, the shell casings were the best evidence they had.

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Post-Apocalyptic Insurers Try Out a New 'Make it Rain' Strategy Mar 06, 2019

Friends, have you thought about your insurance lately? [Reader clicks close tab.] Dammit! Wait, no, look: Climate change makes natural catastrophes worse, in both intensity and frequency, and insurance might be a significant way to pay for recovery. International aid can be unreliable; government money really is just taxpayer money.

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SpaceX Is Sending Its First Crew-Ready Capsule to the ISS Mar 04, 2019

On Saturday, SpaceX is taking its most ambitious step yet toward launching people into space. It’s not sending anyone with a pulse just yet, but this upcoming launch is still a high-consequence event. In the wee hours of the morning on March 2, SpaceX’s shiny new astronaut taxi—dubbed Crew Dragon—will take to the skies, bound for the International Space Station.

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How I Became a Robot in London—From 5,000 Miles Away Mar 04, 2019

I am but a babe, exploring the world for the first time. Wearing a computerized glove, I reach forward in pursuit of a little toy basketball. A robotic arm and hand do the same, mimicking my every move. Slowly I grasp the object, lift it, swing my arm over, and let go, dropping the ball—ploink!—into a plastic cup. I am very, very proud of myself. Applause erupts from the computer in front of me. But this is no American applause here in San Francisco, this is British applause.

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Gene Editing Is Trickier Than Expected—but Fixes Are in Sight Mar 01, 2019

Of all the big, world-remaking bets on the genome-editing tool known as Crispr, perhaps none is more tantalizing than its potential to edit some of humanity’s worst diseases right out of the history books. Just this week, Crispr Therapeutics announced it had begun treating patients with an inherited blood disorder called beta thalassemia, in the Western drug industry’s first test of the technology for genetic disease.

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Polio Is Nearly Wiped Out—Unless Some Lab Tech Screws Up Feb 28, 2019

In 1979, a photographer named Janet Parker got a disease that wasn't supposed to exist anymore. At first she thought she had the flu, but then she kept getting sicker, got a rash, and went to the hospital, where doctors—in disbelief—diagnosed her with smallpox. Just a year earlier, the World Health Organization had declared that "mankind probably had seen its last case of smallpox," according to The New York Times. That should have been true.

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This Viral Therapy Could Help Us Survive the Superbug Era Feb 26, 2019

In November 2015, infectious disease epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, evolutionary psychologist Tom Patterson, were spending the week of Thanksgiving exploring pyramids and pharaoh’s tombs in Egypt when Patterson came down with what seemed like a nasty bout of food poisoning aboard their cruise ship.

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Your Weather Tweets Are Showing Your Climate Amnesia Feb 26, 2019

Every time someone in a position of power (for example) says that a cold snap in winter proves that climate change is not a thing, a dutiful chorus responds with a familiar refrain: weather is not climate. Weather happens on the scale of days or weeks, over a distance relevant to cities or states. Climate happens over decades, centuries even, to an entire planet.

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Doubling Our DNA Building Blocks Could Lead to New Life Forms Feb 25, 2019

If you were to boil all of biology down to a simple equation, it would be that DNA makes RNA, which makes proteins, which make every living thing you can see, smell, touch and taste (and a lot of things you can’t). This central dogma of biology, built on strings of Cs, Gs, As, and Ts, has prevailed since Francis Crick, James Watson, and Rosalind Franklin discovered DNA’s double helix 65 years ago.

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NASA’s Space Shuttle Rises From the Dead to Power New Vehicles Feb 22, 2019

In 2011, the storied Space Shuttle flew for the last time. Three spacecraft survive in retirement as specimens in museums around the country. But the program isn’t dead yet: Many of its parts are popping up as zombie components in spacecraft now in development. Modified left-over Shuttle engines will power NASA’s delayed Space Launch System (SLS), a giant launch vehicle intended for lunar missions and, eventually, Mars.

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The Triumphant Rediscovery of the Biggest Bee on Earth Feb 22, 2019

For security reasons, I can’t tell you exactly where Clay Bolt rediscovered Wallace’s giant bee. But I can tell you this. With a wingspan of two and a half inches, the goliath is four times bigger than a European honeybee. Very much unlike its honey-manufacturing cousin, it’s got enormous jaws, more like those of the famous stag beetle.

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Boaty McBoatface Gears Up for Epic Swim Across the Arctic Feb 21, 2019

Boaty McBoatface may be better known for its name than for its oceangoing prowess. But the autonomous underwater vehicle and darling of the internet is headed to greater things: embarking on the longest journey of an AUV by far, with an uninterrupted, roughly 2,000-mile crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The submersible robot got its moniker when it became the consolation prize in a 2016 publicity stunt.

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Our Ears Are Unlocking an Era of Aural Data Feb 20, 2019

Lisa Muratori is a professor of physical therapy who works with patients suffering from neurological conditions, like Parkinson’s, that might impair their strides. “Gait is important,” she notes—if you’re walking too slowly or unevenly, you’re more liable to have accidents. One tricky part of her practice is helping a patient figure out when their gait is drifting away from a stable pattern.

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The Confounding Climate Science of Lab-Grown Meat Feb 20, 2019

A future in which your hamburger is grown from animal cells in a lab is rapidly approaching. The idea is that by culturing meat in a vat, you not only cut down on animal slaughter but greatly reduce emissions, on account of cattle taking a lot of energy to raise and butcher and ship. Not to mention their digestive systems pump a significant amount of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. That’s the idea anyway.

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3 Smart Things: What You Might Not Know About Attention Feb 19, 2019

1. We gradually become less attentive as we age—and not just because we stop giving a damn. The phenomenon is due to a shrinking “useful field of view,” the feature of visual attention that helps us recognize at a glance what’s important to focus on. Studies show that kids have a similarly limited field of view, hindering their ability to register the complete visual world around them.

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Why a Grape Turns Into a Fireball in a Microwave Feb 19, 2019

The internet is full of videos of thoughtful people setting things on fire. Here’s a perennial favorite: Cleave a grape in half, leaving a little skin connecting the two hemispheres. Blitz it in the microwave for five seconds. For one glorious moment, the grape halves will produce a fireball unfit for domestic life. Physicist Stephen Bosi tried the experiment back in 2011 for the YouTube channel Veritasium, in the physics department’s break room at the University of Sydney.

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R.I.P., Opportunity Rover: the Hardest-Working Robot in the Solar System Feb 18, 2019

Last night, NASA reached out one final time to the Opportunity rover on Mars, hoping the golf-cart-sized machine would phone home with good news. Since June, the robot has been unresponsive, likely because a planet-wide sandstorm coated its solar panels in dust. NASA has pinged it over 1,000 times in those gloomy eight months, to no avail. Last night’s attempt was no exception: NASA has announced that Opportunity is officially dead.

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Darpa Wants to Solve Science's Replication Crisis With Robots Feb 18, 2019

Say this much for the “reproducibility crisis” in science: It’s poorly timed. At the same instant that a significant chunk of elected and appointed policymakers seem to disbelieve the science behind global warming, and a significant chunk of parents seem to disbelieve the science behind vaccines … a bunch of actual scientists come along and point out that vast swaths of the social sciences don’t stand up to scrutiny.

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Two Satellites Almost Crashed. Here’s How They Dodged It Feb 14, 2019

The first alert came on January 27. Two small satellites, whirling through Earth's low orbits, had “the potential for a conjunction.” Those are the words Major Cody Chiles, spokesperson for the Joint Force Space Component Command, uses to mean "the chance of a collision." The satellites, one from a company called Capella Space and the other from Spire Global, could smack into each other.

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A 6-Legged Robot Stares at the Sky to Navigate Like a Desert Ant Feb 14, 2019

In case you’ve been envying the desert ant Cataglyphis fortis lately, don’t. Skittering around the Sahara Desert, the insect endures temperatures so brutal, it can sometimes only manage foraging runs of 15 minutes before it burns to death. Making matters worse, the heat obliterates the pheromone chemical trails that ants typically lay for each other to navigate. Get lost out here, and you’re literally cooked. Accordingly, desert ants have evolved superpowers.

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This Robot Debates and Cracks Jokes, but It's Still a Toaster Feb 13, 2019

The Monolithic black rectangle on stage with luminous, bouncing blue dots at eye level was not Project Debater, IBM’s argumentative artificial intelligence. It was just something for an audience to look at while a voice—is it redundant to call an AI’s synthesized voice “disembodied”?—projected over the sound system of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco.

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A New Lab Is Brewing Microbes to Create Makeup and Medicines Feb 12, 2019

On the third floor of a back building on Verily’s South San Francisco campus, ten white machines emit a low-pitched hum. Atop each one sits a plastic container so jammed with tubes and sensors it looks like a protein shake on life support. Inside, beige-colored broth bubbles away while tiny high-res cameras capture the frothy footage and stream it to the cloud.

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The Wretched, Climate-Killing Truth About American Sprawl Feb 12, 2019

This story originally appeared on Slate and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. There might be no better monument to the limits of American environmentalism in the climate change era than a parking garage in Berkeley, California. It’s got “rooftop solar, electric-vehicle charging stations and dedicated spots for car-share vehicles, rainwater capture and water treatment features”—not to mention 720 parking spots. It cost nearly $40 million to build.

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Now You Can Join the Search for Killer Asteroids Feb 11, 2019

If you want to watch sunrise from the national park at the top of Mount Haleakala, the volcano that makes up around 75 percent of the island of Maui, you have to make a reservation. Being at 10,023 feet, the summit provides a spectacular—and very popular, ticket-controlled—view. Just about a mile down the road from the visitors’ center sits “Science City,” where civilian and military telescopes curl around the road, their domes bubbling up toward the sky.

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The Green New Deal Shows How Grand Climate Politics Can Be Feb 08, 2019

If it’s hard to imagine the sweeping changes proposed in the “Green New Deal” actually happening, don’t blame the Green New Deal. It’s just that it has been so long since any politician suggested something so grand. The wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and sea level rise that climate scientists have long promised are here, but we could get accustomed to that. We could forget that the world of five years ago or a decade ago was any different.

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This Jagged Little Pill Could Make Diabetes Easier to Treat Feb 08, 2019

Given the choice between tossing back a dose of medicine and pushing it through your flesh inside a cold, steel needle, most people pick the pill. Convenience, portability, and lack of skin-stabbiness have made pills the most popular way to administer drugs for the better part of medical history. But not all drugs can survive the corrosive, churning trip from the stomach into the intestines and across to the bloodstream. Antibodies, proteins—these molecules are too fragile.

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SpaceX's Starship, Meant for Mars, Prepares for a First Hop Feb 07, 2019

Last Sunday, as much of the country tuned into the Super Bowl, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and a crew of engineers were gathered in McGregor, Texas, the small city where the company maintains a rocket test site. For a few seconds in the early evening, the sound of a new engine roared across the flatlands. "First firing of Starship Raptor flight engine!” Musk tweeted along with video footage of the test fire.

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China’s Moon Lander Wakes Up From Its Long, Ultra-Cold Night Feb 07, 2019

We already know it’s chilly on the moon. A lunar night lasts 14 Earth days, and its temperatures can dip into a cold so punishing it makes the polar vortex look like a hot tub. But yesterday, China’s space agency announced that the frigidity of the lunar night is even more intense than we’d thought: The country’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft recorded an icy low of –310 degrees Fahrenheit (–190 degrees Celsius).

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January Was Unusually Warm—Yes, Warm!—Despite That Cold Snap Feb 05, 2019

This story originally appeared on Grist on Jan. 31 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. This January should be remembered for its unusual warmth, not its cold. Yes, it’s so cold right now that even hardy Minneapolis is shutting down schools, but even with these few days of extreme cold, Minnesota should end up with a near “normal” month thanks to weeks of unusual warmth. It was in the 70s and 80s as far north as Maryland on New Year’s Day.

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Ditch the Super Bowl for a Who's Who of Superb Owls Feb 04, 2019

This Sunday, the subreddit /r/superbowl will host a gathering of hoo-ligans. They’ll be fans of the Nocturnal Flying League. Real birds of a feather. Starting at 6 pm ET, the Superb Owl community will kick off an Ask Me Anything with biologist James Duncan, who has spent his entire adult life studying owls and a mere three weeks playing football.

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The Punishing Polar Vortex Is Ideal for Cassie the Robot Feb 04, 2019

This is not a story about how the polar vortex is bad—bad for the human body, bad for public transportation, bad for virtually everything in its path. This is a story about how one being among us is actually taking advantage of the historic cold snap: Cassie the bipedal robot. While humans suffer through the chill, this trunkless pair of ostrich-like legs is braving the frozen grounds of the University of Michigan, for the good of science.

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Don't Save the Planet for the Planet. Do It for the Beer Feb 01, 2019

What beer wants to know is, why do you hate America? How can you just sit in front of the game on Super Bowl Sunday, ice cold domestic lager close to hand, and not consider the future of that great institution? No, not the Super Bowl—the beer. Beer is America. Americans drank 2.9 billion cases in 2017, more than any other alcoholic beverage. It’s true, sales look to be going down, and prices look to be going up. But beer has an even more existential problem.

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A Robot Teaches Itself to Play Jenga. But This Is No Game Feb 01, 2019

Global thermonuclear war. The slight possibility that a massive asteroid could boop Earth. Jenga. These are a few of the things that give humans debilitating anxiety. Robots can’t solve any of these problems for us, but one machine can now brave the angst that is the crumbling tower of wooden blocks: Researchers at MIT report today in Science Robotics that they’ve engineered a robot to teach itself the complex physics of Jenga.

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An Underwater Skin Sensor Lets Swimmers Track Their Sweat Jan 30, 2019

Sports teams collect sweat to analyze athlete performance, while companies market sweat replacement drinks and sweat-removal clothing to help keep sprinters, cyclists and tennis players happy. But so far, swimmers have been left high and dry. Today a team of researchers announced they have built a small, flexible, wireless sensor that sticks to a swimmer’s skin, allowing athletes to measure how much they need to drink during a workout or race.

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SpaceX Revs Its Engines as It Gets Closer to Crewed Flight Jan 30, 2019

Last Thursday, a shiny new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sat perched atop NASA’s historic Pad 39A, at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, waiting to briefly fire its engines. The exercise was part of a routine pre-launch test. What wasn’t routine was the presence of a Crew Dragon capsule atop the slick black-and-white Falcon.

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And Now, the Weather: Mars-like, With a Chance of Apocalypse Jan 29, 2019

Depending on who you are and what you’re into, Earth isn’t particularly habitable. OK, sure, if you’re some kind of polyextremophile microorganism, the world is your oyster. Even oysters are your oyster. You can manage temperatures down to -10 degrees and up to 250 degrees, high salt levels, no light, and a local pH—a measurement of acidity—of zero. That is sour. But then, if you’re a polyextremophile microorganism, you’re probably not a reader. No offense.

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This App Lets Kenya's Farmers Monitor Crops From Eyes in the Sky Jan 29, 2019

Climate change is the most horrific threat our species has ever known: No matter how powerful you are or how much money you have, our transforming planet is a reckoning for every one of us. But there are degrees to this misery. If you’re perched in a Manhattan penthouse, the effects might not be immediately apparent (because you don’t care or aren’t paying attention, or both). If you’re a subsistence farmer in Kenya, the situation is already much more dire.

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The Excruciating, Impossible Science of Airport Delays Jan 28, 2019

Friday morning began with delays at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. That’s not unusual—New York’s airports are famously balky. But this time, the cause wasn't something prosaic, like a blizzard. It was staffing. Because of the federal government shutdown, the airport didn’t have enough Transportation Security Administration agents and air traffic controllers; things slowed to a ground stop.

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We Need a Radical New Way to Understand Screen Use Jan 25, 2019

To anyone reading this on a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop (so, you know, basically all of you): We need to talk about how we talk about screen use. For too long the conversation’s been stuck on how much time we spend on our devices, and the effect that time has on our well-being. The more salient question for a society in which people’s lives increasingly revolve around screens is how we spend that time. But to answer that question, we need better data.

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Drones Drop Poison Bombs to Fight One Island’s Rat Invasion Jan 25, 2019

I get the feeling you don’t dislike rats enough. Because your struggles with the rodents chewing through your house pale in comparison to the problems wrought by rodents chewing through entire island ecosystems. Release just one pregnant rat on an island and soon enough the invasive predators will have decimated that pristine environment like an atom bomb.

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One Scientist Hopes to Engineer the Climate With Antacid Jan 24, 2019

To help cure the planet’s ailments, Zhen Dai suggests antacid. In powdered form, calcium carbonate—often used to relieve upset stomachs—can reflect light; by peppering the sky with the shiny white particles, the Harvard researcher thinks it might be possible to block just enough sunlight to achieve some temperature control here on Earth.

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The Water in Your Toilet Could Fight Climate Change One Day Jan 24, 2019

Day after day, you pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, whether you’re driving or turning on lights or eating meat. You can’t help it, because really, no human can. But I bet you haven’t stopped to think about how the simple act of pooping is also part of the problem: Worldwide, wastewater treatment facilities account for 3 percent of electricity consumption and contribute 1.6 percent of emissions. A drop in the horrifying bucket that is climate change, you might say.

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We Can Still Avoid a Repeat of Last Year's Deadly Flu Season Jan 23, 2019

As flu season nears its annual peak, between eight and nine and a half million people in the US have already been sickened by various strains of the respiratory virus, according to new estimates released Friday by federal health officials. That report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also estimates that approximately 100,000 people have been hospitalized for complications resulting from the flu. It’s still too soon to know how bad the 2018-2019 season will be.

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Exploding Stars May Have Killed Off Prehistoric Predators Jan 23, 2019

Even though Earth is floating in the void, it does not exist in a vacuum. The planet is constantly bombarded by stuff from space, including a daily deluge of micrometeorites and a shower of radiation from the sun and more-distant stars. Sometimes, things from space can maim or kill us, like the gargantuan asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

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For Women Job Seekers, Networking Like a Man Isn't Enough Jan 22, 2019

To get a great job, you’ve got to network—make contacts, know the right people. You know the drill. But a study out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the kind of networking that works best for men isn’t enough for women. Women need access to key kinds of information that men don’t. And how can they get it? From other women.

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3 Smart Things: The Hidden Lives of Liquids Jan 21, 2019

1. Most substances make a clean break between their liquid and solid states. But liquid crystals straddle the boundary: They flow smoothly, like water, while maintaining a crystalline structure. A tiny jolt of electricity aligns the molecules in the same direction and allows them to rotate light—an effect you see when the pixels in your LCD television or smartphone flip on and off to form pretty images. 2.

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Space Billboards Are Just the Latest Orbital Stunt Jan 21, 2019

In January 2018, Rocket Lab sent a surprise to orbit. Along with its normal payloads, the launch company deployed a shiny object it dubbed the Humanity Star—basically a 3-foot-wide disco ball. Its reflective surface would shine down on Earth’s inhabitants, visible to the naked eye for a few months. “No matter where you are in the world, or what is happening in your life, everyone will be able to see the Humanity Star in the night sky,” founder Peter Beck said in a statement.

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If Edible Insects Are the Future, We Should Talk About Poop Jan 18, 2019

Two billion people can’t be wrong—at least, not about the nearly 2,000 species of insects that make for good eatin’ around the world. But nobody has to pitch you on the benefits of insectivory, right? Easier on the environment, full of weird nutrients, and whoa, check out that feed conversion ratio: It takes half as much food as you’d give to pigs and chickens and a twelfth as much as cattle to get the same amount of cricket protein on the far side of the abattoir.

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A Crocodile-Like Robot Helps Solve a 300-Million-Year Mystery Jan 18, 2019

Nearly 300 million years ago, a curious creature called Orobates pabsti walked the land. Animals had just begun pulling themselves out of the water and exploring the big, dry world, and here was the plant-eating tetrapod Orobates, making its way on four legs. Paleontologists know it did so because one particularly well-preserved fossil has, well, four legs. And luckily enough, scientists also discovered fossilized footprints, or trackways, to match.

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To Prevent Wildfires, Treat Utilities Like Railroad Barons Jan 17, 2019

Actions have consequences, as our parents likely told us as kids. But inaction has consequences, too. Life or death consequences, in the case of California’s new normal of massive, climate-change-driven wildfires. After a series of devastating fires over the last few years, critics have turned their ire toward PG&E, a utility that brings electricity to 5.4 million households and businesses in Northern California. Its equipment has been blamed for 17 of 21 major fires in 2017 alone.

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Is ’Oumuamua an Alien Spaceship? Sure! Except, No Jan 16, 2019

When you wish upon a star (or an asteroid or a comet) you are wishing on plasma, ice, dust, rock, on an object that exists, for real, so far away and moving so fast that no living human will likely ever have direct contact with it. (Well, generally.) But you’re also wishing on a metaphor.

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Dark Matter Hunters Are Looking Inside Rocks for New Clues Jan 16, 2019

In nearly two dozen underground laboratories scattered all over the earth, using vats of liquid or blocks of metal and semiconductors, scientists are looking for evidence of dark matter. Their experiments are getting more complicated, and the search is getting more precise, yet aside from a much-contested signal coming from a lab in Italy, nobody has found direct evidence of the mysterious material that is thought to make up 84 percent of the matter in the universe.

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Bio-Printers Are Churning out Living Fixes to Broken Spines Jan 15, 2019

For doctors and medical researchers repairing the human body, a 3D printer has become almost as valuable as an x-ray machine, microscope, or a sharp scalpel. Bioengineers are using 3D printers to make more durable hip and knee joints, prosthetic limbs and, recently, to produce living tissue attached to a scaffold of printed material.

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Trump's Immigration Speech Won't Change Minds, Science Says Jan 14, 2019

When President Trump first announced he would deliver a primetime address about the border wall, people objected. They argued that the networks shouldn’t run it, given Trump’s record of lying about immigration issues and the precedent of not airing presidential speeches deemed purely political. Misinformation experts warned that if news organizations do air the speech, they should fact-check it live.

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A Strange Kind of Data Tracks the Weather—and Pirate Ships Jan 11, 2019

A group of apes is called a shrewdness; a group of ferrets is called a business; a group of small satellites is called a constellation. And Spire is the name of one shrewd business with a constellation of small satellites. More than 60 of its sats are up in orbit, collecting information about the weather, as well as the movements of ships and air traffic. Inside Spire’s Boulder office, a conference-room computer beams those satellites’ knowledge from space to a screen.

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To Prevent Fires, One California Town Says 'Goat Fund Me' Jan 10, 2019

Nestled in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains is the quaint Gold Rush town of Nevada City. Surrounded by unkempt brush, the old, highly flammable city is in danger: with California’s wildfires raging with unprecedented ferocity in recent years, one spark could doom Nevada City to the same fate that neighboring Paradise met in November. But not if the goats get there first.

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Los Angeles Gets America's First Earthquake Warning App Jan 10, 2019

This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On January 3, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the release of ShakeAlertLA, a new earthquake-warning app for residents of Los Angeles County. The app—the first of its kind in the United States—promises to “save lives by giving precious seconds to you and to your family to take action and to protect yourselves,” Garcetti told reporters at a launch event at City Hall.

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Ocean Cleanup's Plastic Catcher Is Busted. So What Now? Jan 09, 2019

Bad news from the high seas: the Ocean Cleanup’s 600-meter-long floating tube, which was supposed to catch plastic whilst somehow surviving the relentless forces of the ocean, has done neither. In November, the organization—which has raised $40 million from donors and companies—announced that the thing wasn’t really catching plastic, and last week it said the giant tube had snapped in two. It's now being towed to Hawaii for repairs and upgrades.

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The Clever Clumsiness of a Robot Teaching Itself to Walk Jan 09, 2019

It’s easy to watch a baby finally learn to walk after hours upon hours of trial and error and think, OK, good work, but do you want a medal or something? Well, maybe only a childless person like me would think that, so credit where credit is due: It’s supremely difficult for animals like ourselves to manage something as everyday as putting one foot in front of the other. It’s even more difficult to get robots to do the same.

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The Shutdown Shows Just How Vital Government Scientists Are Jan 08, 2019

Instead of figuring out how many Pacific hake fishermen can catch sustainably, as his job demands, scientist Ian Taylor is at home with his four-month old daughter, biding his time through the partial government shutdown. Taylor’s task is to assess the size and age of hake and other commercially harvested fish species in the productive grounds from Baja California to the Gulf of Alaska. These stock assessments are then used by federal managers to approve permits to West Coast fishing boats.

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We Need to Not Freak Out About the Robot Revolution Jan 04, 2019

You, like me, may sometimes (or all the time!) feel that the world is spiraling out of control—trade wars and political strife. And, oh right, climate change, arguably the greatest threat our species has ever faced. Or maybe artificial intelligence and robots will put us all out of work before the world actually ends. “A dirty little secret about autonomous vehicles,” says Edelman, “is there won't be enough people to service them because these are trade skill programs.

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Why Your Doctor Should Also Be a Scientist Jan 04, 2019

Researchers at the University of Maryland recently announced a potential breakthrough in the fight against "neuropathic" pain—that is, pain that results from malfunctioning or damaged nerves.Neuropathic pain afflicts 100 million Americans and costs the nation over half a trillion dollars every year. WIRED OPINION ABOUT KurtAmsler, Ph.D., is a professor of biomedical sciences at the New York Institute of Technology's College of Osteopathic Medicine.

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One Species Loves Our Climate-Wrecking Ways: Fire Ants! Jan 02, 2019

The red imported fire ant is one of the world’s most invasive species. Its sting delivers a burning poison that kills living tissue. Together groups of ants devour deer fawns, baby birds, reptiles, and almost any other source of protein they can get their mandibles on. They form acres of crisscrossing tunnels with thousands of cooperative workers. And their territory has steadily been spreading.

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How to Follow New Horizons' Historic Flyby of Ultima Thule Jan 01, 2019

For the past 13 years, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been bolting away from the sun at speeds in excess of 31,000 miles per hour, charting a course for the fringes of our solar system. In 2015, it made a close pass of Pluto, returning the highest resolution images of the erstwhile planet the world has ever seen.

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The Year in Robots, From Boston Dynamics to (RIP) Baxter Dec 31, 2018

Depending on your perspective, 2018 either brought us closer to salvation by way of robots, or closer to doom by way of robots: Where some see the end of meaningless work, others see the end of humanity, also meaningless. (We’re in the former camp, by the way.

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This Year SpaceX Made Us All Believe in Reusable Rockets Dec 31, 2018

At the beginning of 2018, Elon Musk predicted that SpaceX would pull off 30 launches. The goal seemed far-fetched; among other reasons, some of those flights were planned for the Falcon Heavy, which at the time had yet to fly. Indeed, the company didn’t hit that figure. But the 21 launches it did pull off in 2018 still amount to a staggering achievement for the 16-year-old company.

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NASA's New Horizons Probe Prepares To Make History—Again Dec 28, 2018

Way, way out at the cold, dark edges of the solar system—past the rocky inner planets, beyond the gas giants, a billion miles more remote than Pluto—drifts a tiny frozen world so mysterious, scientists still aren't entirely sure if it's one world or two. Astronomers call it Ultima Thule, an old cartography term meaning "beyond the known world.

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Don't Fear the Robot Overlords—Embrace Them as Coworkers Dec 27, 2018

In a chilly warehouse just outside of Boston, the brute toils away. It’s 600 pounds of orange and black metal and whirring motors, a massive robotic arm that picks up car parts and places them on a table. Like its ancestors have done for decades, this industrial robot does the heavy lifting that no human worker could manage, and it does so with extreme speed and precision.

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The Future of Crime-Fighting Is Family Tree Forensics Dec 26, 2018

In April, a citizen scientist named Barbara Rae-Venter used a little-known genealogy website called GEDMatch to help investigators find a man they’d been looking for for nearly 40 years: The Golden State Killer. In the months since, law enforcement agencies across the country have flocked to the technique, arresting a flurry of more than 20 people tied to some of the most notorious cold cases of the last five decades.

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It's Not a Myth: Quantum Messages Really Can Travel Faster Dec 24, 2018

Quantum computers are still a dream, but the era of quantum communication is here. A new experiment out of Paris has demonstrated, for the first time, that quantum communication is superior to classical ways of transmitting information.

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The DRC's Ebola Outbreak Is an End-of-Year Nightmare Dec 21, 2018

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Confirmed! Scientists Did See Gravitational Waves (Probably) Dec 21, 2018

After the historic announcement in February 2016 hailing the discovery of gravitational waves, it didn’t take long for skeptics to emerge. The detection of these feeble undulations in the fabric of space and time by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was said to have opened a new ear on the cosmos. But the following year, a group of physicists at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen published a paper casting doubt on LIGO’s analysis.

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We've Got the Screen Time Debate All Wrong. Let's Fix It Dec 20, 2018

In 1995, New York City psychiatrist Ivan Goldberg logged onto PsyCom.net, then a popular message board for shrinks, to describe a new disease he called "internet addiction disorder," symptoms of which, he wrote, included giving up important social activities because of internet use and "voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers." It was supposed to be a joke. But to his surprise, many of his colleagues took him seriously.

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A Bug-Like Robot Uses Electricity to Walk Upside Down Dec 20, 2018

A bug’s life doesn’t seem half bad, if you can overlook the super-short lifespan or the threat of getting eaten by lizards or swatted at by humans. Flying is nice, as is being able to walk on ceilings. The versatility is enviable, which is why roboticists are on a quest to imbue machines with the power of the bug. But to harness the powers of nature, roboticists are resorting to very un-biological means.

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Dark Matter Hunters Pivot After Years of Failed Searches Dec 19, 2018

Physicists are remarkably frank: they don’t know what dark matter is made of. “We’re all scratching our heads,” says physicist Reina Maruyama of Yale University. “The gut feeling is that 80 percent of it is one thing, and 20 percent of it is something else,” says physicist Gray Rybka of the University of Washington. Why does he think this? It’s not because of science. “It’s a folk wisdom,” he says.

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Can't Remember What You Read? Blame Font, Not Forgetfulness Dec 19, 2018

Remember all those classics you devoured in comp-lit class? Neither do we. Research shows that we retain an embarrassingly small sliver of what we read. In an effort to help college students boost that percentage, a team made up of a designer, a psychologist, and a behavioral economist at Australia’s RMIT University recently introduced a new typeface, Sans Forgetica, that uses clever tricks to lodge information in your brain.

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Scientists Journey Into the Dark Side of Cannabis Dec 18, 2018

Cannabis is a hell of a drug. It can treat inflammation, pain, nausea, and anxiety, just to name a few ailments. But like any drug, cannabis comes with risks, chief among them something called cannabis use disorder, or CUD. Studies show that an estimated 9 percent of cannabis users will develop a dependence on the drug.

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A 'Roadless Trip' in a 3D-Printed, Solar-Powered Snow Rover Dec 18, 2018

Antarctica is the driest, highest, windiest, and, of course, coldest continent. Since it’s nearly uninhabitable for humans, it’s also the cleanest. That makes it the perfect place to launch an odyssey aimed at persuading people to curb their plastic-pitching habits.

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Embrace a Fake Meat Future for Its Lesser-Known Benefits Dec 17, 2018

Recently I rolled into a local restaurant to try an Impossible Burger, an all-plant patty invented by the Silicon Valley startup Impossible Foods. It’s renowned for having an eerily chewy, even bloody, meatlike quality, a startling verisimilitude that has made it “perhaps the country’s most famous burger,” as New York magazine recently wrote. One bite into its gorgeous, smoky flavor and, damn, I was convinced.

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No GPS? A DIY Radio Transmitter Can Help You Navigate Dec 17, 2018

Suppose you traveled back in time—say 40,000 years into the past—and then you got stuck. What would you do? How would you rebuild all the stuff that you like? That's the premise of the book How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler, by Ryan North. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, it gives you the general idea of how things like an electric motor or wifi work.

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Sci-Fi Promised Us Home Robots. So Where Are They? Dec 14, 2018

Science fiction has promised us a whole lot of technology that it’s rudely failed to deliver—jetpacks, flying cars, teleportation. The most useful one might be the robot companion, à la Rosie from The Jetsons, a machine that watches over the home. It seemed like 2018 was going to be the year when robots made a big leap in that direction.

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A Designer Seed Company Is Building a Farming Panopticon Dec 14, 2018

When Geoffrey von Maltzahn was first pitching farmers to try out his startup’s special seeds, he sometimes told them, half-acknowledging his own hyperbole, that “if we’re right, you shouldn’t just see results in the field, you should be able to see them from outer space.” As the co-founder of a company called Indigo Ag, von Maltzahn was hawking a probiotic that he hoped would increase their crop yields dramatically.

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Even Zoos Are Learning the Art of Doomsday Prepping Dec 13, 2018

When smoke from California’s wildfires was smothering the Bay Area last month, the Oakland Zoo closed to the public. The staff worked in shifts, many of them wearing N95 face masks, monitoring how animals dealt with the smoke from the fires more than a hundred miles away. Southern California was also dealing with wildfires and heavy smoke. In both regions, zoos had to make some tough decisions.

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As Snow Disappears, the Sierras and Rockies Are Shrinking Dec 13, 2018

The mountains of the High Sierra and the Rockies are, in effect, shrinking, according to a new analysis of the nation’s snowpack over the past 36 years. These places are experiencing a shorter winter with less snow, just like regions closer to sea level. That’s not good news for ski resorts and snowmobilers, as well as rural homeowners worried about wildfires that erupt in the summer and fall, experts say.

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Quantum Computing Needs You to Help Solve Its Core Mystery Dec 12, 2018

Since 2016, IBM has offered online access to a quantum computer. Anyone can log in and execute commands on a 5-qubit or 14-qubit machine located in Yorktown Heights, New York, from the comfort of their own home. This month, I finally tried it—nervously. I did not know what I was doing and worried I might break the hardware. “You won’t mess anything up,” IBM physicist James Wootton assured me via Skype. Courtesy of Sophia ChenI chose the 5-qubit machine.

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To Clean Up Space Junk, Some People Grabbed a Net and Harpoon Dec 12, 2018

Clyde Tombaugh spent much of his life peering at telescope data. He discovered Pluto in 1930, and he spent years poking around the outer solar system. But as the scientific community began to dream about launching a vehicle into the great beyond, he focused his gaze much closer to home. At the time, the smaller stuff in our immediate space environment remained largely a mystery. People like Tombaugh worried whether orbiting gunk would make spaceflight that much harder.

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How Do You Publish the Work of a Scientific Villain? Dec 11, 2018

How do you handle the data of a scientist who violates all the norms of his field? Who breaches the trust of a community that spans the entire globe? Who shows a casual disregard for the fate of the whole human species? On the one hand, you might want to learn from such a person’s work; to have a full and open dissection of everything that went wrong. Because, spoiler, there was a lot that went wrong in the case in question.

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The Science of Growing a Perfect Christmas Tree Dec 11, 2018

Every winter, millions of Americans descend on farms and lots across the country with the express purpose of inspecting, and ultimately choosing from, their local selection of coniferous evergreen trees. I'm talking, of course, about Christmas tree shopping—the widely practiced pastime of publicly scrutinizing spruces, pines, and firs in search of the ideal yuletide centerpiece. Many people are practiced at picking the perfect tree.

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An Energy Evolution: From Delicious to Dirty to Almost Free Dec 10, 2018

If you think about the history of humans (disclaimer, I'm a human) you could make the argument that history is about the quest for energy. Not just any old energy, we want it cheap or maybe even free. If you have nearly limitless energy, you can do pretty much anything. You can extract the materials you need from the air, water, or land. You can build stuff. You can go to space. Energy is the key. But our quest for endless energy has caused some problems too.

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Even China Roundly Condemns Editing the Genes of Babies Dec 10, 2018

The birth of Lulu and Nana—the first two babies believed to be born with Crispr-edited DNA—has triggered soul-searching in China as tech innovators, scientific researchers, and government bureaucrats reconcile conflicting values. At first Chinese media celebrated Jiankui He, the scientist who last week announced he had edited the girls' DNA. Some pundits even speculated whether a Nobel prize might be in the making.

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The SpaceX 'Clown Car' Launch Actually Worked—Here's How Dec 07, 2018

A few years ago, a company called Spaceflight had a wacky plan. The plan, in the words of CEO Curt Blake, was “Let’s buy a Falcon!” Not, like, the bird of prey. Like the big SpaceX rocket that, similar to its avian namesake, swoops back down to Earth once it’s done its job. Buying the full capacity of such a big launcher is like booking out the town's largest, schmanciest bar: You really hope people will come to your party, and also that they'll pay their own tabs.

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A Global Climate Summit Is Surrounded By All Things Coal Dec 07, 2018

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. There’s a specter hanging over the COP24 climate talks, happening this week in the small city of Katowice, Poland. It’s not the goalpost-moving report that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two months ago about the need to limit warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (instead of 3.6 degrees). It’s not the conspicuous absence of prominent U.S.

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SpaceX’s Failed Landing Still Ended With a Clean Plop Dec 06, 2018

SpaceX launched its 20th rocket of the year just two days after lofting a record 64 satellites into orbit. On this flight, a brand-new Falcon 9 hoisted a Dragon spacecraft into orbit, bound for the International Space Station. But unlike Monday’s textbook touchdown, today’s landing didn’t quite go as planned. The Falcon’s first stage, the largest and most expensive portion of the rocket, was expected to navigate itself back to land after launching the Dragon spacecraft.

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America's Corn Fields Are Making the Weather Really Weird Dec 06, 2018

This story originally appeared on Atlas Obscura and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Corn farmers in Eastern Nebraska have long claimed weather patterns are changing, but in an unexpected way. “It’s something I’ve talked about with my dad and grandad many times,” says fifth-generation corn farmer Brandon Hunnicutt. Along with his father and brother, the 45-year-old lives in the 400-person village of Giltner and grows about 2,000 acres of corn each year.

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A SpaceX Delivery Capsule May Be Contaminating the ISS Dec 05, 2018

In February 2017, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted through low clouds, pushing a Dragon capsule toward orbit. Among the spare parts and food, an important piece of scientific cargo, called SAGE III, rumbled upward. Once installed on the International Space Station, SAGE would peer back and measure ozone molecules and aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere.

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Thousands of Unstudied Plants May Be at Risk of Extinction Dec 05, 2018

Pleurothallis portillae is one odd-looking orchid. Sporting a small nub of a flower nestled in a long, bulbous leaf that droops like a pair of string beans, it’s considered fashionably drab by collectors. But its true home is in the remote cloud forest of the Ecuadorian Andes---a region where, according to an algorithm, it’s most likely under threat of extinction. Plants have long gotten short shrift in conservation circles.

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China Is Both the Best and Worst Hope for Clean Energy Dec 04, 2018

In Katowice, Poland, delegates from around the world have gathered to discuss how to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. The intent is to meet the goals that emerged from the 2015 Paris United Nations Climate Summit. But this year there’s a new top dog at the table. The United States, led by a president who doesn’t believe in climate change or the scientists who study it, will take a back seat at this month's climate summit, known as COP24.

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How Supercomputers Can Help Fix Our Wildfire Problem Dec 04, 2018

Fire is chaos. Fire doesn’t care what it destroys or who it kills—it spreads without mercy, leaving total destruction in its wake, as California’s Camp and Woolsey fires proved so dramatically this month. But fire is to a large degree predictable. It follows certain rules and prefers certain fuels and follows certain wind patterns.

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Here's a Way to Fight Climate Change: Empower Women Dec 03, 2018

“Gender and climate are inextricably linked,” said environmentalist and author Katharine Wilkinson on stage at TEDWomen last week, a gathering of women thought leaders and activists in Palm Desert, California. Women, she says, are disproportionately affected by climate change. When communities are decimated by floods or droughts, tsunamis or fire, the most vulnerable among them suffer the most.

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US Biotech Firms Made China's Gene-Edited Babies Possible Dec 03, 2018

In 2015, the 12-person organizing committee of the first International Summit on Human Gene Editing—which included Crispr co-inventors Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier—issued a statement on how the world should responsibly push forward the science of permanently altering the DNA of Homo sapiens.

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The Climate Apocalypse Is Now, and It’s Happening to You Nov 30, 2018

What people say they know about climate change is a roller coaster of human ignorance—wait, everyone knows that but no one knows that? It’s striking to learn (according to Yale’s climate survey program) that 74 percent of women and 70 percent of men believe climate change will harm future generations of humans, but just 48 and 42 percent, respectively, think it’s harming them personally. It is, of course, in lots of ways.

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SpaceX's Next Launch Will Spark a Space Internet Showdown Nov 30, 2018

Elon Musk has long promised a constellation of thousands of satellites, called Starlink, which Musk hopes will one day handle half of all internet traffic—and earn him billions in access fees. It's one of the ways he hopes to fund his future Mars adventures. SpaceX says two demonstration satellites it built and launched earlier this year already show that internet from space can be as fast and lag-free as people expect from cables on Earth.

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Mercury Pollution Is Way Up. One Huge Culprit? Gold Mines Nov 29, 2018

Last week, diplomats from over 150 countries flew to Geneva to discuss how to reduce human-made emissions. No, not that kind. These suits want to cut mercury pollution. Mercury, that slippery, silvery stuff in old-timey thermometers, is a “huge public health threat,” says meeting attendee Susan Keane, a public health expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

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Scientist Who Crispr’d Babies Bucked His Own Ethics Policy Nov 29, 2018

We said “don’t freak out,” when scientists first used Crispr to edit DNA in non-viable human embryos. When they tried it in embryos that could theoretically produce babies, we said “don’t panic.” Many years and years of boring bench science remain before anyone could even think about putting it near a woman’s uterus. Well, we might have been wrong. Permission to push the panic button granted.

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Rogue Scientist Says Another Crispr Pregnancy Is Under Way Nov 28, 2018

On the second day of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, the last session before lunch was already running long. But the crowd crammed into the Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre at the University of Hong Kong wasn’t budging. Neither were the 5,500 people around the world glued to their live video feeds. Everyone was waiting to hear from the the final speaker, the man who says he helped make the world’s first gene-edited babies.

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The Government's Role in the Rise of Lab-Grown Meat Nov 28, 2018

Last month, the US Department of Agriculture and FDA convened to debate meat: what it is and isn't, and if plant-based or lab-grown products like those made by Impossible Burger and Memphis Meats should be called meat. Lab-grown meat is still months from market, but vegetarian meats already have the poultry and cattle industries in a tizzy. Sales of meat analogues are growing at steady clip of 23 percent a year, nibbling out a decent market share.

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The View From the Control Room: How InSight Landed on Mars Nov 27, 2018

In the morning hours before NASA’s InSight spacecraft entered Mars’s atmosphere, roughly 30 employees of Lockheed Martin gathered in the company’s InSight Mission Support Area, in Denver. They all wore the same red button-down shirt adorned with a mission patch. Someone had taped red plastic over some of the fluorescent lights, to lend the room a martian ambience.

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Inside the Lab Training Genome Surgeons to Fight Disease Nov 27, 2018

Delaney Van Riper was exhausted. It was the summer of 2017 and she’d spent the previous day touring UC Santa Cruz’s cliffside campus, getting her student paperwork in order, and meeting some of her 4,000 fellow incoming Slugs. Now, dressed head-to-toe in sweats, she was ready to nap in the backseat for the ride to her family’s home three hours away in Sacramento.

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Cities Have Turned Into Fire Bait—But We Can Fix Them Nov 26, 2018

The Northern California city of Paradise is gone—the Camp Fire, by far the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history, has reduced home after home to ashes. It conjures images of a tsunami of flame tearing through the town, destroying everything in its path. Curiously, though, trees still stand between burned-out homes.

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NASA Will Land InSight on Mars With Cunning—and Lots of Cork Nov 26, 2018

There's really no way to rehearse landing on Mars. You can simulate it, sure, but the most valuable lessons are learned during actual attempts. When things go poorly, those lessons are also the most expensive. The fact is, most missions to Mars don't make it, though NASA has a better track record than most. The agency has executed seven successful touchdowns on the red planet.

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Thin, Flexible New Solar Cells Could Soon Line Your Shirt Nov 23, 2018

The general rule when developing a new kind of solar technology is to expect progress to be slow. Take silicon solar cells, the most ubiquitous and recognizable form of photovoltaic generations today. When silicon panels were first built in the early 1950s, they could only turn about 6 percent of the light that hit them into electricity. More than 30 years later, that number had inched up to 20 percent, and today—30 years after that—they regularly perform in the mid 20s.

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Eyes and Ears 3D-Printed From Flesh Could Boost Our Senses Nov 23, 2018

Electronics often don’t mesh well with flesh and blood. Cochlear implants can irritate the scalp; pacemaker wires dislodge; VR headsets weigh heavily on the face. That’s why, for the past six years, Michael McAlpine has been Frankensteining alternatives. A mechanical engineer at the University of Minnesota, he creates prototypes of bionic body parts with nice, soft components—some of them alive.

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Giant Lasers Bring Distant Twinkling Stars Into Sharp Focus Nov 22, 2018

The twinkling of a starry night sky is romantic, sure. But for astronomer Dominika Wylezalek, “it’s a nightmare.” That’s because Wylezalek studies galaxies billions of light-years away, and all that finicky glimmering—she’d call it “turbulence”—gets in the way.

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When Did Fish Learn to Walk? Antarctica May Hold the Answer Nov 22, 2018

To figure out how and when ancient fish first crawled from the ocean onto land, Neil Shubin is about to head to the mountains of Antarctica. Leaving behind family and friends for the upcoming holidays, he and a team of five other scientists and a mountain guide will be camping at the base of a remote mountain range that was a tropical river delta around 385 million years ago.

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This Thanksgiving, Ditch the Food Psychology Nov 21, 2018

In my family, Thanksgiving this year has turned into a week-long holiday. Not because we’re all so fanatical about celebrating the violent European colonization of North America, but because it will take us that long to figure out what on Earth to put on the table. In a party of 12 we’ve got a duo of vegetarians, one part-time pollotarian, the recently dairy-avoidant and the long-time spice-averse, plus the seasonal carb-watchers and the one insufferable celery-hater.

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Cosmology Is in Crisis Over How to Measure the Universe Nov 21, 2018

Let’s say you have a baby. Maybe you really do, maybe you don’t. But Dan Scolnic, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, does have one, and perhaps that's why a hypothetical baby helps him explain the universe. If you take this baby to the doctor, that doctor will weigh and measure the baby, plot those points on a growth chart, and predict how big they’ll be later.

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3 Smart Things About Our Sixth, Inner Sense Nov 20, 2018

1. The five traditional senses keep us alert and alive: Hot pans burn, loud noises startle. Within our bodies, a sixth sense, known as interoception, perceives the state of—and threats to—our internal organs. From pangs and cramps to shortness of breath, it warns us when something is off. Hungover from a wild bender? Waves of nausea in the presence of alcohol are interoceptive warnings to lay off the juice. 2.

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These DNA Startups Want to Put All of You on the Blockchain Nov 20, 2018

In 2018, people started using the blockchain to battle deepfakes, track sushi-grade tuna from Fiji to Brooklyn, and even cast a (symbolic) vote. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to put all 6 billion bits of your genetic source code on the blockchain too. Starting this week, a startup called Nebula Genomics is doing just that, offering whole-genome sequencing for free, as a way to stock up for its real ploy: a blockchain-based genetic marketplace.

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Now You Can Sequence Your Whole Genome for Just $200 Nov 19, 2018

Here are a few things you can buy with $200: one bluetooth-controlled fire pit, 100 lab-grown Impossible White Castle sliders, access to the 3 billion base pairs that make up all the DNA coiled inside your cells. Well, at least for the next 48 hours. Starting today, Cambridge-based Veritas Genetics will be lowering its $999 whole genome sequencing and interpretation service for just $199 for two days, or to the first 1,000 people who buy spit kits.

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Kilogram Redefined. The Metric System Overhaul Is Complete Nov 19, 2018

On the morning of Friday, November 16, scientists and diplomats crammed into an auditorium in Versailles, a stone’s throw from the Sun King’s gilded chateau. Patrick Abbott, an American physicist, had flown into France for the long weekend. Forehead gleaming and blue suit jacket draped across his lap, Abbott watched from a packed balcony as a group of diplomats from 60 different countries voted unanimously on a treaty that intended to change global trade and technology forever.

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Your Drone Can Give Cops a Surprising Amount of Your Data Nov 16, 2018

If you're a nefarious sort, you might use a commercial drone to smuggle drugs, carry explosives, or to just spy on your neighbors. Drones are appealing to criminals in part because they seem fairly anonymous, flitting through the sky with an invisible digital tether to its owner. But anonymity is no longer a safe bet. In the hands of crime investigators, a drone can reveal a range of personal and financial information about its owner.

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The Expanse Gets Artificial Gravity Right in This Neat Trick Nov 16, 2018

As a fan of science fiction and science, I have to say that The Expanse has a bunch of great science. It's not just the science in the show. The characters also seem to demonstrate an understanding of physics. One scene from the first season stands out in particular as a classic physics example. I guess I should give a spoiler alert, but I'm not really giving away any major plot elements. But you have been warned. OK, since you are still here let me describe the scene.

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How California Needs to Adapt to Survive Future Fires Nov 15, 2018

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. On November 8, an almost unimaginable firestorm broke out in Northern California. Fed by dry vegetation, and fanned by northeasterly winds pouring off the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it rapidly descended on the community of Paradise, home to nearly 30,000 people.

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Cities Cause Hurricanes to Dump Extra Rain on Them Nov 15, 2018

It wasn’t a whodunnit. Last year’s unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Houston were the proximate result of Hurricane Harvey, a massive storm born northeast of Venezuela and reborn in the Gulf of Mexico, where it rapidly intensified, made landfall over Houston, and then stayed—parked, as it were, for five days. LEARN MORE The WIRED Guide to Climate Change Harvey was, however, something of a whydunnit.

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Our Climate Is Headed for Disaster, But Voters Still Shrug Nov 14, 2018

Tuesday’s midterm elections offered voters across the US the chance to move decisively to slow down the global ecological disaster of climate change. As the votes were tallied, however, one thing became clear: Americans remain as divided as ever on climate change. During his tenure, President Trump has moved to roll back Obama-era emissions standards, cripple renewable energy research, and pulled the US from global climate talks.

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Take a Good Look, America. This Is What the Reckoning Looks Like Nov 13, 2018

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. By at least one metric, we humans are dumber than frogs. The fable goes that if you toss a frog in a pot of hot water, it’ll leap right out. Put it in cold water, though, and bring it slowly to a boil, and the frog won’t notice before it’s too late. That turns out to be a myth—frogs are smarter than that.

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The Risk That Ebola Will Spread to Uganda Is Now ‘Very High’ Nov 13, 2018

Ebola is one of those scourges where the mere mention of its name strikes fear: the virus, which kills about half of those it infects and gets passed on through body fluids, is notoriously hard to contain. Because of its long incubation period, healthy-looking people can spread the deadly disease for weeks before symptoms appear.

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These Wind Patterns Explain Why California's Wildfires Are So Bad Nov 12, 2018

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire, Hill Fire, and Woolsey Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. In California three major fires—the Camp Fire in the north and Hill Fire and Woolsey Fire in the south—continue to rage on a scale the state has never seen before.

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The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Camp Fire Nov 12, 2018

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire, Hill Fire, and Woolsey Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. At 6:30 Thursday morning, a wildfire of astounding proportions and speed broke out in Northern California. Dubbed the Camp Fire, it covered 11 miles in its first 11 hours of life. A mile an hour might not seem fast in human terms, but it’s an extreme rate of speed as far as fires are concerned.

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Don’t Want to Fall for Fake News? Don’t Be Lazy Nov 09, 2018

On Wednesday night, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders shared an altered video of a press briefing with Donald Trump, in which CNN reporter Jim Acosta's hand makes brief contact with the arm of a White House Intern. The clip is of low quality and edited to dramatize the original footage; it's presented out of context, without sound, at slow speed with a close-crop zoom, and contains additional frames that appear to emphasize Acosta's contact with the intern.

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A New Robot Tracks Sick Bees Wearing Tiny Coded Backpacks Nov 09, 2018

Science hasn’t been giving us a tremendous amount of good news these days. We’re speeding toward climate catastrophe, for one. We’ve screwed up the environment so badly, it’s hard to even call it an environment anymore. And that’s coming back to bite (or sting) us: Bee populations, which we rely on to pollinate our crops, are plummeting.

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Weed Wins on Election Day. So What Comes Next? Nov 08, 2018

And so a few more dominoes fall. Michigan voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, while Utah and Missouri legalized it for medical use, according to projections made late Tuesday night. (A recreational measure in North Dakota failed, though medical cannabis remains legal there.) They join 31 other states that have already gone the medical route, and nine others that have gone fully recreational.

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THC! CBD! Terpenoids! Cannabis Science Is Getting Hairy Nov 08, 2018

Today, cannabis continues its slow march toward nationwide decriminalization with voters deciding whether to allow recreational use in Michigan and North Dakota, and for medical purposes in Utah and Missouri. As states keep chipping away at federal prohibition, more consumers will gain access, sure—but so will more researchers who can more easily study this astonishingly complex and still mysterious plant.

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New Satellites Will Use Radio Waves to Spy on Ships and Planes Nov 07, 2018

When a company called HawkEye360 wanted to test its wares, it gave an employee a strange, deceptive task. While the worker stood in Virginia, he held the kind of transceiver that ships carry to broadcast their GPS locations. Usually such a signal would reveal his true position to a radio receiver, but he’d altered the broadcast to spoof his GPS position, making it seem like he was in fact off the coast of Maine.

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The Key to a Long Life Has Little to Do With ‘Good Genes’ Nov 07, 2018

In 2013, Google cofounder and CEO Larry Page announced the formation of a new Alphabet entity dedicated to solving the pesky puzzle of mortality. Since then, the billion-dollar longevity lab known as Calico—short for California Life Company—has been trying to tease apart the fundamental biology of aging in the hopes of one day defeating death.

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The Breakthrough Prizes Have Money, but They Need Diversity Too Nov 06, 2018

The Breakthrough Prizes are unlike anything else in science. Instead of the hum of lab equipment, there’s Orlando Bloom. Instead of donning lab coats, the scientists find themselves marching down a red carpet in their black-tie best.

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Bitcoin Will Burn the Planet Down. The Question: How Fast? Nov 06, 2018

Max Krause was thinking of buying some bitcoin, as one does. But Krause is an engineer—mostly he works on modeling greenhouse gas emissions from landfills—so his first step was to run the numbers. He looked at price, of course, but also how fast the world’s bitcoin miners create new bitcoins and the ledger that accounts for them. And he looked at how much electricity that would seem to require. “I thought, man, this is a lot of energy,” Krause says.

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How Antivax PACs Helped Shape Midterm Ballots Nov 05, 2018

In early 2015, Sen. Ervin Yen, an anaesthesiologist who became Oklahoma’s first Asian American state legislator, introduced a bill to require all schoolchildren to be vaccinated, unless they had a medical reason not to. California had recently debuted similar legislation after an outbreak of measles in Disneyland sickened 147 people and led to the quarantine of more than 500 others.

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Quantum Physicists Found a New, Safer Way to Navigate Nov 05, 2018

In 2015, the U.S. Naval Academy decided that its graduates needed to return to the past and learn how to navigate using the stars. Nine years prior, it had dropped celestial navigation from its requirements because GPS was so accurate and simple to use. But recent events had shaken the academy’s faith in GPS. Researchers had taken over a yacht’s navigation system as it steered in the Mediterranean.

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The ISS Has a Supercomputer! Never Mind the Fried Disks Nov 02, 2018

One year ago, Hewlett Packard Enterprise sent an off-the-shelf supercomputer up to the International Space Station, to see if its mass-produced hardware could survive, basically unmodified, in the harsh environment of space. Now NASA and the computer company are declaring the experiment a success—even though nearly half of its hard disks failed after getting fried by solar radiation.

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The Sea May Be Absorbing Way More Heat Than We Thought Nov 02, 2018

If you ever meet a climate scientist, give them a hug. Not only is the work important, it involves an absolute mess of variables—emissions, maybe sequestering those emissions, atmospheric patterns, maybe geoengineering that atmosphere. Data is often sparse or non-existent. So give them a hug. The data problem is particularly acute in the oceans. A key part of figuring out how much the planet has warmed, and how drastically we need to cut emissions, is determining how the sea is changing.

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Apple's Heart Study Is the Biggest Ever, But With a Catch Nov 01, 2018

Last November, Apple Watch owners began receiving recruitment emails from Apple. The company was looking for owners of its smartwatch to participate in the Apple Heart Study—a Stanford-led investigation into the wearable's ability to sense irregular heart rhythms. Joining was simple: Install an app and wear your watch.

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Calling the Caravan's Migrants "Diseased" Is a Classic Xenophobic Move Nov 01, 2018

It would be extraordinarily difficult—impossibly difficult—for any one of the several thousand asylum-seeking refugees in the so-called migrant caravan now on the border between Guatemala and Mexico to have smallpox. A global vaccination campaign eliminated the disease from the world at large in 1980. Yet that’s what a guest on the Fox Business Network show Lou Dobbs Tonight said earlier this week.

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Los Angeles Must Pay Billions to Adapt—or Slip Into the Sea Oct 31, 2018

Los Angeles derives much of its charm from its diversity, both of its people and its amenities—rolling hills here, lovely architecture there, a national forest to the north and legendary beaches to the west. But much of it is in trouble: Sea level rise is coming for Los Angeles County and its 74 miles of coast. According to a new report from the New York Academy of Sciences, it’ll take LA as much as $6.

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A New Climate Change Lawsuit Takes Aim at ExxonMobil Oct 31, 2018

This story originally appeared in the Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. New York is suing the oil giant ExxonMobil in a lawsuit that claims the company engaged in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to downplay the risks posed to its business by climate change regulations.

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Does Climate Change Mean You Should Fly Less? Yeah, Maybe Oct 30, 2018

This story originally appeared on Slate and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a dire report that made crystal clear that we have about a decade to stop catastrophic levels of climate change. The report caught fire for another extremely near deadline: It suggests that if we don’t manage to dramatically shift carbon emissions, we’ll start feeling the brunt of the effects as soon as 2040.

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Carbon Capture Is Messy and Fraught—But Might Be Essential Oct 30, 2018

On paper, carbon capture is a simple proposition: Take carbon that we’ve pulled out of the Earth in the form of coal and oil and put into the atmosphere, and pull it out of the atmosphere and put it back in the Earth. It’s like hitting undo on the Industrial Revolution. And scientists can indeed yank CO2 out of thin air, except that the process is expensive, not very efficient, and morally complicated.

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The Science of the Sniff: Why Dogs Are Great Disease Detectors Oct 29, 2018

In November 2016, a team of scientists from the Medical Research Council in Gambia visited primary schools armed with hundreds of beige-colored nylon socks. Handing them out to children there aged five to 14, the researchers instructed them to wear the socks overnight, only taking them off if they were washing their feet for prayer.

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How Trick-or-Treaters Can Stay Visible on a Dark and Spooooky Night Oct 29, 2018

When I think of Halloween, I think of kids outside in the dark. Traditionally, this is the way it works. First, darkness makes everything just a little bit spookier and more Halloween-like. Second, the end of October used to be after the end of Daylight Savings Time such that it would get dark earlier. Of course this year, Daylight Savings Time doesn't end until November 4. However, let's assume it's dark. Kids running around in the dark on streets with cars can lead to bad things.

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Water, Flour, Syrup, Dye: Mastering the Elements of Fake Blood Oct 26, 2018

The internet is oozing (dripping? spurting?) with recipes for fake blood, but to get the exact color and consistency your Halloween costume calls for—be it bright and wet or dark and crusty—your best bet is to brew your own bloody concoction. To do it, it helps to know the properties of blood that you're approximating and the non-biohazardous ingredients you can use to imitate them.

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Ginkgo Bioworks Is Turning Human Cells Into On-Demand Factories Oct 26, 2018

From the windows of Ginkgo Bioworks’ Boston offices you can peer down into a grimy vestige of the city’s past. Across the street, workers in yellow-slicker overalls scrub, scrape, and repair the decks of worn-out warships and ocean tankers parked in a drydock. During World War II, 50,000 people worked the docks and the eight-story waterside warehouse that Ginkgo now calls home.

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An Ebola Outbreak in a War Zone Is About as Bad as It Gets Oct 25, 2018

In July, a 65-year-old woman running a high fever checked into a hospital in the province of North Kivu, along the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Uganda. She was later discharged and returned home to her remote town, only to die a few days later. By the time health officials checked in on the case, seven members of her immediate family had also died the violent, bloody deaths that can usually only mean one thing: Ebola. Normally, this wouldn’t be reason to panic.

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These Wasp-Like Drones Lift Heavy Loads With Their Bellies Oct 25, 2018

You might know wasps for their ability to brainwash cockroaches or inflict one of the most painful stings on Earth—one so powerful that the actual scientific advice to victims is to just lie down and scream until it passes. Lesser-known is the wasp’s superlative ability to carry loads that are unexpectedly heavy given the creature’s size. Small drones, or “micro air vehicles,” are only able to lift the equivalent of their own weight.

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Fusty Ol' Scientific Texts Get a Gorgeous, Pricey Makeover Oct 24, 2018

Alexander von Humboldt began his working life as a mine inspector for the Prussian government. But in his late twenties, he left his government gig and set off to explore Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru with botanist Aime Bonpland. He did an astounding amount of work during his travels, in pursuit of his hypothesis that “all forces of nature are interlaced and interwoven”—and that, maybe, he could figure out how.

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3 Smart Things About Animal-Inspired Robotics Oct 24, 2018

1. When turkeys strut, their leg muscles work as shock absorbers to boost energy efficiency. That gam action inspired a prosthetic exoskeleton for humans: The lightweight contraption is outfitted with a spring and clutch that take the impact off the user’s calf muscle. In experiments, a person wearing the braces while walking expended 10 percent less energy. 2. Though it has a brain, the lamprey—an eel-like beast—doesn’t need it to wiggle about the deep.

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Science Isn't About 'the Truth'—It's About Building Models Oct 23, 2018

You might think you can just leave the science stuff to scientists—but you can't. We live in a world that is surrounded by science and we use toys that depend on science (like that fancy smartphone in your hand). Other issues, like climate change and vaccinations, can have a significant impact on any one of us. You don't have to be science nerd, but you have to at least know the important parts of science. Here are the key aspects of science that everyone needs to know. Yes, this is for you.

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Scientists Help Robots 'Evolve.' Weirdness Ensues Oct 23, 2018

Evolution is a trip. On the one hand, it’s a seemingly simple mechanism—those best fitted to their environment have more babies, while less fit individuals don’t reproduce as much, and their genes filter out of the system. But on the other hand (or paw or claw or talon), it has given rise to an astounding array of organisms. Some animals fly with feathered wings, others with membranes stretched between fingers. Some run on two legs, others four.

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DNA Tests Could Help Docs Detect Infectious Diseases Faster Oct 22, 2018

Early last spring, as flu season hit its peak, a woman checked into a Houston hospital with all the familiar symptoms: fever, headache, a grating cough. A chest x-ray revealed an infection engulfing her lungs. Doctors hooked her up to an antibiotic drip, collected blood to be processed and cultured in the hospital’s lab, and shipped one of the tubes overnight to a small, stealthy startup in Redwood City, California, called Karius.

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Your Facebook Posts Can Reveal If You're Depressed Oct 22, 2018

Facebook's 2.2-billion active users use the platform for sharing all kinds of things: Engagements. Group plans. Political misinformation. Cat photos. But as researchers reported this week, the words you post in your status updates could also contain hidden information about your mental health.

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Funky Materials Give the Mantis Shrimp Its Powerful Punch Oct 19, 2018

Imagine for a second that you’re a crab, and a fellow crustacean called a mantis shrimp has decided to make you its lunch. The truth is, it’s not worth struggling. The mantis shrimp uses muscles to cock back two hammer-like appendages under its face, storing energy in a saddle-like divot in the limbs.

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An App Built for Hurricane Harvey Is Now Saving Lives in Florida Oct 19, 2018

Last Wednesday, Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle at 155 miles per hour, flattening neighborhoods, turning subdivisions into rubble, and plunging the coast into darkness. On Friday, Trevor Lewis packed up two trucks with crowbars, chainsaws, sledgehammers, ropes, walkie talkies, and five other guys from Cocoa Beach, where he lives on the east side of the state. As night fell they began the drive up into the worst of the wreckage.

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Life-Saving Deliveries Will Get Drones Flying the Skies Oct 18, 2018

Delivery drones are real and they’re operating on a national level, but they’re not dropping off impulse purchases, and some of the most important applications are not in the United States. Zipline, a Bay Area startup, inked a deal with the government of Rwanda in 2016 and now uses small, autonomous planes to deliver medical supplies, and in particular blood, to rural communities across the African country.

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Big Data and the End of Painful, Invasive Medical Procedures Oct 18, 2018

You heard it here first, folks; Stephen Quake is coming for the colonoscopy. The scientist has made a career of replacing invasive, painful, and dangerous procedures with simple, cheap tests that can be performed almost anywhere. Just this year, a blood panel he developed to detect genetic birth defects has been taken by more than three million women, replacing the need for amniocentesis and giant, uterus-puncturing needles.

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So Much Genetic Testing. So Few People to Explain It to You Oct 17, 2018

When Dan Riconda graduated with a master’s degree in genetic counseling from Sarah Lawrence College in 1988, the Human Genome Project was in its very first year, DNA evidence was just beginning to enter the courts, and genetic health tests weren’t yet on the market. He found one of the few jobs doing fetal diagnostics for rare diseases, which often meant helping young families through the worst time in their lives. What a difference 20 years makes.

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Here's What Astronauts See When a Rocket Aborts Mid-Flight Oct 17, 2018

Nick Hague spent 20 years dreaming of getting into space, first as an Air Force test pilot, then as a NASA astronaut since 2013. He got his big chance to blast into orbit last Friday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft launching from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin were expecting a routine six-hour flight to the International Space Station, but two minutes after liftoff, something went wrong.

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Silicon Valley’s Tech Elite Zoom in on Crispr Oct 16, 2018

Three hundred and sixty four days ago, Jiwoo Lee’s friends helped her celebrate her 18th birthday by baking her a Rice Crispr cake. They bedecked the gooey, cereal-based treat with blue and red frosted double helixes in honor of her favorite high school hobby—gene editing. Lee, who won top awards at the 2016 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, is one of the youngest champions of the “Crisprize everything!” brigade.

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Climate Change Might Double the Cost of a Beer Oct 16, 2018

Beer drinkers might pay more and find less of their favorite beverage as climate change comes for barley. Scientists expect that extreme droughts and heat waves will become more frequent and intense in the regions that grow the grain.

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You’re Expecting Too Much Out of Boston Dynamics’ Robots Oct 15, 2018

At the WIRED25 festival in San Francisco Sunday evening, Boston Dynamics’ SpotMini robot got onstage and did what no other quadruped robot has done before: It danced the running man like it was born to. It was a bit more, well, robotic than a human, but it illustrated just how far Spot has come: Twenty-five years into both WIRED’s and Boston Dynamics’ lives, robots have finally grown sophisticated enough to dance through our world. And a lot more than that, of course.

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Boston Dynamics Is Prepping Its Robot Dog to Get a Job Oct 15, 2018

Late last night Boston Dynamics dropped a new video of its robot dog, SpotMini, in action. It walks up some stairs (no big deal—it’s done that before) and then through some corridors, periodically extending its camera-equipped arm to survey bits of a construction site. Then it walks backwards down some stairs and through a doorway and then … Fade to black.

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Genome Hackers Show No One’s DNA Is Anonymous Anymore Oct 12, 2018

In 2013, a young computational biologist named Yaniv Erlich shocked the research world by showing it was possible to unmask the identities of people listed in anonymous genetic databases using only an Internet connection. Policymakers responded by restricting access to pools of anonymized biomedical genetic data. An NIH official said at the time, “The chances of this happening for most people are small, but they’re not zero.

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The Quest to Make California’s Weed the Champagne of Cannabis Oct 12, 2018

What’s in a name? For champagne, it’s the expectation of excellence and at the very least, bubbles. It’s even protected by law: To call a liquid champagne, you have to grow it in a certain part of France under certain rules of planting, pressing and even packaging. All the fuss means champagne makers can charge a premium for their product. The same may soon be true for Northern California’s legendary weed.

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How Hurricane Michael Got Super Big, Super Fast Oct 11, 2018

Michael introduced itself to North America with 155-mile-per-hour gusts of wind and a barometric pressure of 919 millibars, the third-strongest hurricane to ever make continental US landfall. It was a monster, and it stayed a monster as it rolled through Georgia and then on toward the Carolinas. And monsters are made, not born.

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A Long Goodbye to Baxter, a Gentle Giant Among Robots Oct 11, 2018

For a serious research robot, Baxter is a charmer. It’s sports-car red, with two big and deliberate arms. Its face is a flat screen that telegraphs “feelings” like embarrassment (rosy cheeks, upturned eyebrows). If you’re so inclined, you can sit in front of it and make it read your mind to fix its mistakes. Or you can point to objects for it to pick up.

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Physicists Condemn Sexism Through ‘Particles for Justice’ Oct 10, 2018

This week, of all weeks, should have been triumphant for women in physics. For her work on lasers, Canadian physicist Donna Strickland became the first female Nobel Laureate for the field after 55 years. She finally joined a short list consisting of just two other women, Marie Curie and Maria Goeppert-Mayer. But Seyda Ipek barely had time to celebrate. The University of California, Irvine physicist was preoccupied: a dumpster fire had just erupted in a neighboring corner of physics culture.

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Bionic Limbs 'Learn' to Open a Beer Oct 10, 2018

Andrew Rubin sits with a Surface tablet, watching a white skeletal hand open and close on its screen. Rubin’s right hand was amputated a year ago, but he follows these motions with a special device fitted to his upper arm. Electrodes on his arm connect to a box that records the patterns of nerve signals firing, allowing Rubin to train a prosthetic limb to act like a real hand. “When I think of closing a hand, it’s going to contract certain muscles in my forearm,” he says.

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What One Devastated Community Can Teach the World About Mental Health Oct 09, 2018

A year ago, while on a tourist visit to Latvia, Sharon Bard was awoken at 4 am by a buzzing alert from her phone. It was an email from a friend who’d been checking on her home in Santa Rosa, California. Given the alarming news, the email's phrasing was rather gentle: A fire had broken out in the area, officials had ordered evacuations, and Bard’s country house at the end of a road might be affected. Then came the deluge.

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SpaceX Sticks Its Landing after a Showy California Launch Oct 09, 2018

“The Falcon has landed.” As SpaceX declared victory on its live webcast, cheers erupted on a southern California hilltop, where a group of watchers had gathered to witness the company’s latest rocket launch (and landing). SpaceX had just achieved another first: touching down a rocket on California soil. Until now, the company’s West Coast landings had all taken place on the deck of the company’s drone ship, Just Read the Instructions.

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STEM Candidates Try to Ride a Pro-Science Wave to Congress Oct 08, 2018

When Kim Schrier campaigns in central Washington farm towns, she talks about protecting health care, reforming immigration laws, and the harmful effects of new White House tariffs on the region’s hay, cherry, and apple growers. But she says she also brings up climate change and what it means for local businesses. “Our farmers have a lot of evidence that the climate is changing,” says Schrier, the Democratic candidate for Washington’s eighth congressional district.

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The Insane Physics of Airbags Oct 08, 2018

I can imagine the meeting: A dozen engineers are gathered around a conference table to discuss automobile safety. How can we protect people during a car crash? We have already added seat belts and crumple zones to cars. Is there anything else we can include? One attendee reluctantly raises their hand with a suggestion: "How about we add an explosive in the steering wheel?" Brilliant. That's exactly what we will do. We will put a bomb in the car and it will save lives. They were right.

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A Mushroom Extract Might Save Bees from a Killer Virus Oct 05, 2018

The bees, as you've probably heard, are dying, in massive numbers. Termed Colony Collapse Disorder, the die-off counts among its causes a parasite aptly named Varroa destructor. A flat, button-shaped, eight-legged critter no more than 2 millimeters long, Varroa mites invade honeybee hives around the world in droves, latch onto their inhabitants, and feed on their tissues, transmitting devastating RNA viruses in the process.

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A Brain-Eating Amoeba Just Claimed Another Victim Oct 05, 2018

The temperature in Waco, Texas was approaching 83 degrees last Thursday when Mia Mattioli arrived in search of Naegleria fowleri, a brain-eating, warm-water-loving amoeba that kills almost every person it infects. An environmental engineer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mattioli spent the day at BSR Surf Resort, a local water park, filling fifty-liter jugs with samples from the facility's various attractions.

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Swarms of Super-Sized Mosquitoes Besiege North Carolina Oct 04, 2018

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolinas, unleashing six months of rain in a matter of hours. In inland Cumberland County, the Cape Fear River rose 40 inches, inundating Fayetteville with the worst flooding the city has seen since 1945. But as the waters receded and citizens returned to their ruined homes, a new plague was just beginning to descend.

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Physicists Win Nobel Prize for Lasers That Stretch, Bend and Blow Up Molecules Oct 04, 2018

The laser is a tool of many talents, as the Nobel committee well knows. On Tuesday morning in Stockholm, its members announced the year’s physics prize and rattled off a short list of the technologies it has made possible: barcodes, eye surgery, cancer treatment, welding, cutting materials more precisely than a scalpel. They failed to acknowledge the whimsy it has brought cat owners, although one committee member did mention laser light shows. The laser’s resume keeps growing.

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It’s Time to Talk About Robot Gender Stereotypes Oct 03, 2018

Robots are the most powerful blank slate humans have ever created. Want a helpful robot? No problem. Want a mean one? Sure, if that’s what you’re into. A robot is a mirror held up not just to its creator, but to our whole species: What we make of the machine reflects what we are. That also means we have the very real opportunity to screw up robots by infusing them with exaggerated, overly simplified gender stereotypes. So maybe robots aren’t simply a mirror.

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Crawling Dead: How Ants Turn Into Zombies Oct 03, 2018

David Hughes leans back in his office in a standard-issue professorship chair as Penn State students in a plaza behind him shuffle toward classes. Between us on his desk—on either side of a paper cup of black coffee—are two trays of dead ants stuck through with pins. Some cling to leaves, others curl up around sticks, frozen in their tiny death postures like the now-fossilized humans who couldn’t escape Pompeii. All, though, have strange structures erupting out of their corpses.

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Farmers Can Now Buy Designer Microbes to Replace Fertilizer Oct 02, 2018

Jake Misch’s family has been growing corn in the sandy soils of northwestern Indiana for four generations. Like other farmers in the area, the Misches spray their fields with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer once in the spring when the seeds are planted, and once later in the year, when the corn is going through its growth spurt.

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The Science Is Clear: Dirty Farm Water Is Making Us Sick Oct 02, 2018

This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding. For four days last spring, doctors struggled to control the infection that was ravaging Whitt, a father of three in western Idaho.

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Trump's Auto Emissions Plan Is Full of Faulty Logic Oct 01, 2018

There was a time many years ago when cars guzzled gas like beer, teenagers raced them on Friday nights, and Detroit automakers boasted about their vehicles' ever-increasing horsepower and speed. Since then, cars have become safer, cleaner and more efficient, mostly as a result of tougher standards from Washington.

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San Francisco's Dream of 'Zero Waste' Lands in the Dumpster Oct 01, 2018

In 2003, San Francisco set the lofty objective of getting to zero waste by 2020. By that timeline, the city should soon be performing a ceremonial burial for the last pair of broken headphones and closing down its moldering landfills. But with the deadline approaching, the city has sent that goal itself to the garbage heap. Earlier this month, as part of the Global Climate Action Summit, Mayor London Breed released a statement announcing new trash targets for 2030.

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Darpa Goes Underground for Its Most Daring Robot Extravaganza Yet Sep 28, 2018

On Thursday, Darpa gathered roboticists in the Louisville Mega Cavern, in Kentucky, and gave them a mission: Design robots to navigate a grueling subterranean course of tunnels and caves, some of the most unforgiving environments on Earth. They’re calling it the Subterranean Challenge, but you may as well call it the Death to All Robots Challenge. This event, which will begin next year, is a fundamentally different Darpa beast than the Darpa beasts that came before it.

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Robot Lawnmowers Are Killing Hedgehogs Sep 28, 2018

While Americans still wrangle their overgrown lawns by pushing or riding a lawnmower, many Europeans have handed off that responsibility to robots. These beefy, Roomba-like mowers loop their way around a yard, keeping grass trim and neat. To many of their users, the bots are endearing. Their owners give them names or cover them in decals of ladybugs or bumblebees. But the sentimentality only goes so far, because these blades-on-wheels have also been slicing up something other than grass: hedgehogs.

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Cats Bad at Nabbing Rats But Feast on Other Beasts Sep 27, 2018

In the summer of 2017, Michael Parsons found the urban rat haven of his dreams: A Waste Management transfer station—aka a literal trash heap, aka rat paradise—in Brooklyn, New York. For nearly two years, the behavioral ecologist and visiting scholar at Fordham University had been searching for a place to observe the city-dwelling rodents in their natural habitat. Trouble was, he needed to not only capture the critters and tag them, but then to set them free.

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Everyone Wants to Go to the Moon Again—Logic Be Damned Sep 27, 2018

The Moon is a pretty barren place. Sure, there are a few buggies, some golf balls, a flag, urine bags, a family photo. But it’s mostly empty. If a company called ispace has its way, though, Earth’s closest space neighbor will soon(ish) be the site of a bustling, industrial city full of workers and tourists. Moon Valley, the dreamers call it.

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Learn From These Bugs. Don't Let Social Media Zombify You Sep 26, 2018

You’ve heard that social media is screwing with your brain. Maybe you even read about it on social media. (So meta; so messed up.) The neurochemical culprit, dopamine, spikes when you like and get liked, share and are shared. You’ve probably also heard scientists compare the affliction to drug or alcohol addiction. That’s fair. The same part of the brain lights up. Scroll, scroll, scroll. It’s a phenomenon now so pervasive that it’s got a name: zombie scrolling syndrome.

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This Supple, Squishy Robo-Jellyfish Can Explore Ocean Reefs Sep 26, 2018

Jellyfish float through the ocean like drones of the sea. Their simple nature makes them a natural muse for robot engineers building devices that can squeeze through tight spaces, check the ocean’s health, and eventually, explore the human body. This week, a team at Florida Atlantic University unveiled a new eight-inch wide robo-jellyfish built to monitor marine life and harsh underwater habitats. It's not the first attempt to automate one of these 500 million year-old creatures.

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The Creepy-Cute Robot that Picks Peppers With its Face Sep 25, 2018

Rejoice! The machines won’t be taking over the world anytime soon, because doing the most basic of tasks still confounds them. I mean, have you thought lately about how hard it is to pick a ripe bell pepper? Fine, me neither. But researchers in Israel and Europe certainly have. They're developing a robot called Sweeper that can autonomously roam a greenhouse, eyeballing peppers to determine if they’re mature enough before sawing them off the plant and placing the produce in a basket.

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Here's the Plan to End Malaria With Crispr-Edited Mosquitoes Sep 25, 2018

In 2003, scientists at London’s Imperial College hatched a somewhat out-there idea. They wanted to deal with the increasingly pesticide-resistant mosquitoes that were killing half a million people a year by spreading malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. What biologists Austin Burt and Andrea Crisanti proposed was nothing short of hacking the laws of heredity.

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First It Was a Hurricane. Then Pig Poop. Now It’s Coal Ash Sep 24, 2018

After the storm comes the flood. Hurricane Florence poured 8 trillion gallons of rain onto North Carolina, and now the landscape between the Cape Fear River and the barrier islands of the Carolinas is a waterworld. Because ecological disasters happen in irony loops, that means long-recognized hazards have now become add-on catastrophes. First the floodwaters found thousands of literal cesspools containing the waste of 6 million hogs, and on Friday the waters reached a pool of toxic coal ash.

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New Microscope Shows the Quantum World in Crazy Detail Sep 24, 2018

The transmission electron microscope was designed to break records. Using its beam of electrons, scientists have glimpsed many types of viruses for the first time. They’ve used it to study parts of biological cells like ribosomes and mitochondria. You can see individual atoms with it. But experts have recently unlocked new potential for the machine. “It’s been a very dramatic and sudden shift,” says physicist David Muller of Cornell University.

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The Rocket That Gave Us GPS and the Mars Rovers Retires Sep 21, 2018

Last weekend, the Delta II rocket—for 30 years a regular fixture on launchpads in the United States—lifted off for the final time. The vehicle, built by the United Launch Alliance, had long carried the title of the most reliable rocket in service. With a record 153 successful launches out of 155 flights, the 125-foot-tall monolith, with its sporty teal-and-white paint scheme, is now officially a figure of the past.

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The Science Behind Home Disaster Preparedness Kits Is a Disaster Sep 21, 2018

Helicopters got to Wilmington, North Carolina after a day of isolation; Hurricane Florence made landfall there, and the city, with one foot in the Atlantic and the other in the Cape Fear River, soon became an island. Its main roads underwater, Wilmington went without help until boats and choppers reached it with medical supplies, water, and food. But it only took a day. According to the federal government, that’s actually pretty fast. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept.

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Want a Robot to Really Get a Grip? Make It Like Baymax Sep 20, 2018

The octopus is unique among animals in that it can essentially turn itself into liquid, Terminator style. Get yourself a 600-pound octopus and leave it unsupervised and the thing will squeeze itself into a quarter-sized tube and melt its way to freedom. And its manipulation superpowers are legendary—cram it into a jar and it’ll unscrew its way out. So it goes when you’ve got no bones. And loosey-goosey octopuses can teach us a thing or two about robots.

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Why Animal Extinction Is Crippling Computer Science Sep 20, 2018

Dodos. Western black rhinoceros. Tasmanian tigers. Bennett's seaweed. The list of extinct animal and plant species goes on and on. It's a tragedy that's only getting worse, we're told, but honestly, I never cared that much. Recently, though, I've found myself sympathizing with those fighting against species extinction. The reason? I'm a computer scientist interested in algorithms.

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E.T. Hunters Join Forces to Probe the Heavens Sep 19, 2018

WIRED ICON Jill Tarter, cofounder of the SETI Institute NOMINATES Margaret Turnbull, astronomer investigating alien biology October 2018. Subscribe to WIRED.Plunkett + Kuhr DesignersWhen she met Jill Tarter more than two decades ago, one of Margaret Turnbull’s first questions was, “How can somebody work with you?” Tarter was leading the Center for SETI Research at the time; Turnbull was an astronomy student. The next summer, Tarter took Turnbull on as an intern.

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Jeff Bezos and the Clock That Will Outlast Civilization Sep 19, 2018

WIRED ICON Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, orbital enthusiast GOES LONG The 10,000-year clock1 Inventor and computer scientist Danny Hillis spent the 1980s and early ’90s designing machines worthy of the new millennium. But by 1995 he realized that he had never given much thought to what lay on the other side of the year 2000.

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SpaceX Will Send Yusaku Maezawa (and Artists!) to the Moon Sep 18, 2018

“I choose to go to the moon.” Those were among the first words uttered on stage Monday night by Yusaku Maezawa, the mysterious passenger whose existence SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had teased on Twitter last week. Maezawa, a Japanese retail entrepreneur and art collector, stood before a small crowd at SpaceX headquarters and announced that he had also secured tickets for several companions on this week-long journey into space: a half-dozen artists that he will later select and invite along.

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Astronomers Have Found the Universe's Missing Matter Sep 18, 2018

Astronomers have finally found the last of the missing universe. It’s been hiding since the mid-1990s, when researchers decided to inventory all the “ordinary” matter in the cosmos—stars and planets and gas, anything made out of atomic parts. (This isn’t “dark matter,” which remains a wholly separate enigma.) They had a pretty good idea of how much should be out there, based on theoretical studies of how matter was created during the Big Bang.

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At the Edge of the World, Facing the End of the World Sep 17, 2018

Writing about climate change is an exercise in managed insanity. The human mind isn’t equipped to parse a crisis—the greatest in the history of our species—of such complexity and urgency and darkness. With record-breaking superstorms ravaging coastlines at a regular clip, it’s hard to feel good about the impact that Homo sapiens has had on our leafy, temperate, Goldilocks planet.

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An Equator Full of Hurricanes Shows a Preview of End Times Sep 17, 2018

The map looks terrifyingly unfamiliar. Not because of the outlines of the continents; those are comforting in their hooks, tails, splotches, and whorls. It’s the storms. Across the globe’s tropics right now, seven superstorms are swirling over oceans. Hurricane Florence is butting into the Carolinas on North America’s southeastern coast. Tropical storms Helene, Isaac, and Joyce are hovering over the Atlantic like jets stacked on approach to Charlotte.

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Emissions Have Already Peaked in 27 Cities—And Keep Falling Sep 14, 2018

Nothing against the countryside, which is lovely, but cities are where things happen. They are magnets for trade, and they're where cultures meet. They're also where more than half the world’s population lives, a number that will only continue to grow. Cities are also now serving as a unique testbed for responses to climate change—bolstering public transportation, erecting more efficient buildings, deploying renewable energy.

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A New Robotic Fly Dips and Dives Like the Real Thing Sep 14, 2018

Respect where respect is due: we humans may be mighty, but there’s still a foe that regularly dodges our best efforts to kill it: the fruit fly. Over millennia of evolution, fruit flies have adapted to burn their pursuers with enviable agility. Now researchers have built a robotic doppelganger that can twist and bank with astonishing speed. With two pairs of wings beating 17 times a second, it has a wingspan of over a foot and weighs just an ounce.

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You Can Drink Champagne in Space—Yes, Really Sep 13, 2018

Space travel used to be something that only people with the right stuff could experience. But advances in commercial space tourism is changing all of that. Virgin Galactic is registering passengers online. SpaceX announced it would send two lucky passengers around the moon in the next year or two. But space travel is still likely going to cater to a select few, in this case, people with the right amount of money. Virgin Galactic is currently pricing initial flights at $250,000.

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Yes, You Can Boil Water at Room Temperature. Here's How Sep 13, 2018

Sometimes it's right on the box of rice mix—the high altitude version of cooking instructions. Usually this means that your rice will have to cook a little bit longer if you are in Denver or at the top of Mount Everest. Of course that's just a joke. No one cooks rice at the top of Everest. But why are the instructions even different? Why does it matter where you cook? The answer has to do with boiling water. Go ask some people on the street about the boiling temperature of water.

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Wisconsin's Floods Are Catastrophic—and Only Getting Worse Sep 12, 2018

An entire summer’s worth of rain has fallen across a broad swath of the Midwest in recent days. The resulting record floods have wrecked homes and altered the paths of rivers, in one case destroying a waterfall in Minnesota. The worst-affected region, southwest Wisconsin, has received more than 20 inches of rain in 15 days– more than it usually gets in six months.

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When Your Phone Sucks You Into the Void, This App Notices Sep 12, 2018

Every night, an hour before bed, I stash my phone inside a drawer in my living room. Most days I retrieve it the following morning, when I'm heading out the door. It's a simple habit, but one that has helped me reclaim some focus from my smartphone—my personal fix for a growing problem that user experience researchers at Google recently called an "attention crisis." Outside the house, though, it's a different story: My phone rarely leaves my side.

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We Know Exactly How to Stop Wildfires—With Money Sep 11, 2018

Wild lands are practically worthless. They’re not worthless to the things that live in them, of course. They love ‘em. And they aren’t worthless aesthetically, if that’s your bag. Any place with plants slurps up carbon dioxide, providing a bulwark against climate change.

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New Space Robots Will Fix Satellites, or Maybe Destroy Them Sep 11, 2018

People in the satellite industry are fond of automobile analogies. Like this one: Imagine that you buy a car and need it to run for 15 years, but you can’t change the oil or replace the alternator, let alone refuel it. That, they say, is the state of satellites. Once they’ve slipped the surly bonds of Earth, satellites pretty much just have to work, from the time they unfurl from their rocket fairing to the day they shut down for good.

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This One-Armed Robot Is Super Manipulative (in a Good Way) Sep 10, 2018

Give a man a fish, the old saying goes, and you feed him for a day—teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Same goes for robots, with the exception that robots feed exclusively on electricity. The problem is figuring out the best way to teach them. Typically, robots get fairly detailed coded instructions on how to manipulate a particular object.

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23andMe Cuts Off the DNA App Ecosystem It Created Sep 10, 2018

Amy Mitchell started getting sick in 2012. Dizzy spells and fatigue became a part of her daily life, followed by numbness in her limbs and painful muscle spasms. After half a dozen doctors over two years couldn’t tell her what was wrong, she sent away for a 23andMe kit. At the time, the consumer DNA-testing company was only giving ancestry reports—the Federal Drug Administration had recently shut down 23andMe’s health information ambitions.

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A 600-Meter-Long Plastic Catcher Heads to Sea. But Scientists Are Skeptical Sep 07, 2018

This weekend, a project of staggering ambition will sail past San Francisco and out to sea through the Golden Gate. The invention of an organization called the Ocean Cleanup, it consists of a 600-meter-long plastic tube with a dangling screen that a ship will tow 240 nautical miles out to sea for testing.

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Startups Flock to Turn Young Blood Into an Elixir of Youth Sep 07, 2018

In the early 2000s, a handful of young scientists at Stanford turned the university’s Palo Alto campus into the mouse-stitching-together capital of the world. Reviving a centuries-old procedure known as parabiosis, they connected the circulatory systems of dozens of pairs of rodents, young sutured to old, so that they’d pump one another’s blood back and forth.

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This Hyper-Real Robot Will Cry and Bleed on Med Students Sep 06, 2018

Hal the robot boy is convulsing. His head shakes back and forth so rapidly, it looks like he’s vibrating. His eyelids droop over his blue eyes and his mouth is ajar. He makes no sound, other than the faint whirs of his motors. Hal was built to suffer. He is a medical training robot, the sort of invention that emerges when one of the most stressful jobs on Earth tumbles into the uncanny valley. No longer must nurses train on lifeless mannequins. Hal can shed tears, bleed, and urinate.

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Why Scientists Are Using Frog Eggs to Power Tiny Electronics Sep 06, 2018

Luigi Catacuzzeno lines up a long, thin needle against a frog egg. Peering at it through a microscope, he turns the knob of a machine to nudge the needle a fraction of a micron forward. Then he deftly punctures the membrane of the soft little egg to wire it to a small capacitor, an electrical component similar to a battery. This unusual arrangement is Catacuzzeno’s attempt to harvest energy from biological cells to power tiny electronics.

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America’s Spaceport Boom Is Outpacing the Need to Go to Space Sep 05, 2018

“The first mile is free,” Colorado’s governor, John Hickenlooper, says into a microphone. He’s smiling from a stage in Denver’s air and space museum, backed by a giant American flag that hangs near the bay doors of this repurposed military hangar. His audience has gathered to celebrate the FAA’s recent approval of a new Colorado spaceport, located a mile above sea level. They laugh at Hickenlooper's statement: They love this catchphrase.

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Crispr Halted Muscular Dystrophy in Dogs. Someday, It Might Cure Humans Sep 05, 2018

About ten years ago, British veterinarians discovered an unlucky family of King Charles Spaniels whose male pups sometimes came down with a mysterious set of maladies before their first birthday. They grew clumsy and weak, and they often choked on their own tongues. To blame was a mutation on their X chromosomes, in a gene that codes for a shock-absorbing muscle protein called dystrophin.

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A Clever and Simple Robot Hand Sep 04, 2018

If you want to survive the robot apocalypse—the nerd joke goes—just close the door. For all that they’re great at (precision, speed, consistency), robots still suck at manipulating door handles, among other basic tasks. Part of the problem is that they have to navigate a world built for humans, designed for hands like ours. And those are among the most complex mechanical structures in nature. Relief for the machines, though, is in sight.

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What if Ketamine Actually Works Like an Opioid? Sep 04, 2018

Few drugs are as two-faced as ketamine. By day, it works as a legitimate anesthetic, sitting comfortably on the World Health Organization’s list of Essential Medicines. By night, though, it moonlights as a party drug, sending users into an intense dissociative state (read: not in touch with reality) known as a K-hole. Of late, ketamine has also been finding work as a novel antidepressant, administered intravenously in not-illegal-but-also-not-mainstream clinics.

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A Law Alone Won't Get California to 100 Percent Green Power Sep 03, 2018

Before Californians use an electron, they like to swirl the glass a little, get some nose. You want a whiff of that subatomic particle’s terroir before pouring it into an air conditioner or a phone.

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Far Out! Worms May Dose Mice With Cannabinoids to Kill the Pain Sep 03, 2018

The next time you’ve got something to complain about, consider the plight of the intestinal worm. It not only has to figure out how to eat and breed in the confines of another creature, it has to prevent that creature’s body from dissolving the parasite into a mist of cells. That means dodging the immune system and inflammation, the body’s natural responses to invasion. Meaning, your late car payment ain’t got nothing on spending your entire life in an intestine.

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Here's How Fast That Jumping Tesla Was Traveling Aug 31, 2018

One of my part-time jobs is as an internet investigator. When crazy things happen, people want to know more about that crazy thing. In this case, the crazy thing is a Telsa driving super fast over a railroad crossing. It's going so fast that the car gets airborne before eventually losing control. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone was seriously injured, and it is also fortunate that a security camera caught this motion on video. Boom. Now for some questions.

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The Science Behind Social Science Gets Shaken Up—Again Aug 31, 2018

Taking a lice-grade comb to press coverage of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign can feel a little like relitigating, but in light of recent news about President Donald Trump, consider this article: “It Really Doesn’t Matter if Hillary Clinton Is Dishonest.” Published in the Washington Post just before the Iowa caucuses, it was one of many stories that took as stipulated the idea that voters saw Clinton as untrustworthy.

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How Big Can A Solar-Powered Drone Be? Aug 30, 2018

It's a brilliant idea. Put solar panels on a drone and it doesn't even need a battery. That's exactly what students made at the National University of Singapore. Without a battery, you could fly a drone like this as long as the sun keeps shining. It's awesome (assuming your motives are pure). But if you watch the video, you'll notice immediately that the drone is as thin as a sheet.

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Meet the Rosehip Cell, a New Kind of Neuron Aug 30, 2018

It’s been more than a century since Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize for illustrating the way neurons allow you to walk, talk, think, and be. In the intervening hundred years, modern neuroscience hasn’t progressed that much in how it distinguishes one kind of neuron from another. Sure, the microscopes are better, but brain cells are still primarily defined by two labor-intensive characteristics: how they look and how they fire.

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98.6 Degrees Is A Normal Body Temperature, Right? Not Quite Aug 29, 2018

You wake up at 6 am feeling achy and chilled. Unsure if you’re sick or just sleep-deprived, you reach for a thermometer. It beeps at 99°F, so you groan and roll out of bed to get ready for work. Because that’s not a fever. Is it? Yes, it is. Forget everything you thought you knew about normal body temperature and fever, starting with 98.6. That’s an antiquated number based on a flawed study from 1868 (yes, 150 years ago). The facts about fever are a lot more complicated.

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Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte Is Back to Mess With Your Brain Aug 29, 2018

Starbucks has divided the world of coffee enthusiasts into two categories: those who actually want cake but feel bad about eating cake first thing in the morning so they drink dessert coffee instead, and those who want artisanal pour-overs (no room for cream). Still, even those who wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks in June can't get to one fast enough in the fall, when everyone drops their pretensions for the pumpkin spice latte.

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Your Next Weather Apocalypse: The Smokestorm Aug 28, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. As wildfire smoke descended on Seattle last week, the sun turned an apocalyptic shade of red and the city breathed in some of the unhealthiest air in the world. A new word to describe this phenomenon graced the headlines: “smokestorm.” The person who coined the term is Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and revered Seattle meteorologist.

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The Physics of Falling Into a Black Hole Aug 28, 2018

There was an art accident recently. A man fell into a black hole—OK, not that kind of black hole, but an art exhibit consisting of an 8-foot-deep circular hole painted black. The idea was to represent the feeling of a super deep, even endless hole. I guess the guy didn't realize it was a hole and fell. But this leads to some great physics ideas to discuss about vision and the color black. Let me start with one of my favorite party questions. It goes like this.

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The Globe-Trotting Show Bringing Science and Tech to Arab TV Aug 27, 2018

A large yet tidy refugee camp rises from the desert near the Syrian-Jordanian border. Most people wouldn’t think of this as a hub of innovation, but nevertheless, a science and technology show has arrived with cameras and microphones. They’re interviewing officials from UNICEF who describe the techniques they developed to safely remove sewage from the camp. Another week, and the cameras arrive in Stockholm to watch a new type of drone make its way through a dark tunnel.

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The Spiky Simulator That Will Help Find Oceans in Space Aug 27, 2018

The electric-blue chamber looks like a crowd of punk mohawks or the Night King’s jagged skull. In fact, this 4,306-square-foot room is where antennas are torture-tested before being launched into space. Called the Hybrid European Radio Frequency and Antenna Test Zone, or HERTZ, it’s located in Noordwijk, Netherlands. The 33-foot-high steel walls are studded with 18-inch foam pyramids that block external electromagnetic interference.

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The Serious Security Problem Looming Over Robotics Aug 24, 2018

They call it Herb2. It’s a dapper robot, wearing a bowtie even while it sits at home in its lab at the University of Washington. Its head is a camera, which it cranes up and down, taking in the view of a dimly lit corner where two computer monitors sit. All perfectly normal stuff for a robot—until the machine speaks: “Hello from the hackers.” Clear across the country at Brown University, researchers have compromised Herb2.

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How Much Energy Can You Store in a Stack of Cement Blocks? Aug 24, 2018

This is sort of awesome. It's a concrete gravity battery. What? Yup. The idea is to even out the balance between power generation and power usage; like with any battery, this one allows you to store extra energy for use at a later time when demand is higher. Or maybe you could use solar power during the day to store energy in the battery to be used at night—you know, when the sun doesn't shine.

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How NASA Built a Shark Tank for Space Inventions Aug 23, 2018

Heather Potters is trying to get to the point. On a stage at Denver's Air & Space museum, a 182,000 square-foot space filled with decommissioned aircraft, she stands in front of a PowerPoint and describes her company's no-needle syringes, which can deliver vaccines by accelerating the liquid into a superfast stream that punctures the skin.

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Trump's New Power Plan Comes With a Deadly Price Aug 23, 2018

West Virginia is second only to Wyoming in both coal production and President Trump’s winning vote percentage in the 2016 general election. So it was no surprise that Trump flew to the Mountain State Tuesday to stump for his new plan to boost coal-fired power plants by cutting regulations on planet-warming carbon emissions.

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Prepare to Be Hypnotized By These Delicate Paper Robots Aug 22, 2018

As far as plant names go, the sleepy plant—or shy plant, or shameplant, known more formally as Mimosa pudica—is hard to beat. Touch one of its leaves and it curls up like it’s embarrassed, the leaflets folding in on each other. It’s hypnotic and, well, kind of a surprising response for an organism without a brain. Now, the shameplant is getting its very own robotic doppelganger.

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How to Prove That the Earth Orbits the Sun Aug 22, 2018

One of my favorite classes to teach is Physics for Elementary Education. It's a physics class designed to address the needs of future elementary school teachers—grades 1 through 6 or so. To guide the class, I've been using a version of Next Gen Physical Science and Everyday Thinking for a long time, maybe 13 years or so, and it is super awesome.

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An Adorable Rodent Gives a Glimpse Into Earth’s Climate Chaos Aug 21, 2018

Bounding around on giant hind limbs, using its giant tail to balance, the well-named giant kangaroo rat of Southern California is half Pokemon, half Mighty Mouse. It emerges at night to forage on seeds, building up underground stores. When it’s not busy foraging, it’s busy scrapping with its peers to claim territory. It dominates these grasslands, outcompeting smaller rodents while doing its best to dodge foxes and snakes. But the giant kangaroo rat isn’t invincible.

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Think Rivers Are Dangerous Now? Just Wait Aug 21, 2018

A river is a mercurial thing, running deep and fast in the rainy season, and low and slow when the rains fade. It can dry up completely one year, then turn into a raging flood the next. Every so often, a river disappears entirely, bringing down the communities it once nourished. You hear a lot about how climate change is fueling the rise of our seas, but not so much about how it will transform our rivers, the flooding of which currently affects almost 60 million people a year.

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The Curious Case of a Revolutionary (But Imaginary?) Superconductor Aug 20, 2018

On July 23, Dev Kumar Thapa and Anshu Pandey made an extraordinary claim online. It wasn’t your garden variety fake news: By cramming microscopic particles of gold and silver together into pellets, they said, they’d constructed the first ever room-temperature superconductor. In a 13-page PDF, the two chemists at the Indian Institute of Science laid out measurements that indicated the pellets could conduct electricity perfectly at temperatures as warm as 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

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After 13 Years, Scientists Finally Map the Massive Wheat Genome Aug 20, 2018

In a field at the edge of the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus, half a dozen students and lab technicians glance up at the darkening afternoon skies. The threatening rain storm might bring relief from the 90-degree August heat, but it won’t help harvest all this wheat. Moving between the short rows, they cut out about 100 spiky heads, put them in a plastic container, and bring them back to a growling Vogel thresher parked at the edge of the plot.

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The Physics of Catching a Gnarly 80-Foot-Tall Wave Aug 17, 2018

I've never been surfing—but I'm willing to give it a try. I would not, however, be interested in attempting to surf a massive wave like this one off the coast of Portugal. That's a pass for me. Of course even if you don't surf, there is still some cool physics involved in the act of surfing (let alone all the physics of wave formation). So, how does a rider stay moving with a huge wave like this? As with all motions, the key is to look at forces.

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Your Tweets Can Help Map the Spread of Wildfire Smoke Aug 17, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on High Country Newsand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. At the end of July, Twitter user Alicia Santana posted a photo of a man sitting in a plastic folding chair in his yard. He’s looking away from the camera, towards a monstrous, orange cloud of smoke filling the sky beyond a wire fence. “My dad not wanting to leave his home,” Santana wrote, ending it with #MendocinoComplexFire.

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Three Science Experiments You Can Do With Your Phone Aug 17, 2018

Everyone already knows that you are carrying around a computer in your pocket. But your smartphone is more than just a computer—it's also a data collector. I'm going to guess that yours can measure acceleration, magnetic field, sound, location, and maybe more. Many phones also can measure pressure. Oh, and some phones can even make phone calls. With all of those sensors available, I'm going to go over three fun experiments you can do with your phone.

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Drone Swarms as You Know Them Are Just an Illusion—for Now Aug 15, 2018

Look at all the pretty drones. Hovering above sports stadiums from Houston to Pyeongchang, many hundreds of them have lately sparkled in artful murmuration. On a recent Time magazine cover, 958 drones pixelated the sky. The world record, 1,374 LED-bedazzled microbots, was set by Chinese company EHang UAV in May. So-called drone swarms—the phrase people have taken up with gusto—are having their biggest, buzziest year ever.

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Wildfire Smoke Is Smothering the US—Even Where You Don't Expect It Aug 14, 2018

America is on fire … again. More than a million and a half acres are burning in 15 states, from Arizona to Alaska. More than 3,000 firefighters are working to contain the Mendocino Complex Fire 100 miles north of San Francisco, now the largest in California history, and over the weekend, lightning strikes sparked dozens of new wildfires across the state of Washington. Near Mount Shasta, the deadly Carr Fire has so far incinerated 1,077 homes, forced mass evacuations, and killed eight.

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Star-Swallowing Black Holes Reveal Secrets in Exotic Light Shows Aug 14, 2018

Black holes, befitting their name and general vibe, are hard to find and harder to study. You can eavesdrop on small ones from the gravitational waves that echo through space when they collide—but that technique is new, and still rare. You can produce laborious maps of stars flitting around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way or nearby galaxies. Or you can watch them gulp down gas clouds, which emit radiation as they fall. Now researchers have a new option.

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How Engineering the Climate Could Mess With Our Food Aug 13, 2018

On June 15, 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew its top in an eruption of staggering proportions. It sent an ash cloud 28 miles high, filling surrounding valleys with deposits 660 feet thick and destroying almost every bridge within 18 miles. Over 800 people lost their lives. The volcano also ended up affecting humans all over the world. Its aerosols circled the Earth, reducing direct sunlight by 21 percent.

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What Termites Teach Us About Robot Cooperation Aug 13, 2018

At a glance, a single worker of the genus Macrotermes is not a very complex creature—less than half an inch long, eyeless, wingless, with an abdomen so transparent you can spot the dead grass it ate for lunch. Put it in a group, though, and it may pile up pinhead-sized balls of mud, one after the other, until a complex mound takes shape. By the time that mound is 17 feet tall, it will be equivalent in scale to the Burj Khalifa.

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This Solar Probe Is Built to Survive a Brush With the Sun Aug 10, 2018

Early Saturday morning, the skies above Cape Canaveral will light up with the launch of the Parker Solar Probe. Its mission? To sweep through the sun’s infernal outer atmosphere, studying the gaseous fireball at the center of the solar system at closer range than any man-made object ever before. Despite being the nearest star to Earth, the sun’s extreme environment has stymied scientists for decades.

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Native Tribes Are Taking Fire Control Into Their Own Hands Aug 10, 2018

Sometimes Vikki Preston is inching her way through the forest when she comes across a grove of tan oak trees that feels special. The plants are healthy, the trees are old, and their trunks are nicely spaced out on the forest floor. “You can feel that the grove has been taken care of,” she says. “There’s been a lot of love and thoughtfulness.

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The Unknowability of the Next Global Epidemic Aug 09, 2018

Disease X n. A dire contagion requiring immediate attention—but which we don’t yet know about. In 2013 a virus jumped from an animal to a child in a remote Guinean village. Three years later, more than 11,000 people in six countries were dead. Devastating—and Ebola was a well-studied disease. What may strike next, the World Health Organization fears, is something no doctor has ever heard of, let alone knows how to treat. It’s come to be known as Disease X.

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Scientists Take a Harder Look at Genetic Engineering of Human Embryos Aug 09, 2018

The distant future of designer babies might not seem so distant after all. The last year has been full of news about genetic engineering—much of it driven by the the cut-and-paste technique called Crispr. And at the top of the list: news that Crispr could modify human embryos, correcting a relatively common, often deadly mutation.

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You Can Learn Everything Online Except for the Things You Can't Aug 08, 2018

I've seen several quotes that say something like this. Everything I learned in college can now be found online for free. Is this true or false? Well, it of course depends on what you did in college—but I hope it's false. Let's start with some examples that seem to support this idea. I will use the area of physics since I'm a physics professor.

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How Much Power Does It Take to Fly in a Real-Life Jet Suit? Aug 08, 2018

This isn't actually a real Iron Man suit. But it does fly. It's a flying suit made by Gravity Industries, a young British startup that builds what they call 'jet suits.' The system uses six kerosene-powered jet thrusters to let a human fly around. Honestly, it just looks cool. This tweet states that it takes 1,000 horsepower to fly—how about an estimation to check this number? The Physics of Flight Let's start off with some fundamental physics.

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This Community Is Advocating for Air Quality—With Science Aug 07, 2018

Kamita Gray and her mom have spent a lot of time volunteering at Brandywine Elementary School, helping kindergarteners learn to write their names and making sure everyone has a turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every time they’re at the Maryland school, they’re struck by the heavy black smoke from diesel trucks roaring by, en route from construction sites or delivering mining waste to dumps.

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My Two-Week Edible-Insect Feast Aug 07, 2018

The insects appeared at my Chicago doorstep in swarms. Crickets, grasshoppers, locusts, mealworms, ants—all of them dead on arrival, entombed in resealable bags and glass jars. Before long, my apartment was overrun with bugs, and soon all of my meals would be too. I had summoned this infestation, ranging from whole dried insects to bug-based chips, granola, and protein bars, for the greater good.

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Who's Responsible for Your Bad Tech Habits? It's Complicated Aug 06, 2018

First the phones gave. They gave connection and communication. Then they gave music and movies and maps. Then came the apps, and with the apps came… well... everything. And we took it all gladly. But somewhere along the way, the phones began to take, too. They took our attention, distracting us from dates and family dinners. They took our time, devouring hours of our days a few minutes at a time.

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Meet the Astronauts Who Will Fly the First Private ‘Space Taxis’ Aug 06, 2018

SpaceX and Boeing are preparing to face off in an epic game of capture the flag. The winner not only wins bragging rights as the first private company to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station, but gets to bring home a piece of history: a small American flag that flew on both the first and last shuttle missions. That tiny patch of red, white, and blue is more than a piece of cloth.

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Robots Are Renting Airbnbs to Get a Better Grip Aug 03, 2018

Maybe you like your Airbnb to come with a nice big living room, or lots of light, or his-and-her sinks. If you’re a robot, though, you just want a little variety. A carpet here, a hardwood floor there. Because you’re a pioneer, not just a tourist. At least, if you’re a very special robot from a team at Carnegie Mellon University.

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Climate Change's Looming Mental Health Crisis Aug 03, 2018

For the Inuit of Labrador in Canada, climate disaster has already arrived. These indigenous people form an intense bond with their land, hunting for food and fur. “People like to go out on the land to feel good,” says Noah Nochasak in the documentary Lament for the Land. “If they can’t go out on the land, travel a long ways to feel good, they don’t feel like people.

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The Only Thing Fire Scientists Are Sure of: This Will Get Worse Aug 02, 2018

Subtract out the conspiracists and the willfully ignorant and the argument marshaled by skeptics against global warming, roughly restated, assumes that scientists vastly overstate the consequences of pumping greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere. Uncertainties in their calculations, the skeptics say, make it impossible to determine with confidence how bad the future was going to be.

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Why Big Stuff Cools Off Slower Than Small Stuff Aug 02, 2018

Welcome to another chapter in my ongoing saga entitled "big things are not small things." In this edition of big vs. small, let's look at hot stuff. Here I have three aluminum objects. A large block, a small block, and a heat sink. Just for reference, the big block is about 14 centimeters long and the smaller block is almost 4 centimeters long (with the heat sink a little bit bigger than that). Of course none of these objects are cubes—but that's OK. So here's what I did.

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Climate Change Is Coming for Underwater Archaeological Sites Aug 01, 2018

This story originally appeared on Atlas Obscura and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a choppy voyage to Antarctica in 1928, the crew of the ship that would eventually be rechristened as the Vamar bestowed upon their vessel an optimistic nickname: “Evermore Rolling.” It proved to be a bit of a misnomer. Far from slicing through cresting waves forever, the ship sank near Florida in 1942, 3.

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Making Personalized Cancer Vaccines Takes an Army—of Robots Aug 01, 2018

When Melissa Moore was tinkering around with RNA in the early 90s, the young biochemist had to painstakingly construct the genetic molecules by micropipette, just a few building blocks at a time. Inside the MIT lab of Nobel laureate Phil Sharp, it could take days to make just a few drops of RNA, which ferries a cell’s genetic source code to its protein-making machinery.

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This Robot Hand Taught Itself How to Grab Stuff Like a Human Jul 31, 2018

Elon Musk is kinda worried about AI. (“AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization and I don’t think people fully appreciate that,” as he put it in 2017.) So he helped found a research nonprofit, OpenAI, to help cut a path to “safe” artificial general intelligence, as opposed to machines that pop our civilization like a pimple. Yes, Musk’s very public fears may distract from other more real problems in AI.

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Sorry, Nerds: Terraforming Might Not Work on Mars Jul 31, 2018

Listen, I get it. You want to go to Mars. I want to go to Mars. (Sort of.) And the plan—it’s good. A rocket with people. A base on the moon. Then more rockets and more people. Start making fuel on the surface, maybe depot it along the way. An outpost becomes a base becomes a domed city. And then: terraforming.

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If Germany Can't Quit Coal, Can Anyone Else? Jul 30, 2018

Sometime next month, underground miners will dig Germany’s last ton of black coal, load it onto a conveyor belt, and whisk it a mile to the surface of the Ibbenbüren mining facility. From there, the high-energy anthracite will be tossed into a high-combustion chamber in an adjacent power plant, where it will be converted into electricity to light up this northwest corner of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state. It’s been a good run at the Ibbenbüren mine.

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Congress Has a $65 Million Proposal to Study Tech’s Effect on Kids Jul 30, 2018

Like a lot of people, you probably spend a fair bit of time worrying about how much time you spend on your phone. Who doesn't these days? But what really concerns you is the youth. What is all that swiping and snapping and gramming doing to their still-developing brains? Surely somebody's studied this—the effect of all this screen time. So what have they found? Well, to be honest: nothing conclusive. At least not yet.

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That Purple Kush You're Toking Might Be a Genetic Imposter Jul 27, 2018

Cannabis strain names can get a bit … quirky (Lamb’s Bread, anyone?). But without them, patients that rely on marijuana to treat ailments like pain would be lost. If you want to treat seizures, you might want ACDC—a strain that expresses almost zero THC and very high CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid—and stay away from the potentially panic-inducing Ghost OG, which verges on 25 percent THC.

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Next-Gen Nuclear Is Coming—If Society Wants It Jul 27, 2018

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Back in 2009, Simon Irish, an investment manager in New York, found the kind of opportunity that he thought could transform the world while — in the process — transforming dollars into riches.

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How Plastic Straws Slip Through the Cracks of Waste Management Jul 26, 2018

Earlier this year, a three-year-old video of researchers extracting a long, twisted tube from a reptile’s bleeding nostril went viral. To date, it has accumulated more than 30 million views and set off a moral panic. The straw that broke the turtle’s beak also did a number on the camel’s back. Companies like Starbucks, Ikea, and Hilton hotels have announced policies reducing or eliminating single-use slurping devices.

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Scientists Discover the First Large Body of Liquid Water on Mars Jul 26, 2018

For decades Mars has teased scientists with whispers of water's presence. Valleys and basins and rivers long dry point to the planet's hydrous past. The accumulation of condensation on surface landers and the detection of vast subterranean ice deposits suggest the stuff still lingers in gaseous and solid states. But liquid water has proved more elusive. Evidence to date suggests it flows seasonally, descending steep slopes in transient trickles every Martian summer.

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This Bomb-Simulating US Supercomputer Broke a World Record Jul 25, 2018

Brad Settlemyer had a supercomputing solution in search of a problem. Los Alamos National Lab, where Settlemyer works as a research scientist, hosts the Trinity supercomputer—a machine that regularly makes the internet’s (ever-evolving) Top 10 Fastest lists. As large as a Midwestern McMansion, Trinity’s main job is to ensure that the cache of US nuclear weapons works when it’s supposed to, and doesn’t when it’s not.

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SpaceX Preps for Three Block 5 Launches in Just Two Weeks Jul 25, 2018

This weekend, SpaceX began what is slated to be its busiest week ever by successfully launching its largest payload to date: a communications satellite dubbed TelStar 19V. Perched atop the company’s Cape Canaveral launch pad, a shiny new Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 1:50 am Eastern on Sunday morning, lighting up the predawn sky. It was the 13th launch so far this year for SpaceX—and, notably, the first of three Falcon 9 Block 5 booster launches scheduled for the next 12 days.

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How a Team of Experts Quelled Colorado's Enormous Spring Fire Jul 24, 2018

I first heard about Colorado’s Spring Fire on July 1, when I was driving back from a camping trip. My mom texted me from her home in Florida: “How close are these fires?” I pulled over to a rest stop, called up the federal disaster website Inciweb, and sent her back a screenshot of the wildfire’s perimeter. It seemed far away from my house on the Huerfano County line, like it would have to cross impossible acres to even come close.

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Meet the Woman Who Rocked Particle Physics—Three Times Jul 24, 2018

In 1963, Maria Goeppert Mayer won the Nobel Prize in physics for describing the layered, shell-like structures of atomic nuclei. No woman has won since. One of the many women who, in a different world, might have won the physics prize in the intervening 55 years is Sau Lan Wu. Wu is the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an experimentalist at CERN, the laboratory near Geneva that houses the Large Hadron Collider.

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Welcome to the Era of Orbital Publicity Stunts Jul 23, 2018

Space Graffiti n. Objects placed in orbit for the sole purpose of being seen from Earth. In January a company called Rocket Lab secretly added an extra point of light to the night sky. Dubbed the Humanity Star, it was a faceted carbon-fiber sphere parked in low Earth orbit, designed to twinkle as it caught the sun’s rays, thus creating a “shared experience for everyone on the planet.” Astronomers were not amused.

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Some Scientists Work With China, but NASA Won't Jul 20, 2018

Inside a sealed clean room near Toulouse, France, Maurice Sylvestre points out something called SuperCam. Tall, with square-frame glasses, a corduroy jacket and a full head of brown hair, he resembles a mid-1980s version of actor Michael Caine, if Caine were an astrophysicist (and French). But right now it's hard to catch the resemblance: Sylvestre is outfitted in Tyvex and hairnets, necessary to keep out dust, skin particles, and dirt that could mar the super-smooth surface of his device.

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A Comprehensive Guide to the Physics of Running on the Moon Jul 20, 2018

One day humans will have a permanent presence on the moon. Right? One day it's going to happen. So, how are we going to live on the moon? And maybe a more important question—how are we going to move around there? In preparation for our lunar colony, let me look at three motions that we could do on the moon: jumping, running, and turning. Let me note that this analysis is inspired by Andy Weir's recent novel Artemis.

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Rising Seas Could Cause Your Next Internet Outage Jul 19, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. You probably didn’t give much thought to how exactly you loaded this webpage. Maybe you clicked a link from Twitter or Facebook and presto, this article popped up on your screen. The internet seems magical and intangible sometimes. But the reality is, you rely on physical, concrete objects—like giant data centers and miles of underground cables—to stay connected.

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How a Flock of Drones Developed Collective Intelligence Jul 19, 2018

The drones rise all at once, 30 strong, the domes of light on their undercarriages glowing 30 different hues—like luminescent candy sprinkles against the gray, dusky sky. Then they pause, suspended in the air. And after a couple seconds of hovering, they begin to move as one. As the newly-formed flock migrates, its members’ luminous underbellies all change to the same color: green. They've decided to head east.

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In Greenland, Iceberg Shedding Is a Tourist Attraction and a Threat Jul 18, 2018

When an iceberg breaks off from a glacier, it can drift for thousands of miles, traveling freely across the open ocean. But last week, an iceberg’s journey was interrupted when it got stuck on a shallow part of the seafloor along Greenland’s western coast. In other words, the iceberg was grounded—and it had lodged itself right beside the small island village of Innaarsuit.

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Cheap, Portable Sensors Are Democratizing Air-Quality Data Jul 18, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on CityLaband is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. Until she moved to Fresno, California in 2003, Janet DietzKamei had never experienced asthma. But after just a few years in a city notorious for its filthy air—the American Lung Association lists it in the five worst US cities for air quality—DietzKamei found herself in the emergency room struggling to breathe.

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How New York City Is Tackling Extreme Heat in a Warming World Jul 17, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. On a hot summer day in New York City last July, Ajohntae Dixon was studying at home when he began struggling to breathe. With no air conditioning in his apartment, the temperature inside surged, and the 15-year-old’s gasping quickly progressed into a full-blown asthma attack under the oppressive heat. He took his inhaler and then tried his nebulizer, but he was still fighting for air.

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Astronomers Discovered 12 New Moons Around Jupiter. Here's How Jul 17, 2018

Sometimes a search for one thing presents the chance to look for something else. If you're like me, that something else is usually something small: Rummaging in the couch cushions for the TV remote might prompt you to dig for spare change. Two birds, one stone, etc. But if you're astronomer Scott Sheppard, the second bird occasionally turns out to be a doozy. Or several doozies.

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How Is a Runner Like a Bouncing Ball? Jul 17, 2018

There are so many real-world physics problems involved in running. Lots of physicists have been inspired, for instance, by the crazy-fast speeds of Usain Bolt. Just take a look at this paper, "On the performance of Usain Bolt in the 100 m sprint" (European Journal of Physics), in which the authors examine the motion of Usain in one of his sprints. But what if you want to look at more .

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This Company Wants Your Fertility Data Jul 16, 2018

When Piraye Beim went to her first OBGYN visit more than two decades ago, she got a pap smear and an earful about avoiding STDs. She didn’t learn in that visit that the fact she was having excruciating periods as a teenager might mean she could have trouble conceiving later in life. She definitely didn’t hear the words “reproductive health” come out of her doctor’s mouth. Like nearly 10 percent of women, Beim has lived with endometriosis her whole adult life.

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Robots Can't Hold Stuff Very Well. But You Can Help Jul 16, 2018

Imagine, for a moment, the simple act of picking up a playing card from a table. You have a couple of options: Maybe you jam your fingernail under it for leverage, or drag it over the edge of the table. Now imagine a robot trying to do the same thing. Tricky: Most robots don’t have fingernails, or friction-facilitating fingerpads that perfectly mimic ours. So many of these delicate manipulations continue to escape robotic control.

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The Ultimate Carbon-Saving Tip? Travel by Cargo Ship Jul 13, 2018

By the end of June, Kajsa Fernström Nåtby was homesick. The native Swede had just finished a 5-month internship with her country’s diplomatic office near the UN headquarters in Manhattan, darting between debates on migration and ocean plastic. Now, her parents were pleading for her to hop on an 8-hour flight across the Atlantic and rush home. But Fernström Nåtby had a different idea.

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What's a Blazar? A Galactic Bakery for Cosmic Rays Jul 13, 2018

In 1911 and 1912, an Austrian physicist named Victor Hess took to the sky in a series of risky hot air balloon trips—for science. Down on land, researchers had been registering signals of mysterious energetic particles on their instruments. They didn’t know what the signals were or where they came from. So in progressively thinning air, more than three miles off the ground, Hess performed experiments to figure out if the particles came from above or below.

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Inside the Test Chamber for NASA's Astronaut Vehicle Double Jul 12, 2018

Inside an 80-foot-tall chamber on Lockheed Martin’s Denver-area campus, backgrounded by red-rock ridges, stands a hulking spacecraft. You have to crane your neck to see the top of the apparatus. At the bottom, wires spew from a porthole to snake up and down and away. The cylindrical structure flows into a duller, funnel-like cone, which tapers into a tower with rocket nozzles. Next to it, the blue scaffolds of an indoor crane resemble a launchpad gantry.

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Facebook Opens Its Private Servers to Scientists Studying Fake News Jul 12, 2018

This much is obvious: What the world needs now is less fake news. In general, sure, but particularly on the planet's leading source of information: Facebook. The thing is, to separate the informational wheat from the disinformational chaffe, what you actually need is a better definition of fake news. And that's… well… less obvious. "What does it mean, exactly? It's not always clear.

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Flattened Fluids Help Scientists Understand Oceans and Atmospheres Jul 11, 2018

Turbulence, the splintering of smooth streams of fluid into chaotic vortices, doesn’t just make for bumpy plane rides. It also throws a wrench into the very mathematics used to describe atmospheres, oceans and plumbing. Turbulence is the reason why the Navier-Stokes equations—the laws that govern fluid flow—are so famously hard that whoever proves whether or not they always work will win a million dollars from the Clay Mathematics Institute.

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Can Your Electronic Gadgets Interfere With Your Compass? Jul 11, 2018

Does it matter if you put a video camera near your magnetic compass that is used for navigation? The theoretical answer is "yes." But the practical answer? "Probably not." Now for a detailed explanation! How does a magnetic compass work? So, the Earth is like a giant magnet, just like that bar magnet that picks up paperclips. For this giant Earth-magnet, the north end is in Antartica and the south end is in the Arctic. Yes, the North Pole of the Earth is the south pole of the Earth's magnet.

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The Race to Get Tourists to Suborbital Space Is Heating Up Jul 10, 2018

Space: final frontier or ultimate tourist destination? Possibly both—provided you have the cash. Already, you can buy tickets for (as-yet-unscheduled) flights aboard SpaceShipTwo, the crew vehicle developed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. And at a NewSpace conference in Seattle last month, Blue Origin—helmed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—announced that it has plans to sell tickets to wannabe space tourists as early as next year.

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Don't Just Lecture Robots—Make Them Learn Jul 10, 2018

The robot apocalypse is nigh. Boston Dynamics’ robots are doing backflips and opening doors for their friends. Oh, and these 7-foot-long robot arms can lift 500 pounds each, which means they could theoretically crush, like, six humans at once. The robot apocalypse is also laughable. Watch a robot attempt a task it hasn’t been explicitly trained to do, and it’ll fall flat on its face or just give up and catch on fire.

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Where Can Climate Activists Find Common Ground? Jul 09, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. Sometimes the most vicious fights occur over the smallest differences. Brutal battles have pitted Catholics that kneel in prayer against Protestant sects that stood before the same God.

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Try Out This Physics Problem With a Baseball and a Neighbor Jul 09, 2018

The best questions are always the ones that don't have a single clear answer. In my physics classes, I like to present students with problems that can promote a lively discussion—and to do that, they have to have multiple answers that could possibly make sense. (And they shouldn't involve lots of math, otherwise my students will just get hung up on the calculations.) Here is a version of one of these great questions; it's truly a classic. A human (person A below) has two baseballs.

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Never Prebook Your Return Flight From a Rocket Launch Jul 06, 2018

Anyone who travels to rocket launches regularly knows three things: Bring snacks, wear sunscreen, and don't book your flight home for the night after the scheduled takeoff. Chances are, you'll either miss the launch or your plane. A company called Rocket Lab provides no exception. The commercial space organization hopes to send up rockets just the right size for smaller satellites. But of three total launch attempts, it has delayed or scrubbed all of them.

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In Search of New Rules to Protect Other Worlds From Earth's Cooties Jul 06, 2018

NASA has to start protecting planets better. The international treaty governing space—there is one—and the laws and regulations that follow it date back to the Cold War. That was before scientists knew about the oceans on moons around other planets, before they knew about how tough microorganisms get here on Earth (and so maybe in space too?), before they started planning experiments to look for life on Mars, and before tech billionaires started threatening to send people to space.

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The Air Force Is Already Betting on SpaceX's Brand-New Falcon Heavy Jul 05, 2018

Falcon Heavy is about to take off in a big way. Just a few months after its thrilling debut, SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket is back in the headlines. Not for sending another cherry-red Tesla into space, but for gaining some major accolades from the Air Force. In a surprising move, and after just one flight, the Air Force announced it has certified Falcon Heavy for military launches and awarded the vehicle its first highly coveted launch contract: the AFSPC-52 mission.

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We Have No Idea How Bad the US Tick Problem Is Jul 05, 2018

When Rick Ostfeld gets bitten by a tick, he knows right away. After decades studying tick-borne diseases as an ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, Ostfeld has been bitten more than 100 times, and his body now reacts to tick saliva with an intense burning sensation. He’s an exception.

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The Physics of Launching Fireworks From a Drone Jul 04, 2018

Can you launch fireworks from your drone? OK, before I answer this question I have my own question: Why? Guys, why would you want to put fireworks on your drone? I mean, I get it. Fireworks are cool and drones are cool. Therefore fireworks on drones are cool to the power of two, I guess. But really, it's probably not a good idea to manifest your American pride with this particular version of pyrotechnics.

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Do Thundershirts Really Calm Dogs During Fireworks or What? Jul 04, 2018

The dogs will lose their minds. They always do. Every Fourth of July in America, as children stay up past their bedtime to watch colors explode in the sky and adults sit on the back of pickup trucks drinking beer and marveling at a pyrotechnic technology 12 centuries old, pets across the country panic with every boom. Sound phobias are very common for dogs—and cats—making this holiday a nightmare for millions of animals.

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This Giant Invasive Flower Can Give You Third-Degree Burns Jul 03, 2018

The giant hogweed is hard to miss. The monstrous plant towers up to 15 feet tall, with a crown of white flowers the size of an umbrella. They burst into bloom between the last week of June and the first week of July—just in time to be the perfect dramatic backdrop to red-white-and-blue-themed parties. But whatever you do, don’t touch it. The giant hogweed’s toxic sap could give you third-degree burns if you don’t get out of the sun and wash it off immediately.

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DNA-Repairing Sunscreen: Legit or Not? Jul 03, 2018

Having grown up in Tucson, Arizona, one of the sunniest cities in the world, I consider myself well-versed in the carcinogenic threat of UV exposure, the skin-sparing sanctity of shade, and the redeeming qualities of the sartorial atrocity that is the broad-brimmed hat. I am also a compulsive sunscreensplainer.

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Why (and How) California Is Destroying Mountains of Weed Jul 02, 2018

Call it the California Marijuanapocalypse of 2018. As of January 1, recreation cannabis has been legal in the state. A black market still runs underneath it all (Northern California alone supplies perhaps 75 percent of all marijuana across the United States), but cultivators and distributors are going legit, bringing themselves up to the rigorous testing and packaging standards mandated by the state. This weekend, though, was a weekend of reckoning.

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The Physics of a Spinning Spacecraft in The Expanse Jul 02, 2018

The Expanse should just change their post credits for each episode to include a list of homework questions. Seriously—there are so many great things to explore in this hard science fiction show. In a recent episode, one of the large spaceships (the Navoo) rotates in order to create artificial gravity (that's not really a spoiler). How about some questions and answers about this giant spinning spaceship? How do you make artificial gravity? Let me get right to it.

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One Sentence With 7 Meanings Unlocks a Mystery of Human Speech Jun 29, 2018

Ruth Nell is talented talker. Always has been. As a child, her mother taught her to enunciate her words when she spoke, which she did often and at length. So wordy was she that, in grammar school, her friends nicknamed her "Yakky Roo," partly for her ace Yakky Doodle impersonation, but also for her loquaciousness.

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SpaceX Is About to Launch Its Final Block 4 Falcon Jun 29, 2018

SpaceX is swiftly moving toward achieving its ultimate goal of rapid reusability: flying a single booster twice within a 24-hour time period. It’s a goal that Elon Musk says SpaceX will achieve later this year—but in order to make good on that promise, the company must first say goodbye to its hardest-working rocket yet. That would be the full thrust Falcon, known to SpaceX followers as the Block 4.

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Delays, Rising Costs Plague NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Jun 28, 2018

For the past decade, astronomers have been waiting for a remarkable new instrument to enter the world. The James Webb Space Telescope will be launched to waypoint 1 million miles beyond Earth’s orbit, further than any telescope yet, where it can observe the deepest corners of the universe. From there it will unfurl a sunshield to protect special sensors that can detect images giving off faint glow of far infrared light.

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The Rise of DNA Data Storage Jun 28, 2018

The 144 words of Robert Frost’s seminal poem “The Road Not Taken” fit neatly onto a single printed page or a 1 kilobyte data file. Or in Hyunjun Park’s hands, a few drops of water in the bottom of a pink Eppendorf tube. Well, really what’s inside the water: invisible floating strands of DNA. Scientists have long touted DNA’s potential as an ideal storage medium; it’s dense, it’s easy to replicate, it’s stable over millennia.

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These Beating Mini-Hearts Could Save Big Bucks—And Maybe Lives Jun 27, 2018

Crack open the door of the incubator at Novoheart’s Hong Kong headquarters and you’ll find about a dozen pea-shaped, pulsating blobs submerged in a warm, salty-sweet broth. They’re 3-D human heart organoids—a simplified, shrunk-down version of the real thing—the first ever to contain a hollow chamber, like one of the four that’s beating inside your chest right now. And they’re the future of drug testing.

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A Microguide to Microdosing Psychedelic Drugs Jun 27, 2018

Adderall, shmaderall. Certain biohackers prefer taking teeny-tiny amounts of psychedelic drugs to boost focus. But what exactly is a microdose, anyway? Here’s our semi-scientific guide. Hint: If you feel the trees breathing, you’re doing it wrong. Acid Microdose (5–10 mcg): Users claim that a microhit of LSD clears mental locks and helps with depression. It’s often taken first thing in the morning with distilled water—chlorine can kill key compounds.

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Big Tech Isn’t the Problem With Homelessness. It’s All of Us Jun 26, 2018

The icons of downtown San Francisco are the same whether you’re looking at the buildings or at your phone. In the blocks around the undulating, metal-screened length of the city’s new bus and train terminal, skyscrapers—including the city’s tallest—flash all the familiar logos. There’s Salesforce and its new tower, of course, but also LinkedIn, Google, Twilio, Zipcar, Github, Okta, and Dropbox.

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Twitter Users Are Analytical in the Morning, Angsty at Night Jun 26, 2018

Wake up. Grab phone. Unlock. Open Twitter. Absorb tweets. Scroll. Absorb tweets. Scroll. Absorb tweets. What do they say? They say: [#twitter: https://twitter.com/adambvary/status/1006334904655753216 ] Well yes, that. But what else? Look closer. Disregard the topics; pay attention to the words. Soak up not just a few tweets, but a few million. Take them in not merely when you wake up, but every hour, every day, for years. What do you see now? If you're Nello Christianini, you see patterns.

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The Quest to Make Super Cold Quantum Blobs in Space Jun 25, 2018

On a frigid day last January in northern Sweden, a German-led team of physicists loaded a curious machine onto an unmanned rocket. The payload, about as tall as a single-story apartment, was essentially a custom-made freezer—a vacuum chamber, with a small chip and lasers within, that could cool single atoms near absolute zero. They launched the rocket about 90 miles past the boundary of outer space, monitoring a livestream from a heated building nearby.

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It's Business Time for Rocket Lab, Launcher of Small Satellites Jun 25, 2018

“Dear everyone,” wrote Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck during a reddit AMA in April, “I'm not building a bigger rocket any time soon.” Beck seems to get asked about expansion a lot. He and his Kiwi-US space company don’t build craft whose names end in “heavy.” Their rockets don’t land after launch. They’re only about as tall as a five-story building and as wide as a bookshelf, and they heft just 500 pounds max into orbit.

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Pain Is Weird. Making Bionic Arms Feel Pain Is Even Weirder Jun 22, 2018

Pain is an indispensable tool for survival. The prick of a nail underfoot is a warning that protects you from a deep, dirty wound—and maybe tetanus. The sizzle of a steel skillet is a deterrent against a third-degree burn. As much as it sucks, pain, oddly enough, keeps us from hurting ourselves. It's a luxury that prosthetic users don’t have.

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NASA’s New Plan: Do More Science With Small Satellites Jun 22, 2018

Small satellite makers have promised to do a lot of things: change the way we communicate, change the way we see our planet, change the way we predict the weather. They’re cheaper, faster to develop, and easier to update than their bigger and more sophisticated counterparts. But for all the revolution and disruption, they tend to keep their focus close, and largely cast their eyes down.

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The Amphiphilic Liquid Coating That Keeps Your Avocados Fresh Jun 21, 2018

Consider the rotten strawberry. Sitting there in your fridge, it suffers a cascading trifecta of maladies: For one, it dehydrates. Two, oxygen seeps in. And three, with the berry thus weakened, mold invades. Eventually, the strawberry turns to goop, a messy reminder of our own mortality. Rotting produce is an inevitability—I for one wouldn’t trust fruit that lasts forever—but that doesn’t mean we have to give in to the forces of decay so quickly.

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China Won’t Solve the World’s Plastics Problem Any More Jun 21, 2018

For a long time, China has been a dumping ground for the world’s problematic plastics. In the 1990s, Chinese markets saw that discarded plastic could be profitably recreated into exportable bits and bobs—and it was less expensive for international cities to send their waste to China than to deal with it themselves. China got cheap plastic and the exporting countries go rid of their trash. But in November 2017, China said enough.

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Trump Hasn't Signed a Space Force Into Being—Yet Jun 20, 2018

After months of teasing a new military arm devoted to extra-stratospheric security, President Donald Trump publicly ordered the Department of Defense and the Pentagon to immediately begin establishing a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces on Monday. Well, maybe. The president’s statement was not accompanied by any written directive or executive order calling for the creation of a new, space-based branch of the armed forces, as some outlets initially reported.

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The Collapse of a $40 Million Nutrition Science Crusade Jun 20, 2018

On Monday night Gary Taubes will board his second transatlantic flight in a week—from Zurich to Aspen—then eventually back to Oakland, where he calls home. The crusading science journalist best known for his beef with Big Sugar is beat after four days of nutrition conference glad-handing. But there’s no rest for the down and out.

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Space Really Does Need Traffic Cops Jun 19, 2018

In the early Space Age, the people who sent up satellites could operate under what's known as "big sky" theory. Space is so vast, so spacious, that we could never possibly use it all up. History, however, has repeatedly shown that whenever we think something is too abundant for humans to deplete, we're wrong. And so it is in space, where more and more satellites and space junk threaten to crash into each other and crowd out the future.

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Robots Won't Take Your Job—But They Might Make It Boring Jun 19, 2018

Whether they believe robots are going to create or destroy jobs, most experts say that robots are particularly useful for handling “dirty, dangerous and dull” work. They point to jobs likeshutting down a leaky nuclear reactor,cleaning sewers ,orinspecting electronic componentsto really drive the point home. Robots don’t get offended, they are cheap to repair when they get “hurt,” and they don’t get bored.

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Protect My Head? Soccer Pros Shrug and Carry On Jun 18, 2018

Today, during a World Cup game between Morocco and Iran, Moroccan winger Nordin Amrabat suffered a wicked head injury when he collided with an opponent. After he went down, a team trainer tried to revive him by slapping his face—a move decried by athletes and followers online. But despite the frequency of those kinds of injuries in soccer, you won’t see many international pros wearing gear that might prevent a concussion—reinforced headbands.

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Puerto Rico's Observatory Is Still Recovering From Hurricane Maria Jun 18, 2018

As Hurricane Maria approached Puerto Rico in late September 2017, planetary scientist Ed Rivera-Valentin knew he needed to get out. His apartment was near the coast, in Manatí, and some projections had the storm passing directly over. “I knew I couldn’t stay there because something bad was going to happen,” he says. Some people stayed with inland family, or in shelters.

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'Ninjabot' Reveals the Mantis Shrimp's Wily Snail-Hunting Scheme Jun 15, 2018

The mantis shrimp is neither a mantis nor a shrimp, but it does wield perhaps the most stunning strike in the animal kingdom. Sitting below its face are two hammers, which the crustacean cocks back and launches at its prey with such speed that it shatters snail shells and tears crabs’ limbs right of their bodies. These things are ornery, and will even fight a human given the chance. For the mantis shrimp, the only tool they have is a hammer, and all the world looks like a nail.

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Can PJs and Sound Sleep Lead to a World Cup Victory? Jun 15, 2018

Granit Xhaka is a true marathon man, often running more than almost anyone else in soccer’s English Premier League for his London-based club, Arsenal. The 25-year-old midfielder covered 7.6 miles during one game last year. All that running up and down the field (not to mention headers, tackles, and kicks) means Xhaka’s body requires not only fitness, but rest and recovery.

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How Scientists Tracked Antarctica's Stunning Ice Loss Jun 14, 2018

When the Antarctic wants to rid itself of ice, it has to get creative. The cold is too stubborn to allow surface ice to gently melt into oblivion. Instead, crushed by the immense build-up, ice gets shoved slowly along valleys and gorges until it finally reaches the edge of the continent, walking the plank into its watery grave. Back in the 1980s, scientists would plant stakes on these so-called “ice streams” to see how fast (or how slowly) they moved.

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Crispr Fans Fight for Egalitarian Access to Gene Editing Jun 14, 2018

A journalist, a soup exec, and an imam walk into a room. There’s no joke here. It’s just another day at CrisprCon. On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of scientists, industry folk, and public health officials from all over the world filled the amphitheater at the Boston World Trade Center to reckon with the power of biology’s favorite new DNA-tinkering tool: Crispr.

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Forget X-Ray Vision. You Can See Through Walls With Radio Jun 13, 2018

Who wouldn’t enjoy a little X-ray vision, really? You could cheat at cards, for one. And that game where someone puts something under one of three cups and you have to guess where it is. Easy. Of course, X-ray vision would come with a downside, in that you’d be spraying all your surveillance targets with radiation.

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The Physics of a Puzzling Perpetual Motion Machine Jun 13, 2018

Perpetual motion—it's fun to say that. For some people, perpetual motion machines hold the secret to everlasting free energy that will save the world. To them, it's a machine that is just beyond our grasp. If only we could tweak our design just a little bit, it would work. To others (like me), perpetual motion machines are impossible—they don't fit with our well-tested ideas of the conservation of energy. However, they can still make a fun puzzle, as you see above.

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Inside a Chemist’s Quest to Hack Evolution and Cure Genetic Disease Jun 12, 2018

David Liu’s office on the eighth floor of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts is designed to quiet the mind. A museum-grade gemstone collection lines the walls, interspersed with blue-tinged photos Liu has taken of inspiring science-on-location scenes—the concrete corners of the Salk Institute, a sunset through the Scripps pier, the lights of Durango, Colorado where Darpa often meets.

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How a Uranium Hunter Sniffs Out Nuclear Weapons Jun 12, 2018

When geologist and nuclear security researcher Rodney Ewing left the University of Michigan for Stanford in 2014, he left some of his belongings back in the Midwest. Hundreds of his belongings, actually. All of them radioactive. He wasn't trying to poison anybody: It was a collection of minerals from around the world—some unearthed himself, some donated—each with uranium enmeshed inside.

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Wanna Pull Water Out of Air? Grab Some Ions or a Weird Sponge Jun 11, 2018

Find yourself adrift at sea, surrounded by undrinkable water, and you will parch to death. Find yourself lost in a desert and you will meet the same fate, also surrounded by water, also undrinkable. That’s because, even in the driest of lands, the air is loaded with water molecules—they just won’t do you any good. Devices exist that can pull that water out of the air and convert it into liquid, but they are bulky and use a lot of energy.

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The Many Shades of Bad Physics Jun 11, 2018

What happens when you see bad physics in the world? Does it make you angry? Does it make you laugh? Do you have to hold back a tidal wave of "well, actuallys" because of the overwhelming wrongness? Some might feel that way, but I think about it a little differently. In my mind, there are different categories of incorrect physics—and I deal with each one with its own particular strategy.

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How Science Helps the Warriors Sleep Their Way to Success Jun 08, 2018

For 10 years, Andre Igoudala slept terribly. Back in college, the Golden State Warriors forward would play videogames late into the night. Eventually he'd crash, sometimes as late as 4 am, only to wake up a few hours later for practice. Then came class. When he was lucky, he'd squeeze in an afternoon nap. Later that night, it'd be back to videogames—either that or Fresh Prince reruns. Igoudala's brutal sleep habits followed him to the NBA.

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Elections Don’t Work at All. You Can Blame the Math Jun 08, 2018

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee died in December of 2017; the election to replace him was Tuesday. No one knows who won. Partially that’s because the votes are still trickling in. Mail-in ballots merely had to be postmarked by election day, and as I write the city is reporting 87,000 votes yet to be processed. But that’s not the only roadblock. The other problem is math. See, the San Francisco mayoral election isn’t just another whoever-gets-the-most-votes-wins sort of deal.

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We Need to Talk About Robots Trying to Pass as Humans Jun 07, 2018

Westworld is a hell of a show, but the sense of dread it elicits is nothing new. Pygmalion sculpted a woman who came to life. Same goes with the Golem, only with mud. The amalgamated Frankenstein jolted awake to get all murderous. Humans creating life in their own image is a cornerstone of the realm of fiction. And until recently, they’ve stayed there. But today, ever-sophisticated robots are graduating from Disneyland-style animatronics into increasingly realistic, intelligent beings.

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Hurricane Season 2018 Has a Lot to Learn From Last Year Jun 07, 2018

Today is the first day of the rest of your (storm-tossed, wind-swept, blacked-out, hot, humid) life. Which is to say, June 1 is the official start of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season. According to most forecasts—at least 26 groups issue them, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Colorado State University—it’s going to be pretty average.

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Why Apple Can’t Tackle Digital Wellness in a Vacuum Jun 06, 2018

On Monday at its annual developer's conference, Apple unveiled several new features designed to help users understand and manage the time they spend on their iOS devices. There's new time-and location-based Do Not Disturb modes; a suite of notification-management tools; and a clever lock screen feature that organizes your push alerts into tidy little topic-specific bundles.

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Physics Face-off: The Momentum Principle vs. Newton's 2nd Law Jun 06, 2018

Consider the following physics problem. An object with a mass of 1 kg and a velocity of 1 m/s in the x-direction has a net force of 1 Newton pushing on it (also in the x-direction). What will the velocity of the object be after 1 second? (Yes, I am using simple numbers—because the numbers aren't the point.) Let's solve this simple problem two different ways. For the first method, I will use Newton's Second Law.

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A Blood-Based Cancer Test Gets Its First Results Jun 05, 2018

The bets on liquid biopsy keep getting bigger. Last month, Silicon Valley unicorn Grail Inc. raised a third round of financing to develop its blood-based tests for early cancer detection. That brings its total up to $1.5 billion since 2016, putting it among the top three most heavily funded private biotech companies in the US. While investors might be bullish on the risky venture, many oncologists have been more skeptical about how well Grail’s technique might work.

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These Physicists Watched a Clock Tick for 14 Years Straight Jun 05, 2018

Bijunath Patla’s experiment sounds like a real bore: Gather 12 of the most accurate clocks around the world, and watch them tick. It’s like a physicist’s version of watching paint dry. Patla’s team, based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, began monitoring the clocks on November 11, 1999. And they’ve kept watching for some 4.5 billion seconds—over 14 years. But their patience paid off.

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Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It Jun 04, 2018

The Cray-1 supercomputer, the world’s fastest back in the 1970s, does not look like a supercomputer. It looks like a mod version of that carnival ride The Round Up, the one where you stand, strapped in, as it dizzies you up. It’s surrounded by a padded bench that conceals its power supplies, like a cake donut, if the hole was capable of providing insights about nuclear weapons. After Seymour Cray first built this computer, he gave Los Alamos National Laboratory a six-month free trial.

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These Spinning Disks of Gas and Dust Reveal How Planets Get Made Jun 04, 2018

Over the past two and half centuries, scientists envisioning the origin of planetary systems (including our own) have focused on a specific scene: a spinning disk around a newborn star, sculpting planets out of gas and dust like clay on a potter’s wheel. But as for testing the idea, by actually spotting an exoplanet coalesce from swirling matter? No luck yet.

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The Wild Physics of a Firefighter's Window Catch Jun 04, 2018

Are superheroes real? Maybe. In this recently released video, a firefighter in Latvia catches a man falling past a window. Let me tell you something. I have a fairly reasonable understanding of physics and this catch looks close to being impossible—but it's real. Here is the situation (as far as I can tell). A dude is hanging on a window (actually, the falling human is only rumored to be a male) and then he falls. The firefighters were setting up a proper way to catch him, but it wasn't ready.

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The Key to Cracking Cold Cases Might Be Genealogy Sites Jun 01, 2018

In the fall of 1987, a young Canadian couple set off from their hometown of Saanich, British Columbia to run a few errands in Seattle. They never made it there; police found their bodies a few days later near Bellingham, Washington. Jay Cook had been beaten and strangled. His girlfriend, Tanya Van Cuylenborg, had been raped and shot in the head. For more than 30 years their families held out hope that police would one day find the killer.

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How Fast Do Spacecraft Travel in The Expanse? Jun 01, 2018

Maybe you thought my previous post on the crushing g-force of the Epstein drive from The Expanse would be the end of that. Wrong. This is such great clip, I have to do more. In case you missed it, let me tell you what's going on. This guy has a spaceship near Mars (maybe in orbit) and he is playing around with some modifications to his fusion drive, giving the spaceship super thrust while using very little fuel.

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The Messy, Malodorous Mystery of the Dead 60-Foot Whale May 31, 2018

There’s no one way to describe the scent of a beached, rotting whale. See, it really depends on time and space: So long as you’re more than 20 feet away, you don’t smell a thing. But if you’re downwind, the sour stench will just about bowl you over. Its bite sits heavily instead of sharply in your throat. If a zombie wore week-old gym socks, this is what it would smell like. Then consider the time of death.

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Why Darpa Wants Everyone to Launch Tiny Satellites May 30, 2018

You could be excused, when you first hear Dane Rudy describe his company, for thinking that he wants to use raccoons to send satellites into space. Trash pandas, though, are not the future that Rudy is talking about. He's talking about rockoons—rockets launched from high-altitude balloons. Rockoons trace their trajectory back to the military, like the 1950s Air Force program called Farside.

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The Wild Logistical Ride of the Ebola Vaccine's High-Tech Thermos May 30, 2018

The viral disease Ebola has, as of May 26, killed 25 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sickened 31 more. In response, treatment centers have popped up (two of three people who fled one of those centers in the city of Mbandaka have died) and health care workers there are getting a still-experimental vaccine. People who’ve had contact with someone with Ebola, and their contacts, will get the shot, too.

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Climate Change Made Zombie Ants Even More Cunning May 29, 2018

Raquel Loreto is a zombie hunter, and a good one. But traipsing through dried leaves in a hot forest in Sanda, at the southern end of Japan, she needed a guide. Just a few months before, she’d been on the internet and come across the work of artist Shigeo Ootak, whose fantastical images depict humans with curious protrusions erupting from their heads. She got in touch, and he invited her to Japan for a hike to find his inspiration. Ootak knew precisely where to look: six feet off the ground.

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Can a City Really Sue an Oil Company for Climate Change? May 29, 2018

The city of Richmond, Calif. juts into the San Francisco Bay like the head of a rhinoceros looking west across the water, toward San Quentin State Prison and the tony towns north of the Golden Gate. It’s a low, industrial town, and 2,900 acres of it is an oil refinery. Chevron is Richmond’s biggest employer, and through taxes contributes about a quarter of the city’s total budget. Chevron is also Richmond’s eternal nemesis. Industrial accidents are an ongoing issue.

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Maybe DNA Can’t Answer All Our Questions About Heredity May 29, 2018

Heredity is a powerful concept. It’s the thing that ties families together—that gives shape to their shared history of stories, of homes, of personalities. And more and more, it’s the way we understand families’ shared genetic inheritance.

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The Physics of Accelerating Spacecraft in The Expanse May 28, 2018

If you like science fiction, I can recommend a show for you—The Expanse. It takes place in the not-so-distant future all right here in our own solar system. There are no pew-pew lasers or faster-than-light space travel. When humans are on a spacecraft, they either "float" around or use magnetic boots (except when the spacecraft is accelerating). There are no "inertial dampeners" in The Expanse. Not only that, but it has interesting characters and a compelling plot. I like it.

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Inconvenient Minifauna and the Invasion of the Hammerhead Flatworms May 25, 2018

If I told you that flatworms had invaded France, you might say, c'est la vie. A worm is a worm, after all. But then I’d tell you they’re also known as land planarians, and you might think that sounds rather more alien. Then I’d say they’re also called hammerhead flatworms, and you might start getting nervous. Oh, and they grow to a foot long and release secretions from their hammerheads that glue them to their native French prey, the innocent little earthworms.

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Give the Robots Electronic Tongues May 25, 2018

Humans lives their lives trapped in a glass cage of perception. You can only see a limited range of visible light, you can only taste a limited range of tastes, you can only hear a limited range of sounds. Them’s the evolutionary breaks. But machines can kind of leapfrog over the limitations of natural selection. By creating advanced robots, humans have invented a new kind of being, one that can theoretically sense a far greater range of stimuli.

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Are Avocados Toast? May 24, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. Chris Sayer pushed his way through avocado branches and grasped a denuded limb. It was stained black, as if someone had ladled tar over its bark. In February, the temperature had dropped below freezing for three hours, killing the limb. The thick leaves had shriveled and fallen away, exposing the green avocados, which then burned in the sun.

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This Robotic Pollinator Is Like a Huge Bee With Wheels and an Arm May 24, 2018

You like eating, yes? Apples, oranges, berries? For these foods we can thank bees and their extraordinary pollinating powers. Unfortunately, to show our appreciation, humans are killing off bees in staggering numbers—destroying their habitats and poisoning them with pesticides. And at the same time, our population is skyrocketing, which means if we can't get our act together, we have to somehow feed more people with fewer pollinators. Well, living pollinators, that is.

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Scientists Are Using AI to Painstakingly Assemble Single Atoms May 23, 2018

Forget ruby-encrusted swords or diamond-tipped chainsaws. The scanning probe microscope is, quite literally, the sharpest object ever made. Hidden under its bulky silver exterior is a thin metal wire, as fine as a human hair. And at one end, its point tapers to the width of a single atom. Scientists wield the wire not as a weapon, but as an intricate paintbrush—using its needlelike tip to position single atoms on a tiny semiconductor canvas.

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America's Fastest-Growing Urban Area Has a Water Problem May 23, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on CityLaband is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. When Latter-day Saint migrants arrived in Utah in 1847, a verse in Isaiah served as consolation to them in the dessicated landscape: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Lately, the desert has blossomed nowhere more than the St. George area, in the state’s southern reaches.

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A New Look Inside Theranos’ Dysfunctional Corporate Culture May 22, 2018

Alan Beam was sitting in his office reviewing lab reports when Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes poked her head in and asked him to follow her. She wanted to show him something. They stepped outside the lab into an area of open office space where other employees had gathered. At her signal, a technician pricked a volunteer’s finger, then applied a transparent plastic implement shaped like a miniature rocket to the blood oozing from it. This was the Theranos sample collection device.

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The 6-Foot Chinese Giant Salamander Is in Serious Trouble May 22, 2018

The 6-foot-long, 140-pound Chinese giant salamander is a being that defies belief—and seemingly the laws of the physical universe. It’s the largest amphibian on the planet, a gargantuan (though harmless) beast that rests on river-bottoms hoovering up fish. Once it grows big enough, not many critters dare touch it—save for, of course, humans. Particularly the conservationists who are working to save the creature.

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23andMe Goes Global In Its Data-Mining Efforts May 21, 2018

Yanny or Laurel—could the secret to which word you hear be in your DNA? It’s a notion someone pitched at 23andMe headquarters Thursday, during the consumer genetics outfit’s annual Genome Research Day. (Spoiler: The company is not going to roll out a survey to see if the latest meme has a genetic component.

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The Physics of a Tesla Model X Pulling a Boeing 787 May 21, 2018

This is pretty cool—an electric car pulling a full size commercial aircraft, apparently for the first time ever. In particular, it is a Tesla Model X pulling a Quantas Boeing 787. There are a million reasons this is cool, but I think we should just jump to the coolest ones: the physics questions. Does the mass of the plane matter? The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner has a maximum takeoff weight of 254,000 kg—but this one was empty and had a mass of 130,000 kg.

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The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel May 18, 2018

Some people heard the word “laurel” in a short audio clip that became internet-famous this week, while others heard the not-word “yanny.” This proves that we will all die alone. Thanks to some sleuthing by my colleague Louise Matsakis, people interested in following up can learn that regardless of what they heard in the clip, the person speaking was, in fact, saying the word “laurel.

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The Shape-Shifting Robot That Evolves by Falling Down May 18, 2018

Don't even worry about Dyret the robot. At first glance, the scrawny quadruped looks pathetic, as it struggles to walk without collapsing. But keep watching, and you’ll see it start to improve—walking slowly, yet ever more proficiently. Dyret the robot is teaching itself to walk. Or even, according to a new class of robotics researchers, evolving. Machines like Cassie the biped or SpotMini the robot dog are quickly mastering locomotion, thanks to line after line of meticulous code.

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The WIRED Guide to Robots May 18, 2018

Modern robots are not unlike toddlers: It’s hilarious to watch them fall over, but deep down we know that if we laugh too hard, they might develop a complex and grow up to start World War III. None of humanity’s creations inspires such a confusing mix of awe, admiration, and fear: We want robots to make our lives easier and safer, yet we can’t quite bring ourselves to trust them. We’re crafting them in our own image, yet we are terrified they’ll supplant us.

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Fun Ideas That Keep Kids Learning Even After School's Out May 17, 2018

For some people, summer means warmer weather and outdoor activities. But what about the kids that are out of school? What will they do all summer? For most parents, they just want their kids to do something other than video games or watching endless videos. So for you, I'm going to give a few suggestions for summer activities—some of my favorites. These are just suggestions, this is not a to-do list.

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The Physics of NASA's New Mars Helicopter May 17, 2018

Sending a rover to Mars is cool—but sending one to Mars along with a helicopter is even better. Yes, that is the plan for the next NASA Mars rover, scheduled for 2020. The idea is to have a driving rover that brings along a small coaxial helicopter. The helicopter will be self-powered and fly for a few minutes a day. The main advantage of the helicopter is that it can scout ahead of the rover and take pictures and stuff—maybe some epic rover selfies.

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Hey Alexa, What Are You Doing to My Kid's Brain? May 16, 2018

Among the more modern anxieties of parents today is how virtual assistants will train their children to act. The fear is that kids who habitually order Amazon's Alexa to read them a story or command Google's Assistant to tell them a joke are learning to communicate not as polite, considerate citizens, but as demanding little twerps.

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How NASA Will Look for Geysers (and Life) on Europa May 16, 2018

In recent years, scientists have suggested that images from the Hubble telescope show plumes of icy water spewing from the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Others have doubted the claim—which is fair enough, because the images are kind of fuzzy and the satellite's instrument couldn’t always capture them.

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This Insect-Sized Flying Robot Is Powered by Lasers May 15, 2018

In 1989, two MIT artificial intelligence researchers made a terrifying prediction. “Within a few years,” wrote Rodney Brooks and Anita Flynn, “it will be possible at modest cost to invade a planet with millions of tiny robots.” Their paper “Fast, Cheap and out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System,”, argued that small, autonomous “gnat robots” would soon become cheap enough to solve problems en masse.

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Darpa's Next Challenge? A Grueling Underground Journey May 15, 2018

I can’t sit here and guarantee you a robot won’t take your job one day—capitalism kind of has a thing for automation. What I can tell you is that in the near future, robots will be doing jobs that no one wants to do. For instance, risking your life doing rescue operations after mining disasters. Which is why for its next robotics competition, Darpa is going underground, with the Darpa Subterranean Challenge.

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The Race to Save Arctic Cities As Permafrost Melts May 15, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on CityLaband is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. In Russia, buildings are sagging and crumbling. In Greenland, a wildfire broke out last year. And in Alaska, entire villages may be relocated because the land upon which they’re built is no long trustworthy. All across the North, the very ground is changing, and the buildings and roads built upon the thawing permafrost are shifting and cracking.

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The Japanese Space Bots That Could Build ‘Moon Valley’ May 14, 2018

On March 11, 2011, Kazuya Yoshida’s lab at Tohoku University in Japan started shaking. Things fell from the ceiling. The bookshelves collapsed. Off the coast of the city of Sendai, the ocean floor had ruptured, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami waves that inundated inland regions. Although it only lasted minutes, time seemed to dilate. When it was finally over, nearly 16,000 people were dead. For many of those left, there was no water, no power, no phone connection.

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Something's Off With the Turbolaser Shots in The Last Jedi May 14, 2018

I have a problem: I can't stop analyzing Star Wars movies. On top of that, there is another issue. I've stated that the physics of a movie doesn't have to be absolutely correct—and I still believe that. And now, I am going to complain about some physics in Star Wars: The Last Jedi even though I said you shouldn't. But first, let me give you a couple of examples of bad physics that doesn't bother me. Consider an x-wing fighter flying near the Death Star.

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The Implacable Power of Volcanic Lava May 11, 2018

In 1935, lava from an eruption of the volcano Mauna Loa, on the Big Island of Hawai’i, started oozing toward the Wailuku River, main source of water for the city of Hilo. This danger to the more than 15,000 residents of Hilo was exactly the opportunity that Thomas Jaggar, founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, had been waiting for: to blow up a volcano. This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Actually, no, it was crazy.

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Lots of Doctors Recommend Weed Without Understanding It May 11, 2018

If you go to a doctor and ask them to recommend you medical marijuana, don’t expect them to fully understand how the drug works, both for you as an individual patient and in general as a therapy. Because no one really does. With more and more states legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational use, cannabis is shedding its stigma and entering the mainstream.

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The Research Behind Google's New Tools for Digital Well-Being May 10, 2018

Google wants to help its users take back their time. On Tuesday at its annual developers conference, the company announced several new features designed to help people monitor and manage the time they spend on their devices. The goal: Help users understand their habits, control the demands technology places on their attention, and focus on what matters. "Helping people with their digital well-being is more important to us than ever," said vice president of product management Sameer Samat.

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The Physics of Swinging a Mass on a String for Fun May 10, 2018

Occasionally there are physics lab demonstrations that I think are pretty awesome but that my students just think are "meh." This is one of those cases. The basic idea in this demo, which I used in my class at Southeastern Louisiana University, is to swing a mass around in a horizontal circle. But wait! There's a cooler part: By running the string through a vertical tube and attaching it to another mass, we can control the tension in the string. It's loads of fun.

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Troubled Times for Alternatives to Einstein’s Theory of Gravity May 09, 2018

Miguel Zumalacárregui knows what it feels like when theories die. In September 2017, he was at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Saclay, near Paris, to speak at a meeting about dark energy and modified gravity.

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A Tornado's Secret Sounds Could Reveal Where It'll Strike May 09, 2018

Along with the roar of a grizzly bear and a crack of lightning, the sound of a tornado is among the most terrifying natural sounds on Earth. Depending on the twister and where you’re standing, it can sound like a hiss, a buzz, a rumble, or even a freight train. It’s the auditory manifestation of trouble. But tornadoes also seem to emit low-frequency sound waves called infrasound that the human ear can’t hear.

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This Startup Wants to Be AirBnb for Gene Sequencers May 08, 2018

Last month, cancer researcher Amit Verma found himself in a bit of a bind. His lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York had just received feedback on a new paper about how genes get turned on and off when healthy pancreas cells develop into tumors. The journal’s reviewers asked his team to do some additional experiments, including a type of whole genome sequencing that reveals DNA modification patterns.

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An Anti-Aging Pundit Solves a Decades-Old Math Problem May 08, 2018

In 1950 Edward Nelson, then a student at the University of Chicago, asked the kind of deceptively simple question that can give mathematicians fits for decades. Imagine, he said, a graph—a collection of points connected by lines. Ensure that all of the lines are exactly the same length, and that everything lies on the plane. Now color all the points, ensuring that no two connected points have the same color.

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The NIH Launches Its Ambitious Million-Person Genetic Survey May 07, 2018

It’s spring and privacy concerns are in the air. Between the recent revelations that Facebook let Cambridge Analytica capture data from 87 million of its users to be improperly used to influence the US presidential election, and news that California investigators cracked the long-cold case of the Golden State Killer by running a genetic profile collected from crime scene DNA through a public genealogy website, people are feeling a bit...spooked.

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How to Fight Climate Change: Figure Out Who's to Blame, and Sue Them May 07, 2018

How it used to go was, after some extreme weather event, reporters would ask Climate McScientist, PhD whether the flood/drought/hurricane/disease outbreak/wildfire/superstorm happened because of climate change. Dr. McScientist would pat the reporter on the head and say: Well, of course, one can never ascribe any single weather event to a changing global climate.

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The Physics of Leia Using the Force May 04, 2018

Now that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on DVD (and digitally), I think it's safe to discuss one very interesting scene in the spirit of May the Fourth. However, there is a chance you haven't seen it—so this is your spoiler alert. In this scene, Leia's ship is attacked by the First Order. The attack knocks a hole in the bridge, which causes the air inside to push out most of the crew in that area—including Leia. So there she is ... just floating away from the spaceship.

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Detectives Cracked the Golden State Killer Case Using Genetics May 04, 2018

For the dozen years between 1974 and 1986, he rained down terror across the state of California. He went by many names: the East Side Rapist, the Visalia Ransacker, the Original Night Stalker, the Golden State Killer. And on Wednesday, law enforcement officials announced they think they finally have his real name: Joseph James DeAngelo. Police arrested the 72-year-old Tuesday; he’s accused of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders.

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NASA’s InSight Lander Will Probe Mars, Measure Its Quakes May 03, 2018

For the first time since launching the Curiosity rover in 2011, NASA is sending a spacecraft to the surface of Mars. Exciting! Surface missions are sexy missions: Everyone loves roving robots and panoramic imagery of other worlds. But the agency's latest interplanetary emissary won't be doing any traveling (it's a lander, not a rover). And while it might snap some pictures of dreamy Martian vistas, it's not the surface that it's targeting.

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This Trucking Company Keeps Spacecraft Safe on the Interstate May 03, 2018

When I ask Bradley Worthington to tell me about that one time people in the southwest thought his trucking company, McCollister's, was moving a UFO across the country, he laughs. There’s not a “that one time.” “It happens frequently,” he says, “especially with oversized things.” And McCollister's hauls a lot of oversized things.

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Insect-Borne Diseases Have Tripled. Here's Why. May 02, 2018

The year 2004 was a simpler time to be an infectious disease doctor in the US. Zika and chikungunya hadn’t yet emerged. Mystery RNA viruses weren’t spreading by tick bite around America’s heartland, killing farmers and ranchers. Certainly no one was on the lookout for a meat allergy caused by a tick with a white splotch on its back the shape of Texas. But that was then.

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Too High, Drunk, or Sleepy to Drive? One Day Your Phone Could Know May 02, 2018

On a breezy evening this past weekend, I sat out on my patio, lit a sizable joint, and took little drags from it til the burn line singed my fingertips. When I stood up I was stoned, and I knew it; I rarely smoke pot, so when I do I really feel it. But how high was I, really? I reached for my phone, logged into an app called Druid, and took a five minute test. When I finished it gave me my results, which appeared in red: Your DRUID impairment score is 50.3.

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Does Your Doctor Need a Voice Assistant? May 01, 2018

“Siri, where is the nearest Starbucks?” “Alexa, order me an Uber.” “Suki, let’s get Mr. Jones a two-week run of clarithromycin and schedule him back here for a follow-up in two weeks.” Doesn’t sound that crazy, does it? For years, voice assistants have been changing the way people shop, get around, and manage their home entertainment systems. Now they’re starting to show up someplace even a little more personal: the doctor’s office.

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How a Soviet A-Bomb Test Launched US Climate Science May 01, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on Undarkand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. On March 23, 1971, the Soviet Union set off three Hiroshima-scale nuclear blasts deep underground in a remote region some 1,000 miles east of Moscow, ripping a massive crater in the earth. The goal was to demonstrate that nuclear explosions could be used to dig a canal connecting two rivers, altering their direction and bringing water to dry areas for agriculture.

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Fukushima’s Other Big Problem: A Million Tons of Radioactive Water Apr 30, 2018

The tsunami-driven seawater that engulfed Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has long since receded. But plant officials are still struggling to cope with another dangerous flood: the enormous amounts of radioactive water the crippled facility generates each day. More than 1 million tons of radiation-laced water is already being kept on-site in an ever-expanding forest of hundreds of hulking steel tanks—and so far, there’s no plan to deal with them.

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The Terrifying Technological Tactics Behind BattleBots Apr 30, 2018

It's hard not to like BattleBots. It is essentially a modern technology-based sporting event in which teams build remote controlled robot-like things that fight in an arena. Two robots enter, one robot leaves—and on May 11, the eighth season of the showdown begins. Of course, there are many engineering aspects of these bots—but underlying every bit of technological terror is some very fundamental physics. Let's go over some of the physics-based tactics used in the game.

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Chemists Orchestrate the Molecular Union of Two Single Atoms Apr 27, 2018

The main act of Kang-Kuen Ni’s experiment could fit on the tip of a needle—and it happens in a fraction of a second. The Harvard chemist takes two individual atoms, a sodium and a cesium, each about 10,000 times smaller than a bacterium. Then, very carefully, she brings them together to become a single molecule: sodium cesium. It’s an unlikely pairing.

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A New Startup Wants to Use Crispr to Diagnose Disease Apr 27, 2018

In 2011, biologists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier published a landmark paper introducing the world to Crispr. The arcane family of bacterial proteins had a talent for precisely snipping DNA, and one of them—Cas9—has since inspired a billion-dollar boom in biotech investment. Clinical trials using Cas9 clippers to fix genetic defects are just beginning, so it will be years before Crispr-based cures could potentially reach the world.

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The Lab Making Robots Walk Through Fire and Ride Segways Apr 26, 2018

Benefits of robots: 1. They never get tired. 2. They can lift very heavy things. 3. They can walk through (controlled) conflagrations on college campuses. At least, that is, the robots in and around roboticist Jessy Grizzle’s lab at the University of Michigan. Specifically, Grizzle is working with a remote-controlled biped called Cassie, a research platform that roboticists are using to master bipedal locomotion.

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Lyft Delivers Carbon-Neutral Rides Apr 26, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on CityLaband is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. Over the years, John Zimmer, the co-founder and president of Lyft, has often pointed to a class he took as an undergraduate as the source of his ideas about environmental sustainability—and by extension, Lyft’s goals to create greener transportation options. The class at Cornell University was called “Green Cities.

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What Happens When Science Just Disappears? Apr 25, 2018

Kay Dickersin knew she was leaping to the front lines of scholarly publication when she joined The Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials. Scientific print-publishing was—and still is—slow and cumbersome, and reading its results sometimes required researchers to go to the library. But as associate editor at this electronic peer-reviewed journal—one of the very first, launched in the summer of 1992—Dickersin was poised to help bring scientists into the new digital age.

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Delivery Bots Have Awkward Sidewalk Interactions, Too Apr 25, 2018

Self-driving cars have it rough. They have to detect the world around them in fine detail, learn to recognize signals, and avoid running over pets. But hey, at least they’ll spend most of their time dealing with other robot cars, not people. Now, a delivery robot, on the other hand, it roams sidewalks. That means interacting with people—lots of people—and dogs and trash and pigeons. Unlike a road, a sidewalk is nearly devoid of structure. It’s chaos.

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Why Can't We Fix Puerto Rico's Power Grid? Apr 24, 2018

And then the lights went out. Again. The loss of electrical power in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria churned across the islands in September 2017 was already the second-biggest blackout in the history of power on Earth—3.4 billion lost customer-hours. But in recent weeks, various agencies were touting their success in restoring Puerto Rico’s flattened grid.

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California’s Water Whiplash Is Only Going to Get Worse Apr 24, 2018

In December 1861, as a California drought was wearing into its fifth year, farmers on the West Coast were all asking for one thing for Christmas: rain. And boy did they get it. For 43 days rain and snow fell across the state, causing rivers to surge their banks, turning the 300-mile long, 20-mile-wide Central Valley into an ice-cold inland sea. LA got 66 inches. So deep were Sacramento’s floodwaters that the capital had to be relocated to San Francisco.

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Just How Random Are Two Factor Authentication Codes? Apr 23, 2018

You know two-factor authentication tokens, the ephemeral, six-digit numbers you use as a second layer of security when logging into, say, your email? Those constantly updating, randomly generated numbers are one of the easiest ways to protect your accounts from being hacked. But for some time now, I've harbored a pet conspiracy theory about those codes: Maybe they aren't as random as we're led to believe.

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My Son Pioneered an Epilepsy Drug Derived From Marijuana. An FDA Panel Just Approved It Apr 23, 2018

Yesterday morning a tall, lanky 16-year-old boy in a red polo shirt stood at a podium in front of a roomful of doctors, scientists, and regulators and told them about how a drug they were considering for approval had changed his life. “I had seizures for 10 years,” he said. “My parents tell me there were times I had seizures 100 times a day.” Now, he said, he has been seizure free for nearly two and a half years. “I can understand what goes on at school,” he said.

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23andMe Wants You to Share Even More Health Data Apr 20, 2018

Almost exactly a year ago, 23andMe earned the right to tell people what diseases might be lurking in their DNA. Since then, the consumer genetic testing company has turned tubes of spit into health reports for thousands of its customers. You can learn how your genes might predispose you to eight diseases with a well-known genetic component—things like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and most recently, breast and ovarian cancers.

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Physics Explains Why No One Can Beat the Freeze Apr 20, 2018

The only thing I know about the Freeze is that no one can beat the Freeze (except with a generous head start). And he's awesome. In case you haven't seen, the Freeze is this guy in a turquoise spandex suit that challenges mere mortals to a race in the outfield of the Atlanta Braves SunTrust Park between innings. Overall, this seems like a great physics problem.

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Biotech Gets Some Silicon Valley Shine at Illumina’s New Campus Apr 19, 2018

Employees arriving at the Peninsula’s newest, shiniest corporate campus will find it equipped with all the creature comforts now expected in Silicon Valley. There are gaming consoles with stadium-level seating; a tricked-out gym where trainers both real and virtual will kick your butt into shape; well-sod grounds where you can walk off your local, vegan, carb-free lunch or work wirelessly in the warming rays of the California sun.

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A Robot Does the Impossible: Assembling an Ikea Chair Without Having a Meltdown Apr 19, 2018

And just like that, humanity draws one step closer to the singularity, the moment when the machines grow so advanced that humans become obsolete: A robot has learned to autonomously assemble an Ikea chair without throwing anything or cursing the family dog.

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The Plan to Save California's Legendary Weed From 'Big Cannabis' Apr 18, 2018

In a bright warehouse in the heart of Northern California’s cannabis country, a metal gate slowly peels up. “Also Sprach Zarathustra”—the iconic music from 2001: A Space Odyssey—blares as the room behind is revealed. A mob of marijuana farmers and local politicians and activists and venture capitalists shuffle through into the Willy Wonka factory of weed.

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NASA’s New Exoplanet Satellite Has a Better Shot of Finding Life Close to Home Apr 18, 2018

If humans ever leave this solar system, they probably won't do it aimlessly. More likely they'll set a course for some distant waypoint, perhaps another solar system, to visit, study, or maybe even settle. And when they do, there's a good chance the destination they choose will have been discovered by NASA's new planet-hunting spacecraft. Called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, the instrument will soon hitch a ride to space aboard one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets.

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Incredibles 2 Asks: What's the Right Way to Solve a Math Problem? Apr 17, 2018

Everyone knows I like to analyze the trailers of upcoming movies—in particular, movies that I'm excited about. In this case, it's Incredibles 2. I have high hopes for this one since the first Incredibles was really great. In the trailer, we see Mr. Incredible doing his job—helping out with math homework (that's one of the things dads do). Here is how that goes down. Dash: "That's not the way you're supposed to do it, dad. They want us to do it this way." Mr.

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AI Learns a New Trick: Measuring Brain Cells Apr 17, 2018

In 2007, I spent the summer before my junior year of college removing little bits of brain from rats, growing them in tiny plastic dishes, and poring over the neurons in each one. For three months, I spent three or four hours a day, five or six days a week, in a small room, peering through a microscope and snapping photos of the brain cells. The room was pitch black, save for the green glow emitted by the neurons.

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Exploring the Mirror Link Between Two Geometric Worlds Apr 16, 2018

Twenty-seven years ago, a group of physicists made an accidental discovery that flipped mathematics on its head. The physicists were trying to work out the details of string theory when they observed a strange correspondence: Numbers emerging from one kind of geometric world matched exactly with very different kinds of numbers from a very different kind of geometric world. To physicists, the correspondence was interesting. To mathematicians, it was preposterous.

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Quantum Mechanics Could Solve Cryptography’s Random Number Problem Apr 16, 2018

Peter Bierhorst’s machine is no pinnacle of design. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains inside a facility for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the photon-generating behemoth spans an entire building. Its lasers, mirrors, and lenses are split among three laboratories, two of them at opposite ends of the L-shaped building. The whole thing is strung together with almost 900 feet of optical fiber. “It’s a prototype system,” the mathematician explains.

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How the March For Science Became a Movement Apr 13, 2018

In January 2017, what started as a subreddit thread about the new White House scrubbing all mention of climate change from its official government website became, just three months later, the single biggest pro-science demonstration in the history of humankind. On April 22, more than a million people across all seven continents took to the streets (and dirt roads and snowfields) to declare themselves, not dispassionately, for the fundamental political value of science.

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Space Oddities: We Need a Plan to Stop Polluting Space Before It’s Too Late Apr 13, 2018

There is a lot of junk floating out in space, and it’s a problem we’ve been talking about, in fits and spurts, since the 1960s. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Amy Webb (@amywebb) is a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and is the chief executive of the Future Today Institute, a strategic foresight and research group in Washington, D.C. Space junk was the topic of my middle school futurists' society challenge.

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The Case of the Evaporating Exoplanets Apr 12, 2018

Until recently, Fergal Mullaly worked for the science office of the Kepler space telescope, the planet-hunting satellite that has verified more than 2,600 planets so far. “We have this really strong emotional desire to be able to point to a place in the sky and say, ‘That star there has a planet around it,’” he says. For the four years of its main mission, from 2009 to 2013, Kepler fixed its gaze on one region of the sky and watched the light from its stars.

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Want to Fight Sea Level Rise? Look to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach Apr 12, 2018

Most mornings when I step out of my San Francisco apartment, I hear the waves, the seagulls, and occasionally kids yelling out the window across the street. But over the past few weeks, the murmur of Ocean Beach has been cut with a low mechanistic rumble.

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How Many G's Will the Hyperloop Pull in Its Next Test? Apr 11, 2018

Is Elon Musk crazy or just awesome? This week, the serial CEO (Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink) posted on Twitter about yet another one of his ventures, the super fast tube-based transportation system called hyperloop. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/982826517443915776Is this even possible? Let's do some quick calculations. First, what is the speed of sound? I am assuming that Elon is referring to the speed of sound at sea level (and not speed of sound in a low pressure tube).

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What Random Walks in Multiple Dimensions Teach You About Life Apr 11, 2018

The last time I looked at random walks, I used them to calculate the value of Pi for Pi Day. But what is a random walk, really? A mathematician will tell you that it's a stochastic process—a path defined by a series of random steps. It's a pretty abstract concept, but I want to show you how it can reveal something fundamental about life itself—the proteins that make up you and me and everything around us. So let's start with the simplest random walk, in one dimension.

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Helix Takes Clinical Genetic Testing Straight to Consumers Apr 10, 2018

During a recent Uber ride, Madhuri Hegde’s driver asked her what she did for a living. The chief scientific officer for laboratory services at PerkinElmer, she prepared to bore him with a description of the tests her company had developed—most recently to flag serious genetic disorders. Instead, he was intrigued. “Where can I get one of those?” he asked. For years, PerkinElmer has only offered that clinical test to doctors.

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Inside the Cleanroom Where NASA’s New Mars Lander Waits to Launch Apr 10, 2018

A few rules for the cleanroom where NASA’s new InSight Mars lander waits for launch. One, if you must sneeze, sneeze away from the spacecraft. Two, if you drop anything, let one of NASA’s escorts pick it up for you. Three, do not under any circumstances cross the black-and-yellow-striped tape and touch the spacecraft. Oh also—an engineer tells a dozen media in a conference room at Vandenberg Air Force Base—do not lick the spacecraft.

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Why Winning in Rock-Paper-Scissors Isn’t Everything Apr 09, 2018

Rock-Paper-Scissors works great for deciding who has to take out the garbage. But have you ever noticed what happens when, instead of playing best of three, you just let the game continue round after round? At first, you play a pattern that gives you the upper hand, but then your opponent quickly catches on and turns things in her favor. As strategies evolve, a point is reached where neither side seems to be able to improve any further.

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Use Science (Not Surgery) to Create Your Best Selfie Apr 09, 2018

Around 2013, plastic surgeons like Boris Paskhover started to notice a bizarre trend in their doctor’s offices. More and more young patients—under 40, as young as 20—were asking for nose jobs. In Paskhover’s office in New York, new patients would plop down, hand over their phone, and complain about how their schnoz looked in selfies. In turn, Paskhover would hand them a mirror and tell them to take a look. “This is what you really look like,” he says.

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With Some Structure, Stem Cells Might Still Stop Vision Loss Apr 06, 2018

Getting older is supposed to give you perspective. But for one out of five people over the age of 65, it does the opposite. Macular degeneration is a common progressive eye condition, one that thins and breaks down a tissue behind the center of the retina. Without that tissue, the light-sensing cells it supports atrophy and die, making it impossible to get a clear picture of anything straight ahead of you—like, say, the faces of your loved ones or anything past your steering wheel.

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Do You Weigh More at the Equator or at the North Pole? Apr 06, 2018

It's tough being a parent. Sometimes I try to help my kids with their physics homework because I like to pretend that I'm sort of OK with physics. Recently, my daughter wanted me to check her answer for this question. Where do you weigh more, at the equator or at the North Pole? Oh boy. I'm not sure what answer to give. OK, I think I know the answer and I also think I know the answer that the teacher wants (and these two answers might not be the same). Really, it's not the best question.

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Why These Bumblebees Are Wearing Itty-Bitty QR Codes Apr 05, 2018

Step one: Gently suck up the bumblebees with a special vacuum. Step two: Place them in the fridge to chill until they’re immobilized. Step three: Remove bees and superglue a sort of tiny, simplified QR code on their backs. Superglue what, you say? Yes, QR codes—a pretty significant upgrade for entomologists. Researchers used to stand over colonies, laboriously tracking the behavior of individual bees.

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Too Much Engineering Has Made Mississippi River Floods Worse Apr 05, 2018

Scientists, environmentalists, and anyone who lives within a hundred miles of the winding Mississippi River will tell you—have told you, repeatedly, for 150 years—that efforts to tame the river have only made it more feral. But scientists would like more than intuition, more than a history of 18th-century river level gauges and discharge stations, more than written and folkloric memory. They would like proof. Luckily, rivers inscribe their history onto the landscape.

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The Woman Who Knows Everything About the Universe Apr 04, 2018

In 1965, physicist Richard Feynman was busy. He was busy winning the Nobel Prize, and he was busy learning to draw. One day during that productive time in his life, he saw astrophysics student Virginia Trimble striding across Caltech's campus and thought, There's a good model. Soon, she was posing for him a couple Tuesdays a month, in exchange for $5.50 each session and a lot of physics talk.

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A Flawed Study Shows How Little We Understand Crispr's Effects Apr 04, 2018

Biotech has been betting big on Crispr, the gene-editing technique that promises to snip away some of humanity’s worst diseases. But last May, a small case study suggested the much-hyped technology might actually be quite dangerous—and pop went the Crispr bubble, briefly tanking shares of Crispr companies like Editas Medicine, Intellia Therapeutics, and Crispr Therapeutics.

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2001: A Space Odyssey Predicted The Future—50 Years Ago Apr 04, 2018

It was 1968. I was 8 years old. The space race was in full swing. For the first time, a space probe had recently landed on another planet (Venus). And I was eagerly studying everything I could to do with space. Then on April 2, 1968 (May 15 in the UK), the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey was released—and I was keen to see it. So in the early summer of 1968 there I was, the first time I’d ever been in an actual cinema (yes, it was called that in the UK).

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Mini Brains Just Got Creepier—They’re Growing Their Own Veins Apr 03, 2018

The first human brain balls—aka cortical spheroids, aka neural organoids—agglomerated into existence just a few short years ago. In the beginning, they were almost comically crude: just stem cells, chemically coerced into proto-neurons and then swirled into blobs in a salty-sweet bath. But still, they were useful for studying some of the most dramatic brain disorders, like the microcephaly caused by the Zika virus. Then they started growing up.

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The Next Best Version of Me: How to Live Forever Apr 03, 2018

George Church towers over most people. He has the long, gray beard of a wizard from Middle-earth, and his life’s work—poking and prodding DNA and delving into the secrets of life—isn’t all that far removed from a world where deep magic is real. The 63-year-old geneticist presides over one of the largest and best-funded academic biology labs in the world, headquartered on the second floor of the massive glass and steel New Research Building at Harvard Medical School.

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The Case of the Missing Dark Matter Apr 02, 2018

Physicists don’t know much about dark matter. They can’t agree on what it’s made of, how much a single particle weighs, or the best way to construct a Play-Doh diorama of it. (How would you do it? Dark matter is invisible—light doesn’t interact with it at all.) Nobody has ever caught a dark matter particle on Earth. But after 30-plus years of telescope observations, most researchers do agree on one thing: The universe contains a lot of it.

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All The Places Tiangong-1 Won’t Land (And Where It Still Might) Apr 02, 2018

No one knows exactly when or where China's abandoned Tiangong-1 space station will return to Earth. But the map on Ted Muelhaupt's computer gives him a better idea than most. "I'm looking at it right now, and it's telling me the vehicle's not gonna land in Quito," he says.

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Telomeres Are the New Cholesterol. Now What? Mar 30, 2018

“I am a bit concerned about your telomeres,” the doctor told me, evenly. Telomeres are the caplike segments at the ends of the strands of DNA that make up your chromosomes—think of the plastic aglets at the ends of a shoelace—and some of mine, he could see, were not as long as he would have liked them to be.

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A New Way to Dispose of Corpses—With Chemistry! Mar 30, 2018

The Resomator stands monolithic in the corner of a room on the ground floor of a building at UCLA. It’s as sterile as a hospital in here, but every patient is already dead. This is the penultimate stage of their time under the care of Dean Fisher, director of the Donated Body Program at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

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What Are Screens Doing to Our Eyes—And Our Ability to See? Mar 29, 2018

The eyes are unwell. Their childhood suppleness is lost. The lenses, as we log hours on this earth, thicken, stiffen, even calcify. The eyes are no longer windows on souls. They’re closer to teeth. To see if your own eyes are hardening, look no further than your phone, which should require no exertion; you’re probably already there. Keep peering at your screen, reading and staring, snubbing life’s third dimension and natural hues.

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Model How Light Reflects Off a Mirror With Python Mar 29, 2018

Ever wonder how a mirror works? If you want to find the path that light takes when reflecting off a surface, you could use Fermat's Principle. This states something like this: The path that light takes is the path that takes the least time. When going from point A to point B, light will travel along the path that takes less time than any other options. I actually used this idea in a question for my students learning about the variational principle with a question using Fermat's Principle.

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You Know Who's Really Addicted to Their Phones? The Olds. Mar 28, 2018

Millennials, we’re assured by endless headlines, are the people most addicted to their devices. Addled by social networking, obsessed with taking selfies and hustling for likes, youngsters can’t put their damn phones down. Amirite? Nope. That is wrong. The data suggests that the ones most hooked on their devices are those graying GenXers. Research by Nielsen, for example, found that Americans aged 35 to 49 used social media 40 minutes more each week than those aged 18 to 34.

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How Cannabis Tech Can Help Build a Better Cup of Coffee Mar 28, 2018

In the hills near Santa Barbara, something funky is growing. No, it’s not the newest strain of bubba kush. It’s coffee, sprouting farther north than it should be. Coffee belongs in the tropics—it doesn't like cold snaps. But here at Frinj Coffee, a special variety called geisha flourishes. And it’s about to get a whole lot more special—thanks, actually, to cannabis.

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How Kids Can Use 'Screen Time' to Their Advantage Mar 27, 2018

I don’t think I’m the only parent who frets about their kids’ screen time. The Phineas and Ferb binges. Saturday nights playing Uncharted. It’s all turning their brains to sausage, right? Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik wants us to take a deep breath—and focus less on how much kids use tech and more on how kids can use tech to their advantage.

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Ski Resorts Fight Climate Change With Snow Blowers and Buses Mar 27, 2018

After a wimpy winter, spring break has arrived, and skiers and snowboarders from Maine to Mammoth Lakes are stoked. More than 18 feet of snow has dropped at Squaw Valley, Calif., in March; Utah’s famed powder resorts have finally broken the 100-inch mark; and New England has been pummeled by four big storms pushing closing dates to late April. At the same time, there are warning signs about the future of the sport.

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In Search of God’s Mathematical Perfect Proofs Mar 26, 2018

Paul ErdÅ‘s, the famously eccentric, peripatetic and prolific 20th-century mathematician, was fond of the idea that God has a celestial volume containing the perfect proof of every mathematical theorem. “This one is from The Book,” he would declare when he wanted to bestow his highest praise on a beautiful proof. Never mind that ErdÅ‘s doubted God’s very existence.

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Will Cutting Calories Make You Live Longer? Mar 26, 2018

More than a decade ago, researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge began recruiting young, healthy Louisianans to voluntarily go hungry for two years. In addition to cutting their daily calories by 25 percent, the dozens who enrolled also agreed to a weekly battery of tests; blood draws, bone scans, swallowing a pill that measures internal body temperature.

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See Everything Bad About Climate Change in a Single California Town Mar 23, 2018

Montecito is coming back to life this morning. The 9,000 person town to the east of Santa Barbara has been empty since Tuesday, when mandatory evacuations forced residents out of their homes for the fifth time in four months. This week it was a channel of tropical moisture called the Pineapple Express, dumping bands of intense rain and triggering flash floods throughout Southern California.

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In the Courtroom, Climate Science Needs Substance—and Style Mar 23, 2018

Chevron would like you to know that it believes in climate change. It also believes people cause it by burning carbon-based fuel—the kind Chevron extracts from the ground, refines, and sells. In fact, Chevron believes all this so hard that today its lawyer said so, in a federal court in San Francisco. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Yup. They’re right. That’s not as up-is-down as it might sound; Chevron representatives have said as much before.

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Robot Microscopes Demystify Plankton, the Sea's Most Vital Residents Mar 23, 2018

Do you like a planet that hasn’t yet melted? Do you like sushi? How about breathing? Then you’re secretly in love with plankton, tiny marine organisms that float around at the mercy of currents. They sequester carbon dioxide and provide two thirds of the oxygen in our atmosphere and sacrifice themselves as baby food for the young fish that eventually end up on your plate. Yet science knows little about the complex dynamics of plankton on ocean-wide scales.

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Med Students Are Getting Terrible Training in Robotic Surgery Mar 22, 2018

If you think your on-the-job training was tough, imagine what life is like for newbie surgeons. Under the supervision of a veteran doctor, known as an attending, trainees help operate on a real live human, who might have a spouse and kids—and, if something goes awry, a very angry lawyer. Now add to the mix the da Vinci robotic surgery system, which operators control from across the room, precisely guiding instruments from a specially-designed console.

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Google's Quantum Computing Party Is as Fancy as Physics Gets Mar 21, 2018

“Want to come to a quantum computing party?” I wasn’t expecting the question. My brain was hurting: I’d just finished an hour-long interview with Jarrod McClean, a Google quantum computing scientist, and I was mentally planning to write up my notes. His talk had caught my attention the day before: McClean spoke animatedly, bobbing a magnificent head of shoulder-length ringlets, as he pointed at equations and diagrams on a PowerPoint presentation.

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Big Ag Wants Farmers to Buy Into Satellite Imagery Mar 21, 2018

It might not be apparent unless you're driving through the mid-longitudes of Interstate 70, but around 40 percent of the land in the United States is farmland. Understanding what happens on that acreage is complicated—for individual farmers and agricultural conglomerates. Understanding how to improve what’s going on is even harder. That’s why Granular—a farm software business under the agriculture division of DowDuPont—penned a deal with Planet.

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With Medicare Support, Genetic Cancer Testing Goes Mainstream Mar 20, 2018

This year, nearly 1.7 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. Most will find out in the usual way; after having tiny blobs of tissue slurped up through a needle, smeared and stained on a slide, and put under the discerning eye of a pathologist. But starting this week, Medicare patients with advanced cancers will have access to a more 21st century diagnostic: Their cells can now be sequenced, matching patients with the drugs most likely to make a difference.

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To Stay Healthy On Your Next Flight, Avoid Aisles and Stay Put Mar 20, 2018

If you want to avoid getting sick on a plane, the worst place to sit, according to Charles Gerba, is along the aisle. The issue is exposure—not just to other passengers, but anything they touch. That means obvious hot spots (arm rests, tray tables, in-flight magazines) and less-obvious ones like aisle seats, which people use to steady themselves as they move about the cabin, frequently on their way to and from a lavatory. Oh right, lavatories. Don't get Gerba started on those.

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Researchers Restore “Feeling” to Lost Limbs—Kinda Mar 19, 2018

The bionic hand closes slowly. Its slender metal digits whirr as they jitter into a loose fist, as though they are wrapping around an invisible baton. "OK, closed," says the test subject. The test subject is Amanda Kitts. In 2006, a Ford F350 hit her Mercedes sedan head-on. The collision rent the truck's tire from its chassis and shoved the axle into Kitts' car, where it nearly severed her arm. "It wasn't completely off, but it was mincemeat," she says. "There was no saving it.

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Maybe Nobody Wants Your Space Internet Mar 19, 2018

In the early 2000s, Greg Wyler, former founder of a semiconductor company, was laying fiber in Africa. He wanted to do something that mattered. Semiconductors didn’t matter, you know? But linking people to each other and to information did, he thought. “The lesser educated version of myself said, ‘Fiber is the answer,'" says Wyler. "'I’ll run it everywhere.’” He didn’t run it everywhere, though he did run it quite a few places in Africa.

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Theranos Didn't Nuke the Diagnostics Business Mar 16, 2018

It took ten years to build the Maverick, a dorm-fridge-sized box that takes in a cartridge with a little bit of blood—more than a drop but, you know, not a pint, either—and spits out new knowledge. On the cartridge is a silicon chip carved with antibody-lined channels; if any of a range of molecules that signal things like celiac disease are floating around, they stick to the antibodies, changing the way the channel reflects infrared light. The machine goes ping. (Not literally.

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These Conservationists Are Desperate to Defrost Snake Sperm Mar 16, 2018

It’s hard to pick which species to save in Brazil right now. Yellow fever is tearing through primate populations, wiping out squirrel and howler monkeys. Poachers are nabbing giant anteaters for meat and blue macaws to sell as exotic pets. But conservation biologist Rogério Zacariotti wants to save a venomous yellow viper—the golden lancehead. But the snake isn't making it easy for him.

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Stephen Hawking, a Physicist Transcending Space and Time, Passes Away at 76 Mar 15, 2018

For arguably the most famous physicist on Earth, Stephen Hawking—who died Wednesday in Cambridge at 76 years old—was wrong a lot. He thought, for a while, that black holes destroyed information, which physics says is a no-no. He thought Cygnus X-1, an emitter of X-rays over 6,000 light years away, wouldn’t turn out to be a black hole. (It did.) He thought no one would ever find the Higgs boson, the particle indirectly responsible for the existence of mass in the universe.

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What Keeps Egg-Freezing Operations From Failing? Mar 15, 2018

On March 4, an embryologist at Pacific Fertility Center was doing a routine walk-through of the clinic’s collection of waist-high steel tanks, each one filled with thousands of liquid nitrogen-bathed vials of frozen sperm, eggs, and embryos.

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This Pi Day, Calculate the Value of Pi for Yourself Mar 14, 2018

It is once again Pi Day (March 14—which is like the first digits of pi: 3 and 14). Before getting into this year's celebration of pi, let me just summarize some of the most important things about this awesome number. Outside the US, Pi Day should probably be July 22 (22/7)—this fraction is a surprisingly good estimate of pi. You can find the value of pi with a mass and a spring. The value of pi is related to the local gravitational field.

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The Controversial Link Between Epic Storms and a Warming Arctic Mar 14, 2018

It’s that time of the year again, when massive winter storms lash the eastern United States and your uncle posts on Facebook about how it proves climate change is a hoax. After all, why would you still need a good coat on a warming planet? The fallacy is, of course, that weather is not the same as climate—though the two are intertwined in sometimes surprising ways.

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Please Stop Building Houses Exactly Where Wildfires Start Mar 13, 2018

Built well, a city should provide a bulwark against disaster. Fundamentally, all cities are fortresses. Or at least they should be. If a city is a fortress, where’s the wall? The edges of North American cities today aren’t edge-like at all. Most of them, especially in the West, ooze outward in a gradient, urban to suburban to exurban to rural to wild.

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The Physics of the Speeder Chase in Solo: A Star Wars Story Mar 13, 2018

I make it my job to hunt through all the best trailers and find some cool physics thing to explore. In this case, it's the trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story—the Han Solo-led movie, scheduled to come out in May, that takes place some time before Episode IV: A New Hope. Right at the beginning, we see Han driving some type of speeder in a chase scene, taking a super-sharp turn with another speeder in pursuit.

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Can Machine Learning Find Medical Meaning in a Mess of Genes? Mar 12, 2018

“We don’t have much ground truth in biology.” According to Barbara Engelhardt, a computer scientist at Princeton University, that’s just one of the many challenges that researchers face when trying to prime traditional machine-learning methods to analyze genomic data.

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The Transformer of Autonomous Farmbots Can Do 100 Jobs on Its Own Mar 12, 2018

The first fully autonomous ground vehicles hitting the market aren’t cars or delivery trucks—they’re robo-farmhands. The Dot Power Platform is a prime example of an explosion in advanced agricultural technology, which Goldman Sachs predicts will raise crop yields 70 percent by 2050. But Dot isn’t just a tractor that can drive without a human for backup.

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No Refrigeration Necessary: New Tech for Everlasting Shelf-Life Mar 09, 2018

There’s hope for a tastier, healthier, more robust tomorrow: high-tech new food preservation methods that fend off the bad stuff (bacteria, spoilage) while protecting the good (flavor, texture, nutrients). Scientists are experimenting with everything from microwave sterilization to blasts of plasma to ensure food stays appetizing longer—even without refrigeration. That salmon dinner you bought on Monday? It’ll taste just as fresh a week later.

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Can Humans Survive on Water Vapor Alone? Mar 09, 2018

The world is full of water, flushing down our toilets and flowing from our taps. And yet where I live, in the American Southwest, and quite possibly where you live, the kind of water people need to survive is getting harder to come by. Across the region, temperatures are rising and droughts are getting more severe, and in the coming decades the West will struggle to supply the water its residents and businesses demand.

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Apparently We Can Let the Stock Market Fight Climate Change Mar 08, 2018

Fixing the effects of climate change on Earth isn’t complicated. When you get down to it, all we humans need to save the world is ingenuity, grit, cooperation, and $53 trillion. Where is humanity supposed to come up with that kind of cash at this time of night? The International Energy Agency says Earth needs those trillions invested in energy supply and efficiency by 2035 to keep global warming below 2 degrees C.

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Sea Level Rise in the SF Bay Area Just Got a Lot More Dire Mar 08, 2018

If you move to the San Francisco Bay Area, prepare to pay some of the most exorbitant home prices on the planet. Also, prepare for the fact that someday, your new home could be under water—and not just financially. Sea level rise threatens to wipe out swaths of the Bay's densely populated coastlines, and a new study out today in Science Advances paints an even more dire scenario: The coastal land is also sinking, making a rising sea that much more precarious.

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The CDC Can't Fund Gun Research. What if that Changed? Mar 07, 2018

America doesn't have good data on guns. Blame the Dickey amendment. First introduced in 1996, the legislation didn't ban gun investigations explicitly (it forbade the use of federal dollars in the advocacy or promotion of gun control), but Congress that year also cut the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the exact amount it had previously devoted to firearm research. It's had a chilling effect on the field ever since.

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Researchers Used This Genealogy Site to Build a 13 Million-Person Family Tree Mar 07, 2018

In the last 20 years, genealogy websites have attracted more than 15 million customers by promising insights into your past. Maybe you’ll uncover a secret infidelity or be reunited with a long-lost cousin, like when Larry met Bernie on Finding Your Roots. It’s deeply personal, affecting stuff. But when your family tree contains thousands, millions, even tens of millions of people, it’s no longer a personal history. It’s human history.

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The Secret to a High Tech Concierge Medical Office? Data Mar 06, 2018

By design, the downtown San Francisco storefront offices of Forward feel more like a spa or a ritzy skin care boutique than a doctors’ office. But the latter thing is true. Despite the sun shining through floor-to-ceiling windows onto pastel walls, blond-wood surfaces and no check-in desk in sight (attractive, casually dressed receptionists with iPads offer you a water), Forward is a concierge medical service.

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Wanna See Around Corners? Better Get Yourself a Laser Mar 06, 2018

You can’t see the bunny, but the picosecond laser certainly can. In a lab at Stanford, engineers have set up a weird contraption, hiding a toy bunny behind a T-shaped wall. And their complex system of computation and rapidly firing lasers can see around that corner. So, too, could the self-driving cars of the future.

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A Bomb Cyclone Brings Massive Flooding to New England—Again Mar 05, 2018

Since early Friday morning, calls have been crackling across the Duxbury Fire Department dispatch center in a barrage of static. “Tree down on a house on Mayflower Street.” “Wires down on at Keene Street and Congress.” The seaside Massachusetts town is now firmly in the grips of Winter Storm Riley, the massive Nor’Easter forecasted to explosively develop through the weekend across a 700-mile swath of New England.

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The Subtle Nudges That Could Unhook Us From Our Phones Mar 05, 2018

Enough. It's time. You've decided to reclaim your morning commute by spending it on something substantive. No more bottomless Instagram feeds and auto-playing YouTube videos for you! So out the door you stride with that week's New Yorker wedged beneath your arm, a new episode of Flash Forward playing in your ear, or the latest Jesmyn Ward novel cued up on your Kindle app. So far so substantive. But it doesn't last.

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Spoof, Jam, Destroy: Why We Need a Backup for GPS Mar 02, 2018

Earth got a warning shot on January 25, 2016. On that day, Air Force engineers were scheduled to kill off a GPS satellite named SVN-23—the oldest in the navigation constellation. SVN-23 should have just gone to rest in peace. But when engineers took it offline, its disappearance triggered, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a software bug that left the timing of some of the remaining GPS satellites—15 of them—off by 13.7 microseconds.

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How Flight Simulation Tech Can Help Turn Robots Into Surgeons Mar 02, 2018

The robotic platform heaves, as if breathing. Atop it stretches a piece of white gauze with a blue line painted down the middle. Along this line another robot snips with little surgical scissors, waiting for the platform to come to a brief rest before making a cut. And another snip, and rest. And another, and rest, on down the line. This could be you one day. Not that you’ll turn into a robot—you may go under the knife of a machine working as a surgical assistant.

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You Can Find the Gravitational Constant with String and a Mountain Mar 01, 2018

There are quite a few fundamental constants. These are things like the speed of light (c) the charge on an electron (e), and the Planck constant (h). These constants are determined with some type of interesting experiment. The first values of these constants were often difficult to find—the speed of light, for example, was calculated by tracking the moons of Jupiter. Of course, now we have much better methods to get a very precise value for the speed of light.

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Congress Takes On Sexual Harassment in the Sciences Mar 01, 2018

Female scientists were reporting sexual abuse and harassment by professors years before the #MeToo movement exploded in the public eye last fall. From unwanted comments and weird texts to missed promotions and direct assaults, female graduate students and postdocs are often vulnerable while working in male-dominated field camps, laboratories, or remote observatories where there are few places to turn for help.

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How to Build a Space Communication System Out of Lasers Feb 28, 2018

In October 2013, a moon-orbiting NASA spacecraft aimed a laser beam at Earth, 239,000 miles away. Within seconds, the intended recipient—an observatory in southern California—locked onto the beam of infrared light, invisible to the naked eye. Encoded inside the light was a high-definition video of NASA administrator Charles Bolden delivering a short speech. Bolden had, of course, recorded the video on Earth.

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With This DNA Dating App, You Swab, Then Swipe For Love Feb 28, 2018

Christopher Plata doesn’t have time or patience for bad dates anymore. The 30 year-old nursing student has been trying for years to meet Mr. Right—first on Grindr and Compatible Partners (eHarmony’s queer subsidiary), and more recently on Bumble—and has yet to find someone with whom he shares a real connection. “I’ve really been through the ringer,” he says.

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If There's Life on Saturn's Moon Enceladus, It Might Look Like This Feb 28, 2018

Saturn’s moon Encedalus has become an alien-hunting hot spot, and not just for the tinfoil hat crowd. Thought to be a barren cue ball until NASA’s Cassini mission found both active geysers and a liquid ocean beneath its frozen surface, the icy little moon is now one of the likeliest places to encounter extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

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Why It's So Hard to Dose Weed Feb 27, 2018

Cannabis is a notoriously finicky drug. Take the right amount and you get relaxation or euphoria, but take too much and it’s a long ride of paranoia. Which makes marijuana tricky for casual users, and potentially problematic for new users who want to use cannabis to treat ailments like pain.

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Inside Robert Bigelow's Decades-Long Obsession With UFOs Feb 26, 2018

In 1994, a Mormon family bought a 480-acre plot in in Utah’s Uintah Basin, thinking they’d get back to the land. But this particular land was weird. It came with too-large-thrice-over wolves that refused to die by bullet, cattle with their reproductive organs sucked clean out, and a multitude of UFOs, as they told the Deseret News in 1996. It was driving them bonkers. Robert Bigelow saw their story.

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The Ongoing Battle Between Quantum and Classical Computers Feb 26, 2018

A popular misconception is that the potential—and the limits—of quantum computing must come from hardware. In the digital age, we’ve gotten used to marking advances in clock speed and memory. Likewise, the 50-qubit quantum machines now coming online from the likes of Intel and IBM have inspired predictions that we are nearing “quantum supremacy”—a nebulous frontier where quantum computers begin to do things beyond the ability of classical machines.

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The Struggle to Predict—and Prevent—Toxic Masculinity Feb 23, 2018

Terrie Moffitt has been trying to figure out why men are terrible for more than 25 years. Or, to calibrate: Why some men are really terrible—violent, criminal, dangerous—but most men are not. And, while she’s at it, how to tell which man is going to become which. A small number of people are responsible for the vast majority of crimes.

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To Stop Climate Change, Educate Girls and Give them Birth Control Feb 23, 2018

Climate change is a ubiquitous hydra, a many-headed beast that affects everyone and everything in some form. Solutions to climate change range from the effective and the practical to the potentially catastrophically dangerous—but, in this somewhat heated debate, a potent weapon in our arsenal is falling by the wayside: the empowerment of women. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Robin George Andrews (@squigglyvolcano and robingeorgeandrews.

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You Don't Need a Personal Genetics Test to Take Charge of Your Health Feb 23, 2018

The online storefront for the consumer genetics company Orig3n features an image of a young woman facing toward a sepia horizon. Her tresses are wavy, her triceps enviably toned. Her determined stance complements the copy floating beside her: "Take charge of your future," it reads. "Orig3n DNA tests uncover the links between your genes and how you think, act, and feel. The more you know, the easier it is to reach your highest potential.

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Snakelike Skin Gives a Robot the Power to Crawl Feb 22, 2018

Snakes, serpents, danger noodles. Whatever you call them, you’ve gotta respect them. I mean, have you tried getting around without any arms or legs? (Also, they can bite you.) The snake’s ambulatory secret is its special belly scales, which grip a surface like cleat spikes to help the reptile push forward. And now that secret has made it into robotics.

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Solve Genomics with the Blockchain? Why the Hell Not Feb 21, 2018

Scientists lust after genomes like the wolf from a Tex Avery cartoon, heart pounding in throat, tongue lolling, fist pounding on the table, submarine-dive-ahOOOgah!-alarm sounding—all out of desire for the hot, hot data curled coaxingly inside every one of your cells. Think of all the information tucked into those sinuous DNA spirals—and the life-saving discoveries that some smart machine learning could pull out if it had lots and lots and lots of it to learn from.

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SpaceX Will Launch the First of Its Global Internet Satellites Feb 21, 2018

Last week, SpaceX realized a decade-long dream of successfully launching the most powerful rocket in the world. The Falcon Heavy’s achievement, marked resoundingly with thunderous sonic booms following twin booster touchdowns at Cape Canaveral, was only upstaged by Starman—a doomed mannequin at the wheel of Elon Musk’s Roadster With the Heavy’s test flight complete, SpaceX is back to business as usual. Or maybe not.

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Winter Olympics 2018: The Physics of Blazing Fast Bobsled Runs Feb 20, 2018

I don't know very much about bobsleds—but I know quite a bit about physics. Here is my very brief summary of the bobsled event in the winter Olympics. Some humans get in a sled. The sled goes down an incline that is covered in ice. The humans need to do two things: push really fast to get the thing going and turn to travel through the course. But from a physics perspective, it's a block sliding down an incline. Just like in your introductory physics course.

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Could Scientists Use Silver Iodide to Make Snow for the Olympics? Feb 20, 2018

As the glam metal band Cinderella once said, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I’m relatively certain they weren’t talking about snow, but let’s pretend they were anyway: Global warming threatens to wreak havoc on snowpack. The American west in particular already has a snowpack problem, which means less water for drinking and powering hydroelectric plants. Unfortunately you can’t just force snow to fall out of the air.

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China Wants to Make a Mark in Space—But It'll Need a Little Help Feb 19, 2018

In a China Global Television Network video from 2003, taikonaut Yang Liwei leans back in his orbital capsule, the overstuffed stripes of his spacesuit legs filling the frame. His helmet shield is up, so the viewer can gaze into his eyes as he speaks: “Greetings to people around the world!” His eyes move leftward, out of the frame. “Greetings to my colleagues in space!” he says. Liwei was China’s first astronaut, reaching orbit decades after US and Soviet space-farers.

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The Big Engineering Behind Olympic Snowboarding's Big Air Event Feb 19, 2018

A jump with the exact proportions of the launch ramp for snowboarding’s big air event, which will make its Olympic debut in Pyeongchang, does not exist in nature. It must be built. And so, fewer than a dozen times a year, at venues ranging from ballparks to parking lots, impeccably orchestrated teams of engineers, ice suppliers, snowmakers, crane operators, up riggers, down riggers, scaffold designers—you get the picture—do exactly that.

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Peter Diamandis Is the Latest Tech Futurist Betting on Stem Cells Feb 16, 2018

Peter Diamandis’ ambitions have always been too big for the measly planet onto which he was born. The serial entrepreneur built his first dozen companies as technological launch pads for future space colonies. But in more recent years, the founder of the X Prize Foundation has become increasingly interested in helping humans live their healthiest, longest lives right here on Earth.

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Inside the Mind of Amanda Feilding, Countess of Psychedelic Science Feb 16, 2018

Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, also known as Lady Neidpath, sits cross-legged on a bench on a tiny island at the center of an artificial pond in her English country estate, a 15-minute drive outside of Oxford. At her feet is a tiny pure-white cloud of a dog, which traipses around chewing on the grass, only occasionally coughing it up. Feilding is 75 years old.

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How You Could Road Race—and Win—From Your Living Room Feb 15, 2018

Dave McGillivray is an improbable advocate of virtual exercise. The race director of the Boston Marathon for 30 years, McGillivray estimates he's logged more than 150,000 miles in his lifetime, the overwhelming majority of them outside, and a formidable number of those in Forrest-Gumpian feats of endurance. In 1978, he ran from Medford, Oregon to Medford, Massachusetts—a distance of 3,452 miles—for charity. In 2004, he did it again.

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LED Flashlights Are Bright—But Just How Bright, Exactly? Feb 15, 2018

It seems like I have been slightly obsessed with flashlights for quite some time. Perhaps it started when the Maglite lights became popular in the '80s. It was that mini Maglite that ran on 2 AA batteries that I really liked. It was small enough that you could carry around and bright enough that it could actually be useful. When I was a bit older, I would even build and modify my own flashlights. One of my favorites was an underwater light I used for cave diving.

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A Bid to Solve California’s Housing Crisis Could Redraw How Cities Grow Feb 14, 2018

Scott Wiener, the California state senator representing most of San Francisco, has a pretty good idea for how to save the world. In fact, sitting in a coffee shop in his city’s Financial District, Wiener seems downright perplexed that anyone would be against it. Here’s the idea: Build more housing.

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Would Delivery Drones Be All That Efficient? Depends Where You Live Feb 14, 2018

If the idea of swarms of delivery drones dropping packages all over our cities started out as a joke, for some reason the punchline hasn’t landed yet. Amazon applied for a patent in 2015 for a command center, like a beehive, plopped into your city, which isn’t a worrying metaphor at all. Google has its own program in the works, which at least for the moment involves delivering burritos. Again, if this is a joke, it’s got a very long fuse.

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Scientists Know How You’ll Respond to Nuclear War—And They Have a Plan Feb 13, 2018

It will start with a flash of light brighter than any words of any human language can describe. When the bomb hits, its thermal radiation, released in just 300 hundred millionths of a second, will heat up the air over K street to about 18 million degrees Fahrenheit. It will be so bright that it will bleach out the photochemicals in the retina of the eyes of anyone looking at it, causing people as far away as Bethesda and Andrews Air Force Base to go instantly, if temporarily blind.

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How Ice Skaters Turn Physics Into Astonishing Spins Feb 13, 2018

Many people don't know too much about angular momentum—and that's fine. But what about figure skaters? Whether they understand the concept of angular momentum doesn't matter but they use it in one of the all time classic skating moves. You've seen it before. The skater starts off in a standing position and spins about the vertical axis. After a few rotations, the skater pulls both arm in closer to the body and spins faster. In physics, we call this conservation of angular momentum.

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Real Heroes Have the Guts to Admit They're Wrong Feb 12, 2018

What do you do when you discover you’re wrong? That’s a conundrum Daniel Bolnick recently faced. He’s an evolutionary biologist, and in 2009 he published a paper with a cool finding: Fish with different diets have quite different body types. Biologists had suspected this for years, but Bolnick offered strong confirmation by collecting tons of data and plotting it on a chart for all to see. Science for the win! The problem was, he’d made a huge blunder.

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Is Cape Town Thirsty Enough to Drink Sea Water? Feb 12, 2018

Cape Town is withering. If current projections hold, the South African city of 4 million will run out of water on May 11, known as Day Zero. It’s been three long years of drought—we're talking a once every 1,000 years kind of problem that Cape Town's water infrastructure just wasn't built for. The irony is that a whole sea of water laps at the shores of the coastal city. But if you wanted to drink it, you’d have to build an expensive, energy-intensive desalination facility.

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Winter Olympics 2018: Can Ski Wax Help Win Gold? Feb 09, 2018

At the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the 4 x 10 kilometer relay was supposed to be a battle of cross-country ski titans Norway and Sweden. Felix Breitschädel watched from the sidelines as the race unfolded under a warm Russian sun. But when the first skiers emerged from the woods onto the arena packed with spectators, Norway's first skier was nowhere to be seen. He dropped to ninth place, while the rest of the team rallied to finish fourth.

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How the Government Controls Sensitive Satellite Data Feb 09, 2018

During the Cold War, on the vast, barren flatland around Area 51's dried-up Groom Lake, the military developed a stealth spy plane code-named Project Oxcart. Project personnel were sworn to secrecy, but still, US officials worried that the Soviets would find out what they were up to. With good reason: Up above, USSR satellites were ready to spy with their on-board cameras.

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The Secret To Breaking Up With Your Phone? Remember That You Will Die. Feb 08, 2018

So you've decided you need a break from your smartphone. You're not looking to do anything drastic, like revert to one of those old school Nokia bricks, because, let's face it, having a supercomputer in your pocket comes in handy. But you've grown wary of how you use the thing—the way it keeps you up at night, distracts you from your work, interrupts family time. The impulsive way you check it, it feels ... off. A bit like codependence.

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SpaceX Successfully Launches the Falcon Heavy—And Elon Musk's Roadster Feb 08, 2018

Florida’s space coast roared to life on Tuesday as SpaceX fired off its long-in-development Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center. Tens of thousands of spectators made the pilgrimage from across the country to experience the immense heat and thunderous roar of the rocket’s 5 million pounds of thrust. Upon liftoff, at precisely 3:45 PM Eastern, the Falcon Heavy rocket took its place as the most powerful launch vehicle in the world. About 3.

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Biopunks are Pushing the Limits With Implants and DIY Drugs Feb 07, 2018

Rich Lee had armor implanted in his shins in 2016. Soft until struck, the polymerfoam tubes could withstand the full force of a baseball bat swing. The procedure seemed promising—until his stitches burst, prompting him to rip out the tubes. It hurt like hell, but it won’t stop him from his next trial.

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AI Just Learned How to Boost the Brain's Memory Feb 07, 2018

When it comes to black boxes, there is none more black than the human brain. Our gray matter is so complex, scientists lament, that it can’t quite understand itself. But if we can’t grok our own brains, maybe the machines can do it for us.

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The WIRED Guide to Climate Change Feb 06, 2018

The world is busted. For decades, scientists have carefully accumulated data that confirms what we hoped wasn’t true: The greenhouse gas emissions that have steadily spewed from cars and planes and factories, the technologies that powered a massive period of economic growth, came at an enormous cost to the planet’s health. Today, we know that absent any change in our behavior, the average global temperature will rise as much as 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

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The Physics of One of the Craziest Big Air Snowboard Tricks Ever Feb 06, 2018

Behold the stomach-clenching spectacle of the quad cork 1800. The dizzying snowboarding trick—first landed by British Olympian Billy Morgan, above—involves catapulting off a ramp into four off-axis flips (called corks) and five full spins. Only four people have ever completed the 1,800-degree stunt.

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Could a Vaccine Protect Football Players From Concussions? Feb 05, 2018

It’s been a turbulent year for the NFL. Ratings plummeted 12 percent in the regular season, even more during the playoffs. It’s hard to know what hurt the league more, its public feuding with the White House over players protesting police brutality during the national anthem or the fact that people don’t watch TV anymore.

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SpaceX Gears Up to Finally, Actually Launch the Falcon Heavy Feb 05, 2018

After nearly seven years of varying concepts, redesigns, and delays, SpaceX is poised to launch the Falcon Heavy rocket next week on its maiden flight. Last week, SpaceX performed a hold-down firing of the massive rocket’s 27 engines, creating a towering exhaust plume and jolting the space coast with over 5 million pounds of thrust.

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The Squishy Ethics of Sex With Robots Feb 02, 2018

Sarah Jamie Lewis was thinking about an internet-connected cock ring. As a computer scientist, she could understand the nominal use case. It was studded with accelerometers and other sensors. People with penises were supposed to put it on before having penetrative sex and record things like thrust length, speed, overall time of session … the things that sex experts tell people not to worry about but people with penises worry about anyway.

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The Shrinking Building in Ant-Man and the Wasp Would Cause Massive Problems Feb 02, 2018

Maybe you are one of those humans that avoids all trailers because they spoil the movie too much. I am not one of those humans. Which is why I immediately watched a trailer that came out this week for the upcoming Marvel movie Ant-Man and the Wasp. Although I was a huge comic book fan growing up, I never really got into Ant-Man. But the first Ant-Man movie was better than expected—and now I'm looking forward to this sequel. If you don't know about Ant-Man, I'll give you a quick overview.

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A Family’s Race to Cure a Daughter’s Genetic Disease Feb 01, 2018

One July afternoon last summer, Matt Wilsey distributed small plastic tubes to 60 people gathered in a Palo Alto, California, hotel. Most of them had traveled thousands of miles to be here; now, each popped the top off a barcoded tube, spat in about half a teaspoon of saliva, and closed the tube. Some massaged their cheeks to produce enough spit to fill the tubes.

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What Good Is Crispr If It Can't Get Where It Needs to Go? Feb 01, 2018

Your DNA is your body’s most closely guarded asset. To reach it, any would-be-invaders have to get under your skin, travel through your bloodstream undetected by immune system sentries, somehow cross a cell membrane, and finally find their way into the nucleus. Most of the time, that’s a really good thing. These biological barriers prevent nasty viruses from turning your cells into disease-making factories.

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How Long Beach Is Trying to Cool Down Jan 31, 2018

This storyoriginally appeared on CityLaband is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. In a coastal city, it’s easy to assume the greatest climate threat comes from the rising ocean. But in Long Beach, California, the biggest danger is not the sea, but the sun. “We have to deal with sea-level rise,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said. “But it’s not our biggest challenge. The increase in temperature is the real concern right now.

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Can Our Phones Save Us From Our Phones? Jan 31, 2018

Hi. My name is Robbie, and I'm addicted to browser tabs. For years, I deluded myself into thinking they were an efficient way to gather information on a given subject. Or subjects. Sub-subjects, too. You see the problem. Which is why, for the past few months, I've been experimenting with a Chrome extension called xTab. It works by limiting the number of tabs I can have open in a given browser window.

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Meet the Company Trying to Democratize Clinical Trials With AI Jan 30, 2018

A decade ago, Pablo Graiver was working as a VP at Kayak, the online airfare aggregator, when he sat down to dinner with an old friend—a heart surgeon from his home country of Argentina. The talk turned to how tech was doing more to save folks a few bucks on a flight to Rome than to save people’s lives. The biggest problem in healthcare? “Clinical trials,” she said. “They’re a disaster.

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Don’t Call It a Blood Moon. Or Supermoon. Or Blue Moon Jan 30, 2018

On Wednesday, humanity will be treated to a celestial trifecta: A supermoon (meaning it’s relatively close to Earth), but also simultaneously a blood moon (it’ll be orange or red), but also simultaneously a blue moon (the second full moon in one calendar month) will pass in the shadow of Earth, for a total lunar eclipse. It’s going to be righteous.

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Yes, There Is Gravity in Space Jan 29, 2018

This week, I settled down to watch the first episode of The 100. If you haven't seen the show, I'll just point out that it takes place in the near future (though it ran, on the CW, in the near past). For reasons that I won't get into, there is a spacecraft with a bunch of teenagers that is traveling from a space station down to the surface of the Earth. During the reentry process, one kid wants to show that he is the master of space travel and that he's awesome.

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Scientists Hate the NIH’s New Rules for Experimenting on Humans Jan 29, 2018

She’s probably mostly kidding when she tells the origin story this way, but Kathy Hudson—until last year the deputy director for science, outreach, and policy at the National Institutes of Health—says that a massive update to the NIH’s rules for funding science started with humiliation.

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Why No Gadget Can Prove How Stoned You Are Jan 26, 2018

If you’ve spent time with marijuana—any time at all, really—you know that the high can be rather unpredictable. It depends on the strain, its level of THC and hundreds of other compounds, and the interaction between all these elements. Oh, and how much you ate that day. And how you took the cannabis. And the position of the North Star at the moment of ingestion. OK, maybe not that last one.

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How Much Kinetic Energy Could Black Panther Collect from Bullets? Jan 26, 2018

A new clip from the upcoming movie Black Panther was recently shown during an episode of Ellen. In the scene (which I assume isn't a spoiler, since it was on TV), the Black Panther is in pursuit of (or being pursued by) some people in another car. As the Black Panther rides on top of the car (which is, of course, the most efficient way to travel as a superhero), the bad guys are pelting him with bullets. Honestly, I shouldn't make such judgements—maybe they're not bad, just misunderstood.

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SpaceX Test Fires Its Falcon Heavy Rocket for the First Time Jan 25, 2018

The long-awaited Falcon Heavy rocket roared to life on Wednesday at 12:30 pm Eastern, as SpaceX fired up the 27 Merlin engines that power the triple-booster rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Perched atop what CEO Elon Musk claims will be the most powerful lift vehicle in the world is the billionaire’s Tesla Roadster, which will launch toward a Mars elliptical orbit on the Falcon Heavy’s upcoming maiden flight.

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The Science of Why Swearing Physically Reduces Pain Jan 25, 2018

For a very long time, conventional wisdom held that swearing was not a useful response to pain. Many psychologists believed that swearing would actually make pain feel worse, thanks to a cognitive distortion known as catastrophizing. When we catastrophize we leap to the conclusion that the bad thing that is currently happening is the absolute worst thing.

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Why Robots Should Shake the Bejeezus Out of Cherry Trees Jan 24, 2018

I don’t think sci-fi saw this coming. For so long, futuristic books and films have promised us robots like C-3PO that translate alien languages and assist us in hijinks. Or ones like Rosie that clean our houses. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, robots that level our houses and destroy humanity. Looking at you, Arnold. The reality of modern robotics couldn’t be more different. These days, it’s more about developing robots that ... shake the bejeezus out of cherry trees.

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The Second Coming of Ultrasound Jan 24, 2018

Before Pierre Curie met the chemist Marie Sklodowska; before they married and she took his name; before he abandoned his physics work and moved into her laboratory on Rue Lhomond where they would discover the radioactive elements polonium and radium, Curie discovered something called piezoelectricity. Some materials, he found—like quartz and certain kinds of salts and ceramics—build up an electric charge when you squeeze them. Sure, it’s no nuclear power.

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How Smallsats Could Make a Big Difference for NASA and NOAA Jan 23, 2018

Information from space has historically been the province of the rich and powerful. Big Earth-observing satellites can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and launch, and the price of their data scales accordingly. Scrappy scientific upstarts have, for a while, been building smallsats to get orbital data on the cheap.

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How Engineering Earth’s Climate Could Seriously Imperil Life Jan 23, 2018

Travel with me to the year 2100. Despite our best efforts, climate change continues to threaten humanity. Drought, superstorms, flooded coastal cities. Desperate to stop the warming, scientists deploy planes to spray sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere, where it converts into a sulfate aerosol, which reflects sunlight. Thus the planet cools because, yes, chemtrails.

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The Little Rocket That Could Sends Real Satellites to Space Jan 22, 2018

The launch company Rocket Lab has amusing names for its missions. The first, in May, was called “It’s a Test” (it was). When the staff debated what to call the second launch of their diminutive Electron rocket, so sized (and priced) specifically to carry small satellites to space, they said, “Well, we’re still testing, aren’t we?” They were.

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Why This Quantum-Encrypted Video Hangout Is a Big Deal Jan 22, 2018

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How Did President Trump Do on His Physical? It’s Complicated Jan 19, 2018

The numbers don’t lie, unless they do. After much resistance and under increasing pressure, President Trump’s White House this week allowed Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, the White House doctor, to release results from a physical examination. How’d Trump do? Well, that’s tricky to answer.

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Cancer Diagnosis from a Blood Draw? Liquid Biopsies Are Still a Dream Jan 19, 2018

Nick Papadopoulos tracks down tumors for a living. Not with X-rays or CT scans, but with DNA. The oncologist and director of translational genetics at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center has spent decades uncovering the unique sets of mutations that define cancers—the kind of genetic signals that not only drive tumor formation and metastasis, but distinguish one cancer from another.

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NASA Just Proved It Can Navigate Space Using Pulsars. Where to Now? Jan 18, 2018

Half a century ago, astronomers observed their first pulsar: a dead, distant, ludicrously dense star that emitted pulses of radiation with remarkable regularity. So consistent was the object's signal that astronomers jokingly nicknamed it LGM-1, short for "little green men." It wasn't long before scientists detected more signals like LGM-1. That decreased the odds that these pulses of radiation were the work of intelligent extraterrestrials.

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Global Warming Predictions May Now Be a Lot Less Uncertain Jan 18, 2018

If one is the loneliest number, two is the most terrifying. Humanity must not pass a rise of 2 degrees Celsius in global temperature from pre-industrial levels, so says the Paris climate agreement. Cross that line and the global effects of climate change start looking less like a grave situation and more like a catastrophe. The frustrating bit about studying climate change is the inherent uncertainty of it all.

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The Physics of the 69-Degree Intersection That Kills Cyclists Jan 17, 2018

Sometimes when I see an awesome analysis on the internet, I just want to make it more awesomer. Really, this should be everyone's goal on the internet—either make stuff or make it more awesome. In this case, it's a post from Singletrack (and also covered by Boing Boing) looking at a particular crossroad in the United Kingdom that leads to a large number of accidents between bicycles and cars.

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Job Alert: How Would You Like to Babysit Robots? Jan 16, 2018

Book a night at LAX’s Residence Inn and you may be fortunate enough to meet an employee named Wally. His gig is relatively pedestrian—bring you room service, navigate around the hotel's clientele in the lobby and halls—but Wally’s life is far more difficult than it seems. If you put a tray out in front of your door, for instance, he can’t get to you. If a cart is blocking the hall, he can’t push it out of the way.

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Will Your Baby Like Cilantro? These Genetic Tests Say They Can Tell Jan 16, 2018

You have instant communication, on-demand entertainment, and dial-up transportation—why should you have to wait nine months to see what kind of baby you’re going to have? Now there’s an app for that. In a modern-day reboot of Lindsay Bluth’s “Mommy What Will I Look Like” business venture, Denver-based startup HumanCode has introduced BabyGlimpse.

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Clashes Over the Future of Gene Therapy at the US's Biggest Biotech Meeting Jan 15, 2018

For one dizzying, schmooze and booze-filled week every January, thousands of tech execs, VCs, and investment bankers grind their way through a four-day slog of panel sessions, poster presentations, networking meetings, and cocktail-drenched after-hours parties in their industry’s premier orgiastic dealmaking event. And no, we’re not talking about CES. On Monday, the Westin St. Francis hotel in downtown San Francisco opened its doors to the 36th annual J.P.

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Scientists Discover Clean Water Ice Just Below Mars' Surface Jan 12, 2018

Locked away beneath the surface of Mars are vast quantities of water ice. But the properties of that ice—how pure it is, how deep it goes, what shape it takes—remain a mystery to planetary geologists. Those things matter to mission planners, too: Future visitors to Mars, be they short-term sojourners or long-term settlers, will need to understand the planet's subsurface ice reserves if they want to mine it for drinking, growing crops, or converting into hydrogen for fuel.

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How Dark Matter Physicists Score Deals on Liquid Xenon Jan 11, 2018

If you want to build and run a $70 million dark matter detector, you're going to have a hefty shopping list. You'll need to buy hundreds of photomultiplier tubes, set up elaborate electronics, and pay graduate students, for starters. And 20 percent of your cash is going to go to just one thing: xenon gas. You'll need 200 steel bottles of the stuff, purified from the Earth’s atmosphere, at a price that can fluctuate wildly around $100,000 a bottle.

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A Robot That Tugs on Pig Organs Could Save Human Babies Jan 11, 2018

The pig looks like any other pig, only it's been wearing a backpack for a week—in the name of science. Just behind its head sits a control box, with a battery and processor, from which runs a cable that enters through the pig’s flank. Once inside, the cable attaches to a very special robot clamped onto the pig's esophagus, the pathway to the stomach. Little by little, the robot lengthens, in turn lengthening the tube. The robot attached to a segment of esophagus.Damian et al.

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Can an Arrow Fired Straight Up Fall Fast Enough to Kill You? Jan 10, 2018

In a recent episode of Mythbusters, Brian and Jon (the new MythBusters) wanted to see what happens when you shoot an arrow straight up into the air. It will obviously come back down—but would it still be moving fast enough to kill you? If you are a MythBuster, the best option is to actually shoot an arrow straight up into the air and measure its velocity on impact. But for normal people, it might be better to just calculate the final arrow speed.

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The Feathers of Planet Earth's Bird of Paradise Literally Eat Light Jan 10, 2018

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Scientists Figure Out How to Make Muscles from Scratch Jan 09, 2018

For the past several years, Nenad Bursac has been trying to make muscles from scratch. A biological engineer at Duke, Bursac came close in 2015, when his lab became the first to grow functional human skeletal muscle in culture. "Functional" being the operative word. Like the muscle fibers in, say, your bicep, the tissues could contract and generate forces in response to things like electrical pulses and shots of chemicals.

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Scientists Just Solved a Major Piece of the Opioid Puzzle Jan 09, 2018

When it comes to tackling the opioid crisis, public health workers start with the drugs: fentanyl, morphine, heroin. But biochemists have a different focus: Not the opioids, but opioid receptors—the proteins the drugs latch onto within the body. These receptors embed themselves in the walls of cells throughout the brain and peripheral nervous system.

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Salvia Leads Chemists on a Psychedelic Existential Journey Jan 08, 2018

On August 2, synthetic organic chemist Ryan Shenvi stood before 300 people at the Natural Products and Bioactive Compounds conference and told them something he knew was sacrilegious: He’d synthesized salvinorin A, the active ingredient in the wildly intense hallucinogen salvia, and he hadn’t just copied a molecule, as synthetic organic chemists are wont to do. He had subtly changed its molecular structure, as synthetic organic chemists are not wont to do.

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Let's Do the Physics of the Giant Driving Cities in Mortal Engines Jan 08, 2018

Next December, there'll be a new entrant into the end-of-year, blockbuster science fiction movie category: the Peter Jackson film Mortal Engines. A teaser trailer for it dropped just before the holidays, and there's really only one thing you need to know about it. Driving cities. Driving cities! Now, I know the movie is based on a book series, which probably has a lot of detail about these giant ambulatory dwellings. But I like to try and see what I can figure out just from the trailer itself.

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How You Could Get an Early Warning for the Next Big Quake Jan 05, 2018

At 2:39 am Thursday morning, millions of Bay Area residents from Sacramento to San Jose were shaken awake by the rolling tremble of a 4.4 magnitude earthquake. The eight-mile deep tremor struck along the Hayward fault, two miles southeast of Berkeley. From my apartment just 20 blocks from the epicenter, I woke with the rest of the neighborhood and rode out the wake from bed for about 10 seconds.

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A Clever New Robotic 'Muscle' Seriously Lifts, Bro Jan 05, 2018

Oh, the poor humanoid robots. After decades of development, they're still less sprinty Terminator and more … octogenarian on sedatives. While these robots may look like us, they aren’t built like us—electric motors in their joints drive their herky-jerky movements, whereas our muscles give us more precise control over our bodies. Well, unless we’re on sedatives.

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Why the Bomb Cyclone Hitting the East Coast Is So Unusual Jan 04, 2018

Now, the first thing you should know about a bomb cyclone is it’s just a name—and unlike a sharknado, it’s not a literal one. The very real scientific term describes a storm that suddenly intensifies following a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure. Bombing out, or “bombogenesis,” is when a cyclone’s central pressure drops 24 millibars or more in 24 hours, bringing furious winds that can quickly create blizzard conditions and coastal flooding.

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The Physics of Plastic Sheets … and Their Invisible Force Fields? Jan 04, 2018

When you wander around the internet, sometimes you can find some crazy stuff. Check this out: It's an old account of a weird phenomena created by giant plastic sheets at 3M Corporation. In short, these fast-moving, electrically-charged plastic sheets created some type of effect that prevented humans from passing through an invisible wall. It sounds a lot like some type of force field, right? I'm honestly skeptical that this is real, but let's just assume that it actually happened.

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I Believe in Intelligent Design ... for Robots Jan 03, 2018

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The Most-Read WIRED Science Stories of 2017 Jan 02, 2018

Back at the start of the summer, WIRED science writer Megan Molteni dropped a bomb: "The Tick That Gives People Meat Allergies Is Spreading." The story went viral, (probably because we published the the words "meat allergies" during peak grilling season), but the piece was more than a clicky headline: Molteni dove deep into the molecular science behind what causes the adverse reaction.

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Health Care Is Hemorrhaging Data. AI Is Here to Help Jan 01, 2018

Artificial intelligence used to mean something. Now, everything has AI. That app that delivers you late-night egg rolls? AI. The chatbot that pops up when you’re buying new kicks? AI. Tweets, stories, posts in your feed, the search results you return, even the people you swipe right or left; artificial intelligence had an invisible hand in what (and who) you see on the internet.

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The Future of Weed Science Is a Van in Colorado Jan 01, 2018

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Physics Found Gravitational Waves. Now Come the Existential Questions Dec 29, 2017

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Fighting Climate Change, and Building a World to Withstand It Dec 28, 2017

This past year, 2017, was the worst fire season in American history. Over 9.5 million acres burned across North America. Firefighting efforts cost $2 billion. This past year, 2017, was the seventh-worst Atlantic hurricane season on record and the worst since 2005. There were six major storms. Early estimates put the costs at more than $180 billion. As the preventable disease hepatitis A spread through homeless populations in California cities in 2017, 1 million Yemenis contracted cholera amid a famine.

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What Happens Now? Studies of Sexual Harassment Can Show the Way Dec 27, 2017

Academics have been cast in a slow-motion horror movie for the past couple of years, as superstar scientist after superstar scientist has been pushed from his pedestal for allegations of sexual harassment. Societies and universities have tried to determine what to do—academe-style fixes like panels, workshops, and policies. None of that ivory-tower work cued the public crescendo that this year’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein did.

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Science Says Fitness Trackers Don't Work. Wear One Anyway Dec 27, 2017

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Crispr Isn’t Enough Any More. Get Ready for Gene Editing 2.0 Dec 26, 2017

In fewer than five years, the gene-editing technology known as Crispr has revolutionized the face and pace of modern biology. Since its ability to find, remove, and replace genetic material was first reported in 2012, scientists have published more than 5,000 papers mentioning Crispr. Biomedical researchers are embracing it to create better models of disease. And countless companies have spun up to commercialize new drugs, therapies, foods, chemicals, and materials based on the technology.

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What It's Like to Spend Christmas at the Bottom of the Planet Dec 25, 2017

Kelly Brunt won’t be home for the holidays, nor will she be ringing in the New Year at a fabulous party or watching Ryan Seacrest schmooze B-list celebrities on TV. Instead, between December 21 and January 11, she’ll be leading a four-person expedition around the South Pole, sleeping in a small tent mounted on a plastic sled that is pulled by a snowcat.

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The Tricky Ethics of Knightscope's Crime-Fighting Robots Dec 22, 2017

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Build a Thermoelectric Generator, Like the Ones That Power Deep Space Missions Dec 22, 2017

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Using Genetics to Make a More Perfect Christmas Tree Dec 21, 2017

This year, for the first time in my life, I’ll be hosting my family for the holidays. And to their deep disgruntlement, we’ll be celebrating it without a Christmas tree. No, this isn’t some principled stance against the yuletide-industrial complex or a personal front in the war on Christmas. I’m just much more interested in an indoor evergreen interloper when its needles fall in someone else’s home.

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The Best Places to Donate for Last-Minute Science Gifts Dec 21, 2017

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Can Science Keep Deep Sea Miners From Ruining the Seafloor? Dec 20, 2017

Ocean explorers and entrepreneurs have been thinking about how to scoop up mineral-laden deposits on the seafloor since the HMS Challenger dragged a few up in a bucket during its globe-trotting scientific voyage in the 1870s. A century later, the CIA used deep sea mining as a cover story for a secretive plan to recover a sunken Russian nuclear sub. Now, it’s a serious engineering proposition.

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How to Run Up a Wall—With Physics! Dec 20, 2017

I can't decide if this looks like something from a super hero movie or from a video game. In this compilation video of crazy stunts, a guy somehow finds a way to bound up between two walls by jumping from one to the other. "Somehow," of course, means with physics: This move is based on the momentum principle and friction. Could you pull it off? Probably not. But you can at least do the math.

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2017 Was the Year the Robots Really, Truly Arrived Dec 19, 2017

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Flu Season Is Here Early. Why Didn't We See It Coming? Dec 18, 2017

If you’ve been putting off your flu shot until the season really gets going, wait no longer. It’s already here—and it’s looking like it’s going to be a doozy. Influenza viruses quietly circulate year-round in the US, but every winter they go big, triggering a seasonal epidemic of sniffles, sweats, and sore throats. And this year it’s come earlier than usual, just in time for a potential peak over the holidays.

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New Kepler Exoplanet Discovery Fueled by AI Dec 18, 2017

Saturn's rings sure are pretty, and Matt Damon’s been to Mars, but our eight-planet solar system may not be that special after all. Today, scientists using data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft announced they’d discovered an eighth planet orbiting a star 2,500 light years away. They’ve named the planet Kepler-90i after the star it orbits, Kepler-90, which is slightly hotter and more massive than our sun.

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The Hard Math Behind Bitcoin's Global Warming Problem Dec 15, 2017

Let me freak you out for a second. You know what bitcoin is, right? I mean, no, but quickly, it’s a “cryptocurrency” that’s basically secret computer money. One bitcoin, which doesn’t actually have a real, physical form, is worth at this moment upwards of $16,000. But to get one, you either have to buy them from online exchanges or use specialized computing hardware to “mine” it. That last bit is where the freak-out comes in.

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Patients Want Poop Transplants. Here's How to Make Them Safe Dec 15, 2017

Neill Stollman has been called the Tupac of poop transplants. The Oakland-based, board-certified gastroenterologist didn’t invent the treatment. But he did bring it to the west coast. His first patient was a woman in her 80s with a horrible case of Clostridium difficile, a gut infection that can strike patients after a course of antibiotics clears out their existing bacterial community.

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The Alabama Senate Election Was Decided 100 Million Years Ago Dec 14, 2017

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Crispr Therapeutics Plans Its First Clinical Trial for Genetic Disease Dec 14, 2017

In late 2012, French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier approached a handful of American scientists about starting a company, a Crispr company. They included UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna, George Church at Harvard University, and his former postdoc Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute—the brightest stars in the then-tiny field of Crispr research. Back then barely 100 papers had been published on the little-known guided DNA-cutting system. It certainly hadn’t attracted any money.

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Psychologists Want in on Social Media's Big Data Trove Dec 13, 2017

Figuring out how human beings do human things is one of the most exciting things that science—psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology—can do. It’s also one of the hardest. Reliable, meaningful methods that distill real-world behavior into experimental variables have been, let’s say, elusive.

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You Can Do Physics Even When You're Goofing Off Dec 13, 2017

Sometimes, when I'm proctoring an exam, I end up with a little too much time on my hands. So I play with stuff—whatever I've got on hand. In this case, it was one of those clicky pens. It had stopped writing, so I assumed it was out of ink. Of course it might not be out of ink, so I took it apart to look at the ink cartridge and check. That's when I discovered the fun stuff: If I push the empty ink cartridge down into the top of the pen, it compresses a spring.

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To Fix the Space Junk Problem, Add a Self-Destruct Module Dec 12, 2017

Humans have gotten pretty good at launching stuff into space—but way less good at getting stuff back down. Up in lower Earth orbit, along with a thousand-plus productive satellites, there are many more slackers: space junk, cosmic trash, garbage of the highest-orbiting order.

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Climate Change Could Take the Air Out of Wind Farms Dec 12, 2017

Big offshore wind farms power Europe’s drive for a carbon-free society, while rows of spinning turbines across America’s heartland churn enough energy to power 25 million US homes. But a new study predicts that a changing climate will weaken winds that blow across much of the Northern hemisphere, possibly leading to big drops in clean wind energy.

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The US Flirts With Geoengineering to Stymie Climate Change Dec 11, 2017

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Google Is Giving Away AI That Can Build Your Genome Sequence Dec 08, 2017

Today, a teaspoon of spit and a hundred bucks is all you need to get a snapshot of your DNA. But getting the full picture—all 3 billion base pairs of your genome—requires a much more laborious process. One that, even with the aid of sophisticated statistics, scientists still struggle over. It’s exactly the kind of problem that makes sense to outsource to artificial intelligence.

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The Physics of the Invisible Box Challenge Dec 08, 2017

Humans dance. It's what they do. Everyone always wants to get some cool new dance move. First there was the electric slide. Yeah, that was cool—but then there was the moonwalk. That was really cool. And now we have the invisible box. OK, maybe it's not exactly a dance move, but more like a trick. The basic idea of this move is to make it seem like the dancer is stepping on a block—a block that's invisible. It's an impressive move, but how does it work? https://twitter.

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The Firestorm This Time: Why Los Angeles Burns Dec 07, 2017

The Thomas Fire spread through the hills above Ventura, in the northern greater Los Angeles megalopolis, with the speed of a hurricane. Driven by 50 mph Santa Ana winds—bone-dry katabatic air moving at freeway speeds out of the Mojave desert—the fire transformed overnight from a 5,000-acre burn in a charming chaparral-lined canyon to an inferno the size of Orlando, Florida, that only stopped spreading because it reached the Pacific.

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Will Russia's Olympic Ban Shred the Culture of Doping? Dec 07, 2017

It took a while, but Russia finally got body-checked out of the Olympic Games. The road to ruin began in 2015, when two Russian track athletes-turned-whistleblowers raised suspicion about widespread state-sponsored doping at the 2012 London Games, followed by an independent report about problems at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

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The AI Company That Helps Boeing Cook New Metals for Jets Dec 06, 2017

At HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, materials scientist Hunter Martin and his team load a grey powder as fine as confectioner’s sugar into a machine. They’ve curated the powder recipe—mostly aluminum, blended with some other elements—down to the atom. The machine, a 3-D metal printer, lays the powder down a single dusting at time, while a laser overhead welds the layers together. Over several hours, the machine prints a small block the size of brownie.

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How Does Crispr Gene Editing Work? Dec 05, 2017

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How Criminal Courts Are Putting Brains—Not People—on Trial Dec 05, 2017

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At the Breakthrough Prizes, Silicon Valley Puts Scientists in the Spotlight Dec 04, 2017

Every year in December, a makeshift hangar at the NASA Ames Research Center pops up for one night, transforming the austere airfield into a glitzy, paparazzi’d, black velvet-roped Nerd Prom. At the Breakthrough Prizes—where on December 3, a total of $22 million was handed out to pioneers in math, physics, and the life sciences—researchers traded lab coats and latex gloves for floor-length gowns and bow-tied tuxedos.

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Ancestry’s Genetic Testing Kits Are Heading for Your Stocking This Year Dec 01, 2017

This holiday season, more people than ever before are giving the gift of spit. Well, what’s in your spit, to be precise. Want to know where your ancestors once walked or whether you’re at risk for a genetic disease? There’s a spit tube kit for that. And customers are buying them in record numbers. Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, leading personal genomics company AncestryDNA sold about 1.

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The Genesis of Kuri the Companion Robot Dec 01, 2017

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Want to Learn How to Mine in Space? There’s a School for You Nov 30, 2017

Hunter Williams used to be an English teacher. Then, three years into that job, he started reading the book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. The 1966 novel by Robert Heinlein takes place in the 2070s, on the moon, which, in this future, hosts a subterranean penal colony. Like all good sci-fi, the plot hinges on a rebellion and a computer that gains self-awareness. But more important to Williams were two basic fictional facts: First, people lived on the moon. Second, they mined the moon.

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Sea Level Rise Threatens Thousands of Archaeological Treasure Troves Nov 30, 2017

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The Most Promising Cancer Treatments In a Century Have Arrived—But Not For Everyone Nov 29, 2017

In 1891, a New York doctor named William B. Coley injected a mixture of beef broth and Streptococcus bacteria into the arm of a 40-year-old Italian man with an inoperable neck tumor. The patient got terribly sick—developing a fever, chills, and vomiting. But a month later, his cancer had shrunk drastically. Coley would go on to repeat the procedure in more than a thousand patients, with wildly varying degrees of success, before the US Food and Drug Administration shut him down.

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The Physics Behind the Strange Interstellar Asteroid 'Oumuamua Nov 29, 2017

For the first time, humans have detected an interstellar asteroid—a space rock they're calling 'Oumuamua, which is a Hawaiian word meaning "scout." It's the only object we've ever seen that entered the solar system from beyond our little collection of planets. That's a pretty big deal on its own. But on top of that, this asteroid has a really interesting shape: It's very long and skinny, with a width to length ratio of about 1 to 10.

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Behind the Scenes as NASA Tests the Most Powerful Rocket Ever Nov 28, 2017

Behind the Scenes as NASA Tests the Most Powerful Rocket Ever NASA wants to send a human to Mars in the next two decades. And that means making the most powerful rocket ever. In 2019, NASA will send a capsule called Orion on an elaborate 25-day trajectory. First, the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket ever built, will blast it into the ether.

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Soft Robots Acquire Origami Skeletons for Super-Strength Nov 28, 2017

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What Good Is a Supercomputer If It Can't Show Off? Nov 27, 2017

In Tampa, the conference center’s roof leaked. In Austin, the airport flooded. In Reno, conference organizers had to wait until a motorcycle rally was over before they could do some setup. During preparation for the SC Conference, a supercomputing meeting, there’s always something getting in the way of networking. But the conference, held annually in November, is perhaps more sensitive to water, delays, and herds of bikes than your average gathering.

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This New Robot Will Help Keep Hearts Pumping Nov 27, 2017

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Is Trump's NASA Nominee Ready to Tackle Climate Change? Nov 23, 2017

Science and the people who study it have taken a pretty big beating during the first year of the Trump administration. Trump has appointed climate science skeptics and outright deniers to head the Environmental Protection Agency (Scott Pruitt), the Department of Energy (Rick Perry), and the Council on Environmental Quality (Kathleen Hartnett).

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Would You Put the Genetically Modified Arctic Apple in Your Pie? Nov 22, 2017

On the last Monday of September, 32 field workers stepped onto a 15-acre experimental plot in an undisclosed part of Washington and made apple harvest history. The fruits they plucked from each tree were only a few months old. But they were two decades and millions of dollars in the making. And when they landed, pre-sliced and bagged on grocery store shelves earlier this month, they became the first genetically modified apple to go on sale in the United States.

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Could Tesla Power Its Electric Truck With Solar Panels? Nov 22, 2017

Tesla just keeps making cool things. On the top of the list is its newest addition to the lineup, an all-electric semitruck. Oh, that might sound like a dumb idea—but I don't think so. Just consider how much stuff is shipped back and forth across the country. Clearly a train would be more efficient, but trucks also play a large role. It seems like the Tesla semi might be able to make two improvements over a traditional truck.

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This Next-Gen Satellite Will Scan for Storms Like Never Before Nov 21, 2017

Prepping a satellite instrument for its journey into space can feel like getting ready to lift off yourself. The sensors on board are vulnerable to the slightest speck of contamination—so to get close, you have to suit up. Required clean room attire includes a hair net, face mask, paper suit, disposable boots, and surgical gloves. No notebooks allowed—only paper that doesn’t release fluff if you tear it—and no clicky ballpoint pens. They spit out tiny balls of ink.

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California's Hepatitis A Outbreak Is the Future Poking Us in the Face Nov 20, 2017

It wasn’t just that people were getting sick—it was who. And how many. Hepatitis A is a viral disease that primarily attacks the liver, and if it gets serious—as it can in the elderly and immune-compromised people—it can be fatal. But the graph of cases in the US over time looks like the second, fun half of a roller coaster ride. In the early 1970s, nearly 10,000 people a year got it. By the mid-1980s, the number was half that.

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This Gene-Editing Tech Might Be Too Dangerous To Unleash Nov 17, 2017

To get to work in the morning, Omar Akbari has to pass through a minimum of six sealed doors, including an air-locked vestibule. The UC Riverside entomologist studies the world’s deadliest creature: the Aedes aegypti mosquito, whose bite transmits diseases that kill millions each year. But that’s not the reason for all the extra security. Akbari isn’t just studying mosquitoes—he’s re-engineering them with self-destruct switches.

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How to Hoist Yourself Out of a Hole With Physics Nov 16, 2017

No one can deny that there are some great physics videos out there in the wild internet. Today, I found this one floating around—featuring what appears to be a worker that needs to get out of a cone-shaped hole. Oh sure, he could possibly climb up the side or maybe even use a rope as an assist. But no. This guy studied his physics. He knows a great trick to get out of this hole—by running in circle.

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A New Study of Economics as a Science Says It's Still Dismal Nov 15, 2017

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Yuri Milner and the Fellowship of Silicon Valley Science Influencers Nov 14, 2017

“Who are we?” That impossible question opened the 2015 public letter announcing a well-heeled SETI project called Breakthrough Listen. Dozens of people—scientists, astronauts, and also a producer, a chess champ, and a soprano—signed the note, which kicked off a $100 million effort by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to catch signals from alien civilizations. That quest, Milner and the signatories hoped, would answer that existential query.

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The Subtle Art and Serious Physics of Subway Surfing Nov 13, 2017

I can't help myself. When I'm out in the real world and I see something cool, I have to turn it into a physics problem. It's just what I do. In this case, I was changing planes in the Atlanta airport. Like many other airports, Atlanta has a mini subway to take you between terminals. You walk in, the doors shut and then it accelerates up to some traveling speed. At some point it slows down and stops so that you can get off and catch your plane.

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Scientists Save a Kid By Growing a Whole New Skin For Him Nov 10, 2017

The baby was still in diapers when the first blister appeared, ballooning red and angry from his pale, newborn skin. Soon, they became a regular feature on the map of his body, along with deep creases in his face when he howled out in pain. A doctor told the parents his LAMB3 gene had a glitch—his body wasn’t making enough of a protein to anchor the outer layer of his skin to the inner ones. For seven years they kept the blisters at bay.

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Mass Shootings, Climate, Discrimination: Why Government's Fear of Data Threatens Us All Nov 09, 2017

In the aftermath of the massacre of 26 people in a small-town Texas church, you might have seen that the killer used a gun called an AR-15. It’s a popular weapon—relatively easy to use, endlessly customizable, military in appearance. How popular? It’s the same gun that a killer used in the massacre of 58 people at a Las Vegas concert last month, and by the killer who murdered 49 people in a nightclub in Orlando, and the one at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

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Artificial Intelligence Is Putting Ultrasound on Your Phone Nov 08, 2017

If Jonathan Rothberg has a superpower, it’s cramming million-dollar, mainframe-sized machines onto single semiconductor circuit boards. The entrepreneurial engineer got famous (and rich) inventing the world’s first DNA sequencer on a chip. And he’s spent the last eight years sinking that expertise (and sizeable startup capital) into a new venture: making your smartphone screen a window into the human body.

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Green Bank Observatory Embraces Its Alien-Hunting Future Nov 07, 2017

It’s a fallish day in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia, the rural home of Green Bank Observatory and the world’s largest fully steerable telescope. Rippled clouds hang low over the site’s hulking 100-meter radio dish, itself undergirded and overhung by bright white scaffolding. The browning leaves are nearly gone. And the visitor center director, Sherry McCarty, has agreed to give me the astronomy center’s new SETI tour ($40, reservations required).

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You Too Can Fly a Spacecraft Around Mars—With Physics! Nov 06, 2017

Recently, I gave my introductory physics course a fairly standard problem, based on the Matter and Interactions textbook. I've modified the question, but it goes something like this: You have a spacecraft with a mass of 100 kilograms, moving near Mars (the planet, not the candy bar). At one point, it is traveling at a speed of 1,100 m/s, flying 5 x 107 meters from the center of the planet. At a later point, the spacecraft reaches a new altitude, flying 8.6 x 107 meters from the center.

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For Scientists Predicting Sea Level Rise, Wind Is the Biggest Unknown Nov 03, 2017

From the air, the largest glacier on the biggest ice sheet in the world looks the same as it has for centuries; massive, stable, blindingly white. But beneath the surface it’s a totally different story. East Antarctica’s Totten Glacier is melting, fast, from below. Thanks to warm ocean upwellings flowing into the glacier—in some places at the rate of 220,000 cubic meters per second—it’s losing between 63 and 80 billion tons of previously frozen fresh water every year.

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Controversial Brain Imaging Uses AI to Take Aim at Suicide Prevention Nov 02, 2017

When someone takes their own life, they leave behind an inheritance of unanswered questions. “Why did they do it?” “Why didn’t we see this coming?” “Why didn’t I help them sooner?” If suicide were easy to diagnose from the outside, it wouldn’t be the public health curse it is today. In 2014 suicide rates surged to a 30-year high in the US, making it now the second leading cause of death among young adults.

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After the Napa Fires, a Disaster-in-Waiting: Toxic Ash Nov 01, 2017

By any measure, the fires that tore through Northern California were a major disaster. Forty-two people are dead, and 100,000 are displaced. More than 8,400 homes and other buildings were destroyed, more than 160,000 acres burned—and the fires aren’t all out yet. That devastation leaves behind another potential disaster: ash. No one knows how much. It’ll be full of heavy metals and toxins—no one knows exactly how much, and it depends on what burned and at what temperature.

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How Much Energy Can You Cram Into Your Halloween Candy? Oct 31, 2017

It's Halloween time. For many, this time of the year means there are lots of cool costumes. For others, it's all about the candy. Now, I'm not a big fan of candy—but I am a big fan of analyzing stuff. So here we go: I'm going to look at the energy density for candy. Sure, I could just look this up—but it's much more fun to determine it for myself. Let's get started by going to the store. I am going to look at a bunch of different candy options and get some data.

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Can You Figure Out What's Wrong in This Iron Man 3 Scene? Oct 30, 2017

Late at night, I tend to flip through the channels just to see what's up. If there's a good movie on, I might watch part of it—and recently, I stumbled on Iron Man 3. I know what you're gonna say—that's a terrible superhero movie. But I disagree. Fantastic Four, now that's a terrible superhero movie. Iron Man 3 wasn't so bad. Especially not that part where Tony Stark has to go to the store and MacGyver his way into a temporary suit.

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New Science Could Sharpen Crispr's Gene-Editing Scalpel Oct 27, 2017

Stay on target. That’s the mantra you hear in labs and biotech companies around the world as they snip away at DNA. All the techniques for gene editing—from the famous Crispr-Cas9 to the older TALENs and zinc-finger nucleases—share a problem: Sometimes they don’t work. Which is to say, they have “off-target effects,” changing a gene you don’t want changed or failing to change a gene that you do. And DNA is not something you want poorly rewired.

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Cutting Carbs Won't Save You From Cancer Oct 26, 2017

Half-eaten doughnuts hit the bottom of waste bins around the world this week, as news feeds spread word of a new dietary danger. Yes, headlines declared, a new study shows that sugar is the favorite food of cancer. Cancer. “This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences,” wrote Johan Thevelein, a Belgian biologist and co-author of the study published last Friday in the journal Nature Communications. Sweeping is right.

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The Way the World Ends: Not with a Bang But a Paperclip Oct 25, 2017

Paperclips, a new game from designer Frank Lantz, starts simply. The top left of the screen gets a bit of text, probably in Times New Roman, and a couple of clickable buttons: Make a paperclip. You click, and a counter turns over. One. The game ends—big, significant spoiler here—with the destruction of the universe.

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How on Earth Does Aquaman Fly in the Justice League Trailer? Oct 24, 2017

I'll be honest—I don't know as much about DC superheroes as Marvel superheroes. Still, I'm pretty excited about the upcoming DC movie Justice League. As a kid, I dressed up as Aquaman; my mother was pretty good at making stuff and so she made costumes for me and my two brothers. The other two costumes were Robin and Superman—the unifying theme being that they don't have complicated masks.

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Can We Still Rely On Science Done By Sexual Harassers? Oct 23, 2017

The pandemic of sexual harassment and abuse—you saw its prevalence in the hashtag #metoo on social media in the past weeks—isn’t confined to Harvey Weinstein’s casting couches. Decades of harassment by a big shot producer put famous faces on the problem, but whisper networks in every field have grappled with it forever. Last summer, the story was women in Silicon Valley. Last week, more men in media.

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Could San Francisco Get the Oil Industry to Pay for Climate Change? Oct 20, 2017

When a raindrop falls in San Francisco, it has two choices: flow east into the San Francisco Bay, or west into the Pacific Ocean. A ridgeline divides the city into two, slicing through the Presidio, hugging the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park, and skirting Twin Peaks. As the land drops off in either direction, the elevation difference doesn’t just drive raindrops downhill—it also moves human waste.

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What Happens When Robots Act Just Like Humans Oct 18, 2017

Three years later, in 2005, Ishiguro unveils Repliee Q1 Expo to the public. Modeled on a grown woman (a popular Tokyo newscaster) and produced with better funding, this version can move its upper body fluidly and lip-synch to recorded speech. Ishiguro’s lab conducts several studies with it; the results are featured in a major Japanese robotics journal; the lab is filmed for television; he hears about a copycat android in South Korea.

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In 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,' Planet Sovereign Defies Physics Oct 18, 2017

One of the great things about movies set in space is that the writers have the opportunity to come up with some fantastically crazy situations. Just look at the planet Sovereign, revealed at the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Don't worry about why the Guardians are on this planet too much—instead, let's just focus on the planet itself. It looks something like this: It's fantastically awesome—and I'm OK with that. However, there is a small physics problem here.

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How Climate Change and 'Smoke Taint' Could Kill Napa Wine Oct 17, 2017

Nick Goldschmidt has been lucky so far. A wildfire has burned more than 8,000 acres just north of his vineyards in Geyserville, California, but so far his vines are OK. So is his house in Healdsburg, roughly midway between Geyserville and a 36,000-acre fire that destroyed more than 2,800 homes in Santa Rosa. But now, amid the charred, empty spaces that scar northern California’s winegrowing region, under skies yellowed by smoke, Goldschmidt has a race to win.

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Meet the Geek Who Tracks Rogue Satellites With Coat Hangers Oct 16, 2017

Every 95 minutes, the Chinese satellite Zhuhai-1 02 makes a full pass around the planet, its solar-panel arms extending from its boxy body as it observes Earth. Sometimes, its path takes it over Pueblo, Colorado. There, more than 300 miles below, Mike Coletta’s receiving station can pick up Zhuhai’s transmissions. Because as sophisticated as space technology is, the terrestrial tech necessary to make contact with celestial satellites is surprisingly low.

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In Cities, It's the Smoke, Not the Fire, That Will Get You Oct 13, 2017

No one knows what sparked the violent fires ablaze in the hills of California wine country. In the last five days, the flames have torched more than 160,000 acres across Napa and Sonoma counties, reducing parts of Santa Rosa to piles of cinder and ash and leaving more than 20 dead and hundreds missing.

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The Napa Fire Is a Perfectly Normal Apocalypse Oct 12, 2017

Blame the wind, if you want. In Southern California they call it the Santa Ana; in the north, the Diablos. Every autumn, from 4,000 feet up in the Great Basin deserts of Nevada and Utah, air drops down over the mountains and through the canyons. By the time it gets near the coast it’s hot, dry, and can gust as fast as a hurricane. Or blame lightning, or carelessness, or downed power lines.

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This New Alzheimer’s Test Looks Beyond a Single Problem Gene Oct 11, 2017

America is entering a period that may one day be known as The Great Forgetting. Alzheimer’s, a disease defined as much by the accumulation of mental lapses as by tangled proteins in the brain, is an ailment of the aging. Sixty-five-year-olds have a one in 10 chance of a positive diagnosis. By age 85, the odds jump to one in three.

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Silicon Isn't Just for Computers. It Can Make a Pretty Good Kidney, Too Oct 10, 2017

Every week, two million people across the world will sit for hours, hooked up to a whirring, blinking, blood-cleaning dialysis machine. Their alternatives: Find a kidney transplant or die. In the US, dialysis is a roughly 40-billion-dollar business keeping 468,000 people with end-stage renal disease alive. The process is far from perfect, but that hasn't hindered the industry's growth.

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Let's Analyze the Ridiculous Physics of the Bugatti Chiron Oct 09, 2017

At one point in the past, I was a teenager. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true. During that time, I thought about teenager things. In particular, I recall thinking about and wanting a super fast car. Maybe a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. At lunch my friends and I would argue about the best cars (THE BEST), and what we wouldn't give to drive them. Today I drive a minivan. Nothing wrong with that. Now that I'm older, I care more about fuel efficiency and safety than speed.

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Were US Diplomats in Cuba Victims of a Sonic Attack—or Something Else? Oct 06, 2017

The 007-meets-the-X-Files adventures in Cuba continue. Last week the US Department of State recalled non-emergency personnel and families home from the embassy in Havana, citing injuries and illness among 21 people—“hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues, and difficulty sleeping” according to a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Those 21 people weren’t just cultural attaches.

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The Physics Nobel Goes to the Detection of Ripples in Space and Time Oct 05, 2017

The way the Nobel Committee tells it, the story of this year’s physics prize begins like a certain 1970s space opera. “Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, two massive black holes engaged in a deadly dance,” said physicist and Nobel committee member Olga Botner at today's prize announcement. The pair spiraled toward each other, colliding to form an even bigger black hole with a mass 62 times that of Earth's sun.

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The Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to Your Body's Circadian Clock Oct 04, 2017

Today, the Nobel committee kicked off its 2017 season by awarding the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to three scientists for their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms. The Americans—Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young—used fruit flies to isolate a gene that dictates the biological clock ticking away inside all living organisms.

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After Hurricane Maria, Could Puerto Rico Be at Risk of Cholera? Oct 03, 2017

After the deluge comes the deluge. First Hurricane Irma raked Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands in early September, and then two weeks later Hurricane Maria did the same, leaving 3.5 million people in Puerto Rico without clean water, communications, or electricity, amid damaged buildings and floodwaters. Aid is finally reaching the islands—fuel for generators, water, medical supplies, food—but disasters always breed disasters.

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One Gene Mutation May Cause Zika's Devastating Birth Defects Oct 02, 2017

Sixty years ago, a team of scientists went looking for yellow fever in the jungles that line the northwestern edge of Lake Victoria. What they found instead, in the blood of a rhesus monkey, was a new virus, one they named for the area’s dense vegetation: Uganda’s Zika Forest. Within a few years, Zika virus was showing up in humans, causing a pink rash and mild flu-like symptoms.

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Temperature Is Not What You Think It Is Sep 29, 2017

What is temperature? This question comes up quite a bit—especially in introductory science courses. The most common answer is something like this: Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles in an object. When temperature increases, the motion of these particles also increases. It's not a terrible definition, but it's not the best either. There are plenty of other crazy things about temperature that you should probably know.

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Can This Tesla Alum Build the World’s Greenest Battery? Sep 28, 2017

At Tesla, Peter Carlsson spent nearly five years at Elon Musk’s side, locating various parts of the Model S as the electric car company's global supply chain manager. "The overarching goal of Tesla is to help reduce carbon emissions, and that means low cost and high volume," Musk said back in 2006. "We will also serve as an example to the auto industry, proving that the technology really works and customers want to buy electric vehicles.

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The United States Needs an Earthquake Warning System Already Sep 27, 2017

On Monday night, residents of the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Westwood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and parts of the San Fernando Valley experienced a mild earthquake—a magnitude 3.6. Most people slept through the temblor and no damage was reported. But a select group of 150 LA residents got a text alert on their mobile phone a full eight seconds before the quake hit at 11:10 pm—enough time for people to drop, cover, and hold on.

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The Post-Antibiotic Era Is Here. Now What? Sep 26, 2017

When Alexander Fleming came back from a Scottish vacation in the summer of 1948 to find his London lab bench contaminated with a mold called Penicillium notatum, he kicked off a new age of scientific sovereignty over nature. Since then, the antibiotics he discovered and the many more he inspired have saved millions of lives and spared immeasurable suffering around the globe. But from the moment it started, scientists knew the age of antibiotics came stamped with an expiration date.

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Archaeologists Don't Always Need to Dig—They've Got Drones Sep 25, 2017

On the morning of August 21—the day of the solar eclipse—five archaeologists and I piled into two SUVs and drove an hour northwest of Tucson, into the thick of the Sonoran Desert. Turning off-road, we reached a yellow expanse inside Ironwood Forest National Monument through a series of latched gates. We brought eclipse glasses, but the quarter-sliver of the sun was just a sideshow.

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Bored With Your Fitbit? These Cancer Researchers Aren't Sep 22, 2017

If you’re trying to get in shape and you want a tiny, wrist-bound computer to help you do it, you have more options than ever before. Fitness trackers come in all shapes, colors, and price tags, with newfangled sensors and features to stand out to customers. But for doctors and scientists studying how exercise can help people deal with disease, the landscape is much simpler. There’s Fitbit, and then there’s everyone else.

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With Designer Bacteria, Crops Could One Day Fertilize Themselves Sep 21, 2017

For the last 100 years, ever since German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch figured out how to pluck fertilizer out of thin air with brute-force chemistry, farmers have relied on an imperfect product to make their plants grow: fertilizer. Production of the stuff burns through 3 percent of the world’s natural gas annually, releases tons of carbon into the atmosphere, and runs off into rivers and streams and aquifers. Relying on fossil fuels to grow food was never exactly sustainable.

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Cities Turn to Other Cities for Help Fighting Climate Change Sep 20, 2017

Maybe the United States is sticking with the Paris Climate Agreement? Maybe it isn’t? But even if the US bails out of the international accord to limit climate change, well, nations aren’t the only players. If every city with a population over 100,000 stepped up, they could account for 40 percent of the reductions required. But that’s no small if.

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What if America Had a Detective Agency for Disasters? Sep 19, 2017

The commissions are coming. Hurricane season hasn’t ended, but forensics waits for no one, so the after-action reports on Harvey and Irma have to get started. The relevant agencies—local and perhaps federal, plus maybe some national academies and disaster responders—will all no doubt look at themselves and others to see what went right or wrong.

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Antarctica Is Looking for a Few Good Firefighters Sep 18, 2017

Antarctica’s summer season is about to begin, which means hundreds of scientists are preparing to head south to conduct experiments on melting glaciers, migrating penguins, and elusive neutrinos. But so, too, will the support staff of the United States Antarctic base, McMurdo Station, population 1,100. McMurdo is a company town of sorts: It has its own air traffic controller, machine shop, IT help desk, dormitory housing, three bars, yoga classes, hiking trails—and fire department.

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How Congress Ignored Science and Fueled Antibiotic Resistance Sep 15, 2017

The gray clapboard house on the two-lane road in a western suburb of Boston looked, in fall 1974, the way you would expect a comfortable old Massachusetts house full of children to look. It was rambling and tall, made out of a house and a barn butted together. There were other barns out back, down a long gravel drive that stretched to a grove of trees: small sheds and one big building, 200 feet on the long side, painted an iconic barnyard red.

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A Patient Gets the New Transgender Surgery She Helped Invent Sep 14, 2017

Like many other surgery patients, Hayley Anthony has a daily physical therapy regimen. But unlike other post-ops, the 30-year-old marketing consultant is recovering from a procedure she helped invent. Five months ago, she became one of the first people in the world to have a piece of tissue incised from the cavity of her abdomen and turned into a vagina.

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The Serious Physics Behind a Double Pendulum Fidget Spinner Sep 13, 2017

I am going to make a prediction. As people start to get bored with their fidget spinners, they are going to start playing with these double pendulum fidget spinners. The normal spinner has a bearing in the center of some object such that you can hold it and spin it—moderately cool, I'll admit. But the double pendulum spinner has two bearings with two moveable arms.

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The Science of Fighting Wildfires Gets a Satellite Boost Sep 12, 2017

Ash is raining down on the city of Portland. Thousand-degree fireballs are forcing evacuations near Salt Lake City, Seattle, and parts of Northern California. In Missoula, Montana, the sun burns a bloody red even even at high noon. These days, the American West looks less like an Ansel Adams postcard and more like the kingdom of Mordor. Across nine states, nearly 1.5 million acres are on fire. And according to President Trump’s natural resources czar, you can blame it all on the hippies.

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Antibiotic-Brined Chicken and Other Bad Ideas From US Farming Sep 11, 2017

These days, the only thing more American than apple pie is eating an animal raised on antibiotics. Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the US go not to human patients, but to the nation’s plate-bound pigs, cows, turkeys, and chickens. As these wonder drugs became a mainstay of modern agriculture, factory farms began churning out another, far less welcome commodity—antibiotic resistant bacteria.

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Can a Drone Carry a Full-Grown Human in a Hammock? Sep 08, 2017

I have many jobs, but one of my favorite is finding crazy stuff on the internet and using physics to see if it is real or fake. In this case we have a video that shows a drone carrying a human in a hammock. I'll go ahead and say it—this is probably fake. The Physics of Drones You can't tell if the video is real or fake without first understanding the basics of drone flight. In particular, we need to look at the physics of what makes a drone hover.

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These Mice Stopped Eating Carbs So You (Maybe) Don't Have To Sep 07, 2017

In the ever-more masochistic world of wellness-boosting, pound-shedding diets, the latest trend involves putting your body into a controlled state of starvation known as “ketogenesis,” by cutting out nearly all carbs. If that doesn’t sound like your particular brand of torture, guess what? You’re already on it. Well, at least while you’re sleeping.

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'Dream Chaser' Space Plane Hitches a Ride With a Helicopter Sep 06, 2017

This morning around 7 am, the engines of a massive, beluga-bodied helicopter cut on with a rumble. The hum harmonized with the reverberations of Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles. As the Chinook’s two enormous rotor blades started to spin, blasting hot vapor smudged the monochrome stripes of pavement, desert floor, mountain ridge, and sky above NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. And then, finally, the copter began to levitate.

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Astronaut Scott Kelly Explains How the ISS Is Like Harris County Jail Sep 05, 2017

Before he rocketed off to spend a year in space, one of Scott Kelly’s final acts on Earth was peeing on the back tire of a van. Not because you can’t pee in space (you can—it just requires some suction). It’s tradition: Yuri Gagarin, who made it to space first, did the same thing.

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Why You Should Read That Whole Text Book Right Now Sep 04, 2017

It's the beginning of a new semester for introductory physics students. I have a new message that might not be very popular: Read the textbook. And I don't just mean, like, here and there. Read the whole thing as as soon as possible. I know many students have different ideas about the role of the textbook in college courses, so let me go over some of the reasons that students should start reading right away. Textbooks Aren't So Bad Yes, textbooks aren't perfect.

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With Harvey, Imperfect Engineering Meets a Perfect Storm Sep 01, 2017

Addicks and Barker Reservoirs are swaths of placid Texas prairie, wetland, and forest straddling I-10 where it hits Highway 6, about 20 miles west of downtown Houston. But that’s not how nature sees them. To nature, those two open spaces are the top of a hydrological basin that drains through the city and into the Houston Ship Channel. Most of the time the reservoirs don’t reserve any water.

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What's Inside a Magical (and Flammable) Grease-Lifting Cleaner Aug 31, 2017

In 1954, Italian inventor Carlo Vanoni swelled with patriotic pride when he learned that his fellow countrymen had summited K2, the second-tallest mountain in the world. He was so proud, in fact, that he started naming all his formulas after it: K2a, K2b, K2c, and on down the alphabet. K2r turned out to be his biggest hit—it became K2r Spotlifter, a household cleaner that erases greasy stains from car seat upholstery and delicate silk shirts alike.

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A New Way for Doctors to Share Their Medical Mysteries Aug 30, 2017

In Gerald Grant’s line of work, there isn’t such a thing as an “average” patient. As a chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Stanford University Medical Center, the children that come into his operating room are unique, each requiring a complex surgical procedure tailored to the architecture of a young brain. But that doesn’t mean he can’t learn from what other people have done.

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How Will Houston Handle the Deluge of Hurricane Harvey? Aug 29, 2017

Hurricanes are ranked according to their wind speed. But a truer measure of their destructive potential would also include their moisture level. Just before making landfall on Friday night, Hurricane Harvey jumped up to become a category 4 hurricane, with sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. But more dangerously, it’s also packing enough moisture to drop 20 inches or more of rain across Texas’ gulf coast. Texas has been bracing itself.

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Your Brain Cells Hear the Ups and Downs of Language Aug 28, 2017

Too often, letters, words, and sentences get the credit for conveying information. But the human brain also makes meaning out of pitch. Like how upspeak turns any sentence into a question? Or how emphasizing the beginning of a sentence (Tom and Leila bought a boat) helps clarify that it was in fact Tom and Leila who bought the boat, not some other couple.

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Crispr Fans Dream of a Populist Future for Gene Editing Aug 25, 2017

CrisprCon is not a place where spandexed, beglittered, refrigerator drawer fans come together for an all-you-can-eat celebration of unwilted produce. No. Crispr-Cas9 (no E), if you haven’t been paying attention, is a precise gene editing tool that’s taken the world by storm, promising everything from healthier, hangover-free wine to cures for genetic diseases. Like, all of them.

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The Defenders Could Punch Better if They Learned Some Physics Aug 24, 2017

I haven't seen The Defenders yet, but it's high on my list of things to watch. I am super excited about it, and why not? It brings Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones together to save ... oh, never mind. No spoilers! That said, I consider trailers fair game, and this one from Netflix features an amazing scene in which the four Defenders fight a horde of bad guys in a hallway. Of these four superheroes, all but Daredevil can throw a superhuman punch.

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Plankton 'Mucus Houses' Could Pull Microplastics From the Sea Aug 23, 2017

Each year, the world throws 8 billion metric tons of plastic into the ocean, about a dump truck every minute. Some washes up on beaches, some sinks, and the rest floats to the surface, where currents sweep it into giant rafts of garbage. Over time, chopping waves and beating sunlight break those plastics down into microscopic particles—which conservation groups worry pose a real threat to marine life and the people who eat it. But there are ways to pull those plastics out of the sea.

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Explore the Moon Using Augmented Reality Aug 22, 2017

For a brief, non-shining moment on Monday, August 21, the moon will be the most important object in the daytime sky. Not that you’ll get a good look at much besides its backlit outline. And sure, it is uncanny and cool that the moon sits at just the right distance from the Earth to blot out the sun. But real lunatics—er, luna-philes? Let’s go with moon fans—know the moon’s real calling card is its wild topography, visible almost nightly with the right telescope.

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What a Border Collie Taught a Linguist About Language Aug 21, 2017

Tansy was not into sports. The little border collie, a rescue, didn’t care for agility trials or flyball. But her adopted family—with two other border collies already in the house—did them all the time. Border collies are working dogs, the elite athletes of the canine universe. They go a little nuts without something to do. After a little consternation, Tansy's new owner Robin Queen, a linguist at the University of Michigan, got some advice: sheep.

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NASA's Rocket to Nowhere Finally Has a Destination Aug 18, 2017

On a Thursday afternoon in June, a 17-foot-tall rocket motor—looking like something a dedicated amateur might fire off—stood fire-side-up on the salty desert of Promontory, Utah. Over the loudspeakers, an announcer counted down. And with the command to fire, quad cones of flame flew from the four inverted nozzles and grew toward the sky. As the smoke rose, it cast a four-leaf clover of shadow across the ground.

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Buried in a Gold Mine, a Particle Accelerator Searches for Stellar Secrets Aug 17, 2017

In August 2015, scientists from the University of Notre Dame went west, the disassembled pieces of a particle accelerator secured in the back of their U-haul. Over 1,000 miles later and nearly a mile down, they started installing the machine in a new home: deep within an old mine in the town of Lead, South Dakota. Miners first excavated the Homestake gold mine in the 1880s.

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View the Eclipse With This Simple Homemade Gadget Aug 16, 2017

You've surely heard by now that the moon will pass between Earth and the sun on August 21, creating a total solar eclipse that will cast a shadow over much of the US. Jimmy Carter was president the last time this happened, so you definitely don't want to miss it. The best way to observe this astronomical event is to be somewhere in the path of the totality that will experience total darkness in the middle of the day.

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Veritas Genomics Scoops Up an AI Company to Sort Out Its DNA Aug 15, 2017

Genes carry the information that make you you. So it's fitting that, when sequenced and stored in a computer, your genome takes up gobs of memory—up to 150 gigabytes. Multiply that across all the people who have gotten sequenced, and you're looking at some serious storage issues. If that's not enough, mining those genomes for useful insight means comparing them all to each other, to medical histories, and to the millions of scientific papers about genetics.

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The US Won't Pay For the World's Best Climate Science Aug 14, 2017

The most formal manifestation of the scientific consensus on climate change is an organization called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Headquartered in Geneva, under the aegis of the United Nations, it coordinates the volunteer efforts of several thousand scientists, industry experts, nonprofit researchers, and government representatives into reports issued every five to seven years.

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Want a Diagnosis Tomorrow, Not Next Year? Turn to AI Aug 11, 2017

Inside a red-bricked building on the north side of Washington DC, internist Shantanu Nundy rushes from one examining room to the next, trying to see all 30 patients on his schedule. Most days, five of them will need to follow up with some kind of specialist. And odds are, they never will. Year-long waits, hundred-mile drives, and huge out-of-pocket costs mean 90 percent of America’s most needy citizens can’t follow through on a specialist referral from their primary care doc.

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How Color Vision Came to the Animals Aug 10, 2017

Animals are living color. Wasps buzz with painted warnings. Birds shimmer their iridescent desires. Fish hide from predators with body colors that dapple like light across a rippling pond. And all this color on all these creatures happened because other creatures could see it. The natural world is so showy, it’s no wonder scientists have been fascinated with animal color for centuries. Even today, the questions how animals see, create, and use color are among the most compelling in biology.

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It's Past Time for You To Ditch That Fancy Scientific Calculator Aug 09, 2017

Bruce Sherwood, the author of Matter and Interactions, had a question for me when I saw him at the American Association of Physics Teachers conference not long ago: "What calculator do you use?" If this seems odd, well, it was a conference of physics teachers. I responded with something along the lines of "I don't actually use a calculator." Of course, Bruce probably knew I'd say that. He absolutely agrees with me. I don't remember the last time I use a traditional calculator.

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Trump Wants the EPA Radon Program Cut. So Do Some Scientists Aug 08, 2017

Woe be to the Environmental Protection Agency. If President Trump gets his way, the federal agency will lose 31 percent of its annual budget—about $3 billion. Supporters of Trump’s 2018 budget proposal call it a “back to basics” approach, carving away what they see as the agency’s regulatory overreach. Opponents are similarly pithy: The EPA’s former director labeled Trump’s proposal a “scorched Earth budget.

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The Plan to End Science’s Sexist #Manel Problem Aug 07, 2017

In October 2016, the organizers behind a conference on the microbiome sent promo materials to some prominent scientists. Elisabeth Bik was one of them: With her nearly 12,000 followers, her tweeting could help publicize their upcoming event in San Diego. But when she scanned the lineup, she noticed that almost every speaker was a man. Add more women, she suggested—or the conference should expect backlash.

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Science Says 13 Reasons Why May Be the Public Health Scare People Thought Aug 04, 2017

In March, when Netflix quietly dropped its original teen suicide mystery series 13 Reasons Why, it took a few days for people to start freaking out. But soon, schools started sending home notes warning parents about the show’s graphic depictions of suicide and rape. Psychologists wrote op-eds denouncing its disregard for the World Health Organization’s suicide portrayal guidelines. News outlets published more than 600,000 stories about it. And then, there was Twitter.

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The Space Junk Problem Is About to Get a Whole Lot Gnarlier Aug 03, 2017

For a few months in the fall of 1957, citizens of Earth could look up and see the first artificial star. It shone as bright as Spica, but moved across the sky at a much faster clip. Lots of people thought they were seeing Sputnik—Russia’s antennaed, spherical satellite, and the first thing humans had flung into orbit. But it wasn’t: It was the body of the rocket that bore Sputnik to space—and Earth’s first piece of space junk.

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The Physics Behind the Magical Parallax Effect Running Your AR Apps Aug 02, 2017

There's something sort of cool in the next version of Apple's iOS. [It's call ARKit](https://developer.apple.com/arkit/—basically, it's a part of Apple's developer package to help programmers create awesome augmented reality apps. Like, maybe a program that adds dancing hotdogs to your screen so that they look like they are there in real life. Or better yet, something useful like an app that measures distances by just looking at stuff through your phone camera.

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Darpa Wants to Build a BS Detector for Science Aug 01, 2017

Adam Russell, an anthropologist and program manager at the Department of Defense’s mad-science division Darpa, laughs at the suggestion that he is trying to build a real, live, bullshit detector. But he doesn’t really seem to think it’s funny. The quite serious call for proposals Russell just sent out on Darpa stationery asks people—anyone! Even you!—for ways to determine what findings from the social and behavioral sciences are actually, you know, true.

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Physicists Try to Revive a Super-Safe, Decades-Old Cancer Treatment Jul 31, 2017

In a room at Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center, Robert Johnson keeps a small collection of plastic heads. At first glance, they look like they’ve been lopped off the top of department store mannequins. But they’re more lifelike than that—made of materials that mimic bone, flesh, and brain. “One of them even has a gold filling,” he says.

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Luxembourg's New Law Lets Space Miners Keep Their Plunder Jul 28, 2017

When Etienne Schneider became Luxembourg's minister of the economy in 2012, one of his first trips abroad was to NASA’s Ames Research Center. It might have seemed strange for the tiny state's money man to solicit meetings with cosmic researchers, but Luxembourg is always on the lookout for its next big investment.

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How on Earth Did Aaron Judge Bean That Stadium Roof? Physics! Jul 27, 2017

During a recent Home Run Derby, Aaron Judge did something that no one thought was possible. He took a swing and hit a ball so hard that it collided with the ceiling at Marlins Park. The ball hit the ceiling about 170 feet above the ground. The height of the ceiling had been designed by engineers so that balls wouldn't hit it—but clearly, they can. OK, I don't really want to talk about sports. I want to talk about physics.

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Einstein’s Little-Known Passion Project? A Refrigerator Jul 26, 2017

Many people know that work on nuclear weapons enabled the development of the first electronic computers. But it’s no less true that the humble refrigerator, in a roundabout way, enabled the development of the first atom bomb. While reading the newspaper one morning in 1926, Albert Einstein nearly choked on his eggs. An entire family in Berlin, including several children, had suffocated a few nights before when a seal on their refrigerator broke and toxic gas flooded their apartment.

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Zero-G Blood and the Many Horrors of Space Surgery Jul 25, 2017

Matthieu Komorowski wanted to be an astronaut. Still does. The French-born anesthesiologist, currently getting a PhD at Imperial College London, applied to the European Space Agency in 2008. But he knows his chances are limited. “Being basically a medical resident I didn’t get very far in the selection,” Komorowski says. “But I’ve been working on building up my skills.” Among those skills: administering anesthesia for surgery.

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Climate Change Is Here. It’s Time to Talk About Geoengineering Jul 24, 2017

Let's pretend that the US didn't recently pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Let's also pretend that all the other countries that scolded it for withdrawing also met their Paris pledges on deadline. Heck, let's pretend that that everyone in the whole world did their very best to cut emissions, starting today. Even if all that make-believing came true, the world would still get very hot.

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Your Brain Doesn't Contain Memories. It Is Memories Jul 21, 2017

Recall your favorite memory: the big game you won; the moment you first saw your child's face; the day you realized you had fallen in love. It's not a single memory, though, is it? Reconstructing it, you remember the smells, the colors, the funny thing some other person said, and the way it all made you feel. Your brain's ability to collect, connect, and create mosaics from these milliseconds-long impressions is the basis of every memory. By extension, it is the basis of you.

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The West Is on Fire. Blame the Housing Crisis Jul 20, 2017

California is on fire again. CalFire, one of the agencies charged with putting those fires out, is tracking upward of two dozen conflagrations up and down the state at the moment—Detwiller, Grade, Bridge, Wall, Alamo, Garza, on and on—ranging in size from a couple hundred acres to nearly 50,000. And it’s not just the Golden State.

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Thanks, Climate Change: Heat Waves Will Keep on Grounding Planes Jul 19, 2017

Last month, Phoenix enduring a blistering heat wave, with temperatures so high that airport officials had to cancel dozens of flights. The reason was two-fold. First off, some jet engines risk catching on fire in extreme heat. And when air gets hot, it expands and becomes less dense—so an airplane’s wings can’t generate enough lift to get off the ground. Planes either need to speed up during take-off or use a longer runway.

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The Physics of Throwing a Big Sack Over Trump's Beautiful Wall Jul 18, 2017

Suppose someone builds a wall. A great and tall wall that is both impenetrable and beautiful. Who knows—maybe it's even solar powered. This wall stands 10 meters tall and goes on and on and on. Now suppose someone wants to toss a bag of stuff over that wall. A big bag with a mass of, oh, 60 pounds. (I will say 27 kilograms, because kilograms are better.

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Let’s Play Around With Two Big Ideas in Physics. It’ll Be Fun Jul 17, 2017

The first semester of an undergraduate physics course invariably spends a lot of time on two big ideas: The momentum principle and the work energy principle. Both deal with forces acting on an object, which often leads students to think they are similar. In a way, they are, and they play a huge role in almost everything you learn during an introduction to physics. Before I give you a great physics question that uses these ideas, I will go over them in a super-brief physics lesson.

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Scientists Upload a Galloping Horse GIF Into Bacteria With Crispr Jul 14, 2017

E. coli might best be known for giving street food connoisseurs occasional bouts of gastric regret. But the humble microbial workhorse, with its easy-to-edit genome, has given humankind so much more—insulin, antibiotics, cancer drugs, biofuels, synthetic rubber, and now: a place to keep your selfies safe for the next millennium.

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Tesla's Super-Battery Could Help Lift an Aircraft Carrier 1,500 Feet Jul 13, 2017

Elon Musk is the closest thing this world has to a real-life Tony Stark. Think about it. He builds cool cars. He builds cool rockets. He builds cool tunneling machines. He wants to fire people through pneumatic tubes. He built a ginormous battery factory in the desert, and how he's building the world's largest battery. OK, technically, Elon Musk isn't building it. Tesla is. But same difference, because Tesla is his company.

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US Farms Could Suffer as the Arctic Heats Up Jul 12, 2017

Planet Earth is getting hotter. One of the more confusing aspects of this global trend is the persistent, undeniable discomfort of winter. Even more confusing is when that chilly weather continues into April, May, or godforbidpleasenot June. This might clear the confusion (but probably not the frustration): Those colder temperatures in the first half of the year might be due to warmer weather in the Arctic.

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Biology's Roiling Debate Over Publishing Research Early Jul 11, 2017

Five years ago, Daniel MacArthur set out to build a massive library of human gene sequences—one of the biggest ever. The 60,706 raw sequences, collected from colleagues all over the globe, took up a petabyte of memory. It was the kind of flashy, blockbuster project that would secure MacArthur a coveted spot in one of science’s top three journals, launching his new lab at the Broad Institute into the scientific spotlight.

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Let’s Geek Out With the Physics of Spider-Man’s Webs Jul 10, 2017

When I get excited about a movie, my only way of calming down is to do a little physics. That explains why I found myself pondering Hooke's law and Young's modulus while watching a trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Oh, wait. Before going further, I should provide a spoiler alert, just in case you're the type who doesn't even watch trailers. I consider trailers fair game. You have been warned. I'm not sure just what's happening in this scene, but it looks exciting.

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Scientists Map the Receptor That Makes Weed Work Jul 07, 2017

Add marijuana to humans, and you get some fairly predictable results: euphoria, hunger, introspection, anxiety, and a whole panoply of other effects. Also known as being high. Most of that complicated reaction is thanks to a single cellular structure known as cannabinoid receptor 1. Your body has CB1 receptors lacing the surfaces of cells in the brain, liver, lungs, fat, uterus, and sperm. And whenever your .

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Jill Tarter Never Found Aliens—But Her Successors Might Jul 06, 2017

In December 2016, three generations of women astronomers joined me for a phone call. Debra Fischer, Natalie Batalha, and Margaret Turnbull have dedicated their careers to comprehending planets beyond the solar system, the signs of microbial life that might be on those planets, or both of those out-there topics.

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Put Down That Ketchup and Step Away From the Hot Dog Slowly Jul 05, 2017

In my family, I grew up knowing that my parents would support me no matter the mistakes I made. Bad grades, underage drinking, becoming an English major? All could be forgiven. Unless, of course, I put ketchup on a hot dog. Then I’d be out on my ass. In advance of the Fourth of July holiday, I emailed my dad to see if his opinions on hot dogs and ketchup had changed at all.

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What's Inside Triple-Action Mace? Chili Peppers and UV Dye Jul 04, 2017

In the late 1960s, a Pennsylvania man named Alan Litman fretted that his wife wouldn’t be safe coming home late on the mean streets of Pittsburgh. So he did what any doting husband would do—he figured out a way to fill a portable, easily deployed spray can with tear gas. Then he started marketing the product to law enforcement. Today his invention is known as Mace, a brand now synonymous with private citizens packing a ton of heat.

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Pentagon ‘Space Corps’ Plan Leaves Earth Science in the Dust Jul 03, 2017

Scientists and the military have often tussled over who calls the shots in space. The first astronauts were military test pilots. NASA made the space shuttle extra big to accommodate the spy satellites Pentagon planners wanted to launch. And it took 15 years for the Defense Department to release topographical maps gleaned during a classified shuttle mission so scientists could use them.

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Your Connected Devices Are Screwing Up Astronomy Jun 30, 2017

By now, “Here Are Some Stupid Things on the Internet of Things” has become a full-on article genre. There’s even a Tumblr dedicated to the idea: “We Put a Chip in It,” it’s called. In some visions of the future, smart devices capture, quantify, and control most aspects of daily life. The oven knows you forgot about your cookies and cools them off for you at peak crisped-edginess. The fan knows you have entered the room and desire a breeze.

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Google Unveils an AI Investment Fund. It's Betting on an App Store for Algorithms. Jun 30, 2017

Google just placed yet another bet on the idea that artificial intelligence will remake the world—and throw off wild profits. The company disclosed today that it has created a new venture fund dedicated to investing in AI and machine learning companies. The initiative's first public investment: lead investor in a $10.5 million funding round for Seattle startup Algorithmia, which has built a kind of app store for algorithms.

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Prisoners of Gravity: Hey, TV Sci-Fi Can Have Ideas After All Jun 29, 2017

Most sci-fi TV is more about action and spectacle than anything thoughtful, but one show that really did the intellectual side of science fiction justice wasPrisoners of Gravity, which aired on TVOntario from 1989 to 1994. On the show,host Rick Green used science fiction to explore far more serious topics. “You’re talking with people who are really imaginative,” Green says in Episode 261 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

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Sorry, Han Solo, Star Wars Don't Need No Stinking Directors Jun 28, 2017

Of all the Star Wars tropes fans love—the scoundrels, the weird foods, the planets dominated by a single biome—the best one might just be the face-off. Not the battle itself, but the fermata beforehand: Two combatants, gazes locked on each other, knowing that it's about to go down. Most of the time, the ensuing struggle goes the way you want it to. This time, though, is not that time.

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Let’s Slice Open the Biggest Contemporary Art Museum in the US Jun 28, 2017

Compared to the swooping architecture of other fine-art institutions, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (aka Mass MoCA) is a hulking, big-boned anomaly. “We don’t just collect art and hang it on white walls,” says director Joseph Thompson. The cavernous complex displays works that couldn’t fit anywhere else.

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Don't Fall for the 'Memory' Pills Targeting Baby Boomers Jun 26, 2017

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A Race to Develop Pollution Sensing Tech Plays Out in Oakland Jun 22, 2017

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Oh, Lovely: The Tick That Gives People Meat Allergies Is Spreading Jun 21, 2017

First comes the unscratchable itching, and the angry blossoming of hives. Then stomach cramping, and—for the unluckiest few—difficulty breathing, passing out, and even death. In the last decade and a half, thousands of previously protein-loving Americans have developed a dangerous allergy to meat. And they all have one thing in common: the lone star tick. Red meat, you might be surprised to know, isn’t totally sugar-free.

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The 20 Most Bike-Friendly Cities in the World, From Malmö to Montreal Jun 21, 2017

The return of the bicycle to the modern urban transport paradigm continues unabated. All over the world, citizens are rediscovering the benefits of cycling. Cities are responding by building the infrastructure to serve and keep them safe. This rush to increase cycling levels and improve the quality of city life is the greatest movement in global urbanism. Of course, not all cities are equal. Some charge ahead, while others lag.

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The Maker of the Most Iconic Chair Wants You to Stand Up Jun 20, 2017

For nearly a century, Herman Miller built a business by getting people to sit down, introducing iconic objects like the Aeron Chair and the classic Eames Lounge. But the company's newest product, Live OS, suggests that maybe it’s time to stand up. Live OS is not a line of furniture, but a cloud platform that tracks how people make use of office space.

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This New Atari-Playing AI Wants to Dethrone DeepMind Jun 19, 2017

Artificial intelligence is not a contact sport. Not yet, at least. Currently, algorithms mostly just compete to win old Atari games, or accomplish historic board gaming feats like pwning five human Go champions at once. These are just practice rounds, though, for the way more complicated (and practical) goal of teaching robots how to navigate human environments. But first, more Atari! Vicarious, an AI company, has developed a new AI that is absolutely slammin' at Breakout, the paddle vs.

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With Breast Cancer, the Best Treatment May Be No Treatment Jun 16, 2017

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Meet the 89-Year-Old Reinventing the Train in His Backyard Jun 15, 2017

On a clear, sunny day at a vineyard in the northern California town of Ukiah, a most unusual train chugs through a field of barely budding syrah grapes. Well, it doesn't chug so much as whoosh because this train—actually, a one-sixth scale train—doesn't rely upon a diesel engine or electricity to get around. It uses vacuum power and heavy duty magnets. The 89-year-old man who built it believes it could change how the world moves.

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The Physics of Nearly Killing Yourself on a Motorcycle Jun 14, 2017

The internet loves videos of motorcyclists doing crazy things on the autobahn. This one seems especially popular. From what I can gather, the rider is hauling along when a car cuts him off, requiring some sudden emergency braking. Let me show you how out of control I can get with the physics in this video. And don't worry—I've got a homework question for you at the end.

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String Theory’s Weirdest Ideas Finally Make Sense—Thanks to VR Jun 12, 2017

The robot is building a tesseract. He motions at a glowing cube floating before him, and an identical cube emerges. He drags it to the left, but the two cubes stay connected, strung together by glowing lines radiating from their corners. The robot lowers its hands, and the cubes coalesce into a single shape—with 24 square faces, 16 vertices, and eight connected cubes existing in four dimensions. A tesseract. This isn’t a video game. It’s a classroom.

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Want to Understand Creativity? Enlist an AI Collaborator Jun 09, 2017

A metronome ticks time. Not for the student, but for the teacher, who plays a short piano melody. Without missing a measure, the student follows with an improvised, yet derivative, cello run. The student plays the same run again, and then again. “I have it looping, actually, so you can hear the response over and over again,” says the teacher, Jesse Engel, a computer scientist with Google Brain.

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The Physics of Bullets Vs. Wonder Woman’s Bracelets Jun 08, 2017

I must admit to being pretty excited about Wonder Woman.Although I read a lot of comic books when I was younger, I favored Marvel over DC, so everything I know about Wonder Woman came from the TV show starring Linda Carter. It sounds likeWonder Woman might be the best superhero movie so far. Like all superhero movies, Wonder Woman provides an opportunity to do a littlephysics.

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Crispr’s Next Big Debate: How Messy Is Too Messy? Jun 07, 2017

When it comes toCrispr, the bacterial wünderenzyme that allows scientists to precisely edit DNA, no news is too small to stir up some drama. On Tuesday morning, doctors from Columbia, Stanford, and the University of Iowa published a one-page letterto the editor of Nature Methods—an obscure but high-profile journal—describing something downright peculiar.

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Wearables Reveal the Secret Lives of Farm Animals Jun 06, 2017

The Internet of Animals has arrived. No, not like cat-stalking zucchini gifs and skateboarding bulldog snaps (those are so 2015). Across the country, farmers are building actual connected networks of cows, pigs, and chickens. Using everything from microphones, accelerometers, and GPS trackers totemperature, glucose, and skin conductivity sensors, farmers can now track and monitor their flocks and herds with the flick of a finger.

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Lyme Isn’t the Only Disease Ticks Are Spreading This Summer Jun 05, 2017

It started with vomiting and a fever. But a few days later, five-month old Liam was in the emergency room, his tiny body gripped by hourly waves of seizures. X-rays and MRIs showed deep swelling in his brain. When an infectious disease specialist at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center diagnosed Liam with Powassan virus in November, he became the first recorded case in state history.

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Trump’s Budget Forgets That Science Is Insurance for America Jun 02, 2017

President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget will never actually determine how the government spends your money: Potus proposes and Congress disposes. But that’s no reason for relief. In fact, it makes this document even more of a nightmare. It doesn’t direct funding, but it does put the Trump administration’s underlying philosophy of governance on display. And it’s a harsh one. The science cuts make this most visible.

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Eruptions Says Goodbye to WIRED Jun 01, 2017

All good things must come to an end, and Eruptions on WIRED ends today. It has been a great 5-plus years of reporting on volcanoes here, but nothing lasts forever (even geologically). There are a pile of people to thank at WIRED for all the help I’ve gotten over the years: Nick Stockton, Nadia Drake, David Mosher, Katie Palmer, all the former WIRED Science bloggers, all the great folks at WIRED’s photo department, Katie Davies, and Adam Rogers.

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One Man’s Quest to Make 20-Year-Old Rum in Just Six Days May 31, 2017

From the outside, the Lost Spirits Distillery is just another boxy, early-20th-century building along the frayed edge of downtown Los Angeles. At first the inside appears similarly uninspired: deep and unfinished, littered with cardboard boxes, plumbing fittings, spools of wire, inscrutable items made of copper, a forklift. The usual crap. But what’s this then? A heavy black curtain bisects the industrial space from floor to ceiling, nearly from the front door to the back.

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Want Efficient Energy? Try Carbon Dioxide-Powered Turbines May 30, 2017

Carbon dioxide is one hell of a molecule. Perhaps you only know it as the stuff humans exhaleand plants inhale, or the primary culprit for climate change. But CO is capable of so much more. For instance, some engineers think it could help make the power industry a little greener. Now, you’re probably thinking this is atwist on carbon capture and storage. Nope. It’s about turbine generators—the enormous machines that convert heat into electricity.

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This New Goldilocks Rocket Is Juuust Right for Small Satellites May 29, 2017

At 4 pm local time on May 25, Rocket Lab’s Electron stood on the company’s private launch pad on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. Perched on the edge of an eroding cliff, pointing toward the sky from the southern tip of the world, the little rocket—just 56 feet tall and 4 feet wide, meant to carry similarly small satellites—looked ready for its first trip to space.

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Cool Spacewalk, Right? Get Ready for More—ISS Will Need Fixin’ May 26, 2017

When astronaut Peggy Whitson pushed out of the International Space Station’s airlock on Tuesday morning, she was floating into history. Stipulated, Whitson was already a badass. But this extra-vehicular activity—an EVA, NASAspeak for a spacewalk—was Whitson’s 10th. That ties her for the American record. A PhD biochemist before she became an astronaut, Whitson has now spent more time in space outside a spacecraft than all but two other human beings.

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A Physicist Breaks Down One of Roger Moore’s Iconic Bond Stunts May 25, 2017

Roger Moore died today. Now, you could argue that Moore was not the best James Bond, and I'd be willing to have that discussion at some point, but I think everyone agrees he made significant contributions to the 007 canon. I certainly think so, if only because when I was a kid, Moore was the James Bond I saw in movie theaters. Sean Connery was the James Bond who appeared on television with older, outdated gadgets.

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Medicine Is Going Digital. The FDA Is Racing to Catch Up May 24, 2017

When Bakul Patel started as a policy advisor in the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008, he could pretty much pinpoint when a product was going to land in frontof the reviewers in his division. Back when medical devices were heavy on the hardware—your pacemakers and your IUDs—it would take manufacturers years to get them ready for regulatory approval. FDA reviewers could keep up pretty well.

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In Defense of the Reality of Time May 23, 2017

Physicists and philosophers seem to like nothing more than telling us that everything we thought about the world is wrong. They take a peculiar pleasure in exposing common sense as nonsense. But Tim Maudlin thinks our direct impressions of the world are a better guide to reality than we have been led to believe. Not that he thinks they always are.

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How Boring Old Pension Funds Might Curb Global Warming May 22, 2017

If civilization still exists a centuryfrom now, Earth ought to throw a parade for pension funds. For all their fiscally conservative stodginess, the people tasked with safeguarding your nest egg are forcing the financial world to pay attention to climate change.

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Scientists 3-D Print Mouse Ovaries That Actually Make Babies May 19, 2017

Not all girls grow up to be mothers. Sometimes they choose not to be, and sometimes circumstances take those choices away. A superfluity of cancers and genetic diseases can destroy women’s ovaries. Or treatments like radiation—used to save a woman’s life—can render those egg-producing organs useless. Ovaries also mediate female hormones. Without them, young patients might never go through puberty; grown women could enter menopause early.

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Moms: Your Kids Hijacked Your Brain for Life May 18, 2017

One day, a woman is spending her Saturdays doing her normal Saturday stuff—blueberry pancake brunch, curling up on the couch with the cat reading a novel, grabbing a beer with friends. By the next, her life is suddenly and completely about keeping a screaming, floppy, red-faced, cone-headed thing alive using fluids secreted from her chest. Happy birthday to that.

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Your Fidget Spinner Is (Maybe) Making You Smarter May 17, 2017

Skip Suva is a fidgeter. When he worked at paper-intensive administrative jobs, he’d doodle incessantly; when he started a coding career last year, he took up fiddling with an SD-card reader that made pleasant snick noises. “Popping the SD card out and clicking it back in,” he laughs. His fidgeting can seem like a crazy tic, Suva admits. But it helps him focus.

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An Electric Shock Could Keep Patients From Bleeding Out May 16, 2017

Fifteen years ago, Kevin Tracey sat in a Washington DC conference room surrounded by officials from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They’d been paying the neurosurgeon to study how doctors could stimulate the vagus nerve—a long nerve that controls everything from blood pressure to sexual arousal—to treat inflammation associated with PTSD. Now they wanted to know: Could he stimulate anything else into submission? He searched his brain.

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The Traditional Lecture Is Dead. I Would Know—I’m a Professor May 15, 2017

When I was young, there was no such thing as the world wide web or video streaming. If you wanted to watch something, you had to wait until it appearedon television. Sometimes you might think,“Hey, I think I’ll watch a show” and flip the channels until you found something interesting. This is how I discoveredThe Mechanical Universe … And Beyond.

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The Finesse of Flying Cassini Between Saturn’s Rings May 12, 2017

The Cassini space probe is going to dive through Saturn’s rings again on Wednesday, the third of a planned 22 orbits threading that planetary needle as the probe continues a ballistic death-drop inward. And like the first ring-crossing two weeks ago, this one required a bit of complicated piloting. Remote-controlling a robot spaceship from 750 million miles away ain’t like dusting crops, as Han Solo might say. (RIP.) (Spoilers.

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Brian Greene on How Science Became a Political Prisoner May 11, 2017

Brian Greene is one of those physicists. You know the type: Blessed with a brain capable of untangling the mysteries of the universe,and a knack for clearly explaining it all to the rest of us schlubs. His enthusiasm for doing these things keeps him quite busy, what with the three best-selling physics books for grown-ups, a children’s book about time dilation(!), a fewTV specials, and, of course, a TED talk.

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Want to Know How Long a Fidget Spinner Spins? Get a Laser and Some Physics May 10, 2017

Fidget spinners are the new Rubik’s Cube. Or maybe the new Tamagotchi. Or … I don’t know. Pick your fad. You see these toys, ostensibly designedto help kids fidgety concentrate, everywhere now. Seriously. Everywhere. Afidget spinner is basically a small bearing mounted in a piece of plastic or other material. You hold it and spin it. I guess it’s sort of amusing.

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What Happens When You Train Like Nike’s Two-Hour Marathon Runners May 09, 2017

I did it. On Saturday afternoon, a few hours after Eliud Kipchoge ranastunning, historic marathon in two hours and 25 seconds in Monza, Italy - narrowly missing his goal of breaking the two-hour marathon mark for Nike's Breaking2 initiative, but obliterating the current world record and everybody's idea of what is possible in the sport - I ran a half-marathon on the same course in 1:26:52.

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In Which We Literally Calculate the Power of the Force May 08, 2017

I have a tradition of doing a little analysis on one of my favorite movie franchises to celebrate Star Wars Day (May the Fourth Be With You). Given thatRogue One: A Star Wars Storyrecently appeared on DVD and various streaming services, I think its OK to look at that film without worrying about spoilers. In this case, I will calculate Darth Vader’s power output as he uses the Force.

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A Rare Journey Into the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, a Super-Bunker That Can Survive Anything May 05, 2017

In the background of Colorado Springs, Pike’s Peak dominates the sky. But just to that mountain’s southeast looms another geological ripple. Cheyenne Mountain—a rounded, rocky thing that rises 9,565 feet above sea level—looks wild and quiet. But deep inside the mountain, a crew of humans toils in one of the nation’s most secure military installations.

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How a Missing Penny Explains the Conservation of Energy May 04, 2017

Energy is the answer to so many questions. Pull back a spring-powered toy car and rolls forward. Why? Energy. You used your phone all day and it suddenly shut down. Why? No energy. A child eats six bags of M&Ms and runs around screaming and giggling because he has energy. But then he doesn’t want to clean his room because he has no energy. But what is energy? Ah… that is the real question. To answer it, let me start with a story about three friends, Alby, Bobby, and Cami.

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India’s Silicon Valley Is Dying of Thirst. Your City May Be Next May 03, 2017

On the outskirts of Bangalore one morning last summer, a sullen young man named Manjunath stood high atop a cocoa-colored 1,850-gallon tanker truck, waiting for its belly to fill with water. The source of the liquid was a bore well, a cylindrical metal shaft puncturing hundreds of feet down into the earth. An electric pump pulled the water up from the depths and into a concrete cistern; from there, a hose snaked across the mud and weeds and plugged into Manjunath’s truck.

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Scientists Brew Up the Creepiest Batches of Brain Balls Yet May 02, 2017

Stem cell biologists are basically modern day witches. While they’re not exactly taking a creepy fetal Lord Voldemort and turning him into noseless Ralph Fiennes, these scientists can use tinctures and concoctions to grow incredible things from just a few human skin cells. One of those things is a brain ball, a collection of stem cells that biologists have coaxed into a bobbing tangle of living neurons.

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You Want Better Beer? Good. Here’s a Better Barley Genome May 01, 2017

The genome of barley—the grain that’s the soul of beer and whiskey—is weird. The commodity crop has just seven pairs of chromosomes (compared to your 23, assuming you are a human being) but twice the size of your genome overall, with the vast majority of the sequences repeating themselves. And you care because (making the same assumption again) you care about beer and whiskey, even just in the abstract.

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Let’s Do the Shocking Physics of Why Power Lines Sag Apr 28, 2017

You might look at an overhead power line and see an engineering problem. After all, those transmission towers are impressively huge. But if you've ever seen those cables, you probably noticed they seem to hang fairly low. Why they hang low is a great physics question that can be modeled with masses and springs. Basic Model For a Hanging Cable Let's start by creating a model. Suppose I string a cable between two points so it is supported horizontally from theends.

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Marching Brought Scientists Together—But What Do They Do Now? Apr 27, 2017

Peaceful, orderly, rational, and with a lot of signs too clever by half (actually, 0.56932 according to our measurements)—that’s how scientists march on Washington. It’s also how they march in more than 600 of them all over the world on Saturday, with even a few wintering-over researchers in Antarctica signaling their support. The movement covered all seven continents. The March for Science was controversial almost from its inception.

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So, That Asteroid Didn’t Kill Earth. Bonus: It Delivered Tons of Data Apr 26, 2017

This week, a kilometer-wide asteroid whizzed by within about a million miles of this planet—about four and half times the distance between the Earth and the moon. A near miss? Not really. The odds of 2014 JO25 actually hitting Earth were around one in a million. The safer bet is on science. As in, how much of it astronomers were able to gather from the close pass of such a huge space rock.

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Who’ll Really Benefit From Verily’s Exhaustive Health Study? Apr 25, 2017

Ugh, you’re not going sign up for Project: Baseline, are you? That new, 10,000-person health study Google’s putting together? Well, OK, not Google, but Verily. Which used to be Google Life Sciences, and is part of Alphabet, the company that used to be called Google but now owns Google. (So, Google.

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The Mystery of the 5-Foot-Long Shipworm Just Got Stinkier Apr 21, 2017

That image above, depending on what your job is, could well be considered not safe for work. What you’re looking at is a giant shipworm—a scientific legend that can grow to over five feet long. It’s actually a super-elongated mollusk, one that grows vertically in sediment, excreting a thick shell and poking two siphons out of the muck. It is, as biologists note, really weird.

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How Steve Wozniak Got Over His Fear of Robots Turning People Into Pets Apr 20, 2017

Steve Wozniak is one half of Silicon Valley’s most prototypical founder’s myth. But whereas Steve Jobs went on to define what it meant to be a modern founder—the turtleneck uniform, the keynote showmanship, the scorn for formal education and steamrolling managerial style—Woz just became a wealthier version of his former self. That is, a gigantic nerd. In case you clicked this article out of blind curiosity, here’s a quick recap on Woz.

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Let’s Model Radioactive Decay to Show How Carbon Dating Works Apr 19, 2017

Radioactive material gets a bad rap, what with radiation and fallout and nuclear waste and all. But it offers some practical uses. One of the coolest (OK, maybe the coolest) is using radioactive carbon to determinethe age of old bones or plants. To understand this, you mustfirst understand radioactivity and decay. When an element undergoes radioactive decay, it creates radiation and turns into some other element.

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The Secret to Training for a Marathon: Just Keep Running Apr 18, 2017

As part of WIRED’s exclusive look at Breaking2, Nike’s attempt to break the two-hour marathon mark next month in Monza, Italy, our writer is using the same training regime, apparel, and expertise as Nike’s three elite athletes to try to achieve his own personal milestone: a sub-90-minute half-marathon. This is the fourth in a series of monthly updates on his progress. Last week, I travelled for work to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

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A Crucial Climate Mystery Hides Just Beneath Your Feet Apr 17, 2017

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. What Jonathan Sanderman really wanted was some old dirt. He called everyone he could think of who might know where he could get some. He emailed colleagues and read through old studies looking for clues, but he kept coming up empty. Sanderman was looking for old dirt because it would let him test a plan to save the world.

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How Hard Does Thor Hit Hulk in That Ragnarok Trailer? Let’s Do the Physics! Apr 14, 2017

I can’t imagine a blockbuster movie about superheroes without some cool physics. After all, these aren’t dramas, but action movies with jumping and flying and punching. Of course, the point of the jumping and flying and punching is to advance the story, not provide a physics lesson. But nothing says they can’t do both. The firsttrailer for Thor: Ragnarokprovides a great chance to do this.

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To Save Florida’s Famous Oranges, Scientists Race to Weaponize a Virus Apr 13, 2017

On a plate, a single banana seems whimsical—yellow and sweet, contained in its own easy-to-open peel. It is a charming breakfast luxury as silly as it is delicious and ever-present. Yet when you eat a banana the flavor on your tongue has complex roots, equal parts sweetness and tragedy. In 1950, most bananas were exported from Central America. Guatemala in particular was a key piece of a vast empire of banana plantations run by the American-owned United Fruit Company.

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The ‘Most Dangerous’ Volcano Can Be a Tricky Thing to Pin Down Apr 12, 2017

I know you've all seen lists like this before: what is the "world's most dangerous volcano"? Most of the time, that discuss devolves quickly into something about "supervolcanoes", which is very exciting and all because they can generate massive eruptions. However, they are far from being the "most dangerous" volcano.

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Pricey Technology Is Keeping People Alive Who Don’t Want to Live Apr 11, 2017

Some people just want to die. Not because they are trapped by depression, anxiety, public embarrassment, or financial ruin. No, these poor few have terminal illnesses. Faced with six months to live, and the knowledge that the majorityof those 180 days will be bad ones,theyseek a doctor’s prescription for an early death. Soon, terminal patients in California will have that option.

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Why You Should Put Your Supercomputer in Wyoming Apr 10, 2017

Travel just few miles west of bustling Cheyenne, Wyoming, a you’ll find yourself in big-sky country. Tall-grass plains line the highway, snow-packed peaks pierce the sky, and round-edged granite formations jut out of the ground. But in this bucolic scene sits an alien building: a blocky, almost pre-fab structure with a white rotunda, speckled with dozens of windows that look out onto the grounds. Inside, it’s home to two supercomputers that focus on the vast landscape above.

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Coastal Inundation Reveals the Upside of Climate Change Apr 07, 2017

In Miami Beach, they call it “sunny-day flooding.” You’ll be hanging out downtown under clear blue skies—only to see, whoa, the streets slowly filling with water. Miami Beach, Florida, is a coastal city built on porous limestone, so as climate change melts polar ice into the oceans, water is literally pushed up out of the ground. “It’s an eerie, scary, unnerving feeling, like something out of a sci-fi movie,” says Philip Levine, mayor of the city of 90,000.

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You Could Soon Print Out Simple Electronics With Your Deskjet Apr 06, 2017

Computers used to require entire buildings to operate. Now they fit in our pockets. Similarly, factory-size electronics manufacturing is approaching a contraction. Want proof? Look at that $50 printer on your desk and imagine, instead of using it to spit out a hard copy of that thank-you note, that you used it to print some digital memory. Not enough memory to power a laptop. Think smaller, like smart tags to inventory all the crap in your workshop.

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Elon Musk Isn’t the Only One Trying to Computerize Your Brain Apr 05, 2017

Elon Musk wants to merge the computer with the human brain, build a “neural lace,” create a “direct cortical interface,” whatever that might look like. In recent months, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and OpenAI has repeatedly hinted at these ambitions, and then, earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has now launched a company called Neuralink that aims to implant tiny electrodes in the brain “that may one day upload and download thoughts.

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Want to Play Scrabble Like a Pro? Here’s Your Memory Trick Apr 04, 2017

Bennett Schwartz is one of the nation’s leading memory experts, and when I visited him in his office at Florida International University, he was standing at his desk. A soft sunlight crowded the room. Large windows framed the palm tree-lined quad outside. Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and slacks, Schwartz appeared to be quietly talking to himself, with hushed, mumbled words, and for a long moment, it seemed as if he was some sort of monk, living in another, more esoteric world.

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The Fanged Fish That Drugs Its Enemies With Opioids Apr 03, 2017

Not unlike the ant-decapitating fly and the satanic leaf-tailed gecko, the fang blenny’s name does not disappoint. This tiny fish wields two massive teeth that it uses to gouge chunks out of much larger fish and, in a bind, scrap its way out of the grasp of a predator. And one particular group of fang blenny even injects venom, just like a snake, to give its attackers that extra what-for. That’s all very, very bizarre behavior for a fish—behavior that today gets even more bizarre.

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A Russian Volcano Just Erupted for the First Time in Centuries Mar 31, 2017

This weekend saw a new eruption from Kambalny in southern Kamchatka. Now, the Kamchatka Peninsula is a very volcanically active area, with multiple eruptions going on simultaneously much of the time. There are certain volcanoes that are in almost-constant unrest, like Shiveluch, Kliuchevskoi, and Karymsky. However, Kambalny is not one of the usual suspects for activity. This changed when a dark grey ash plume was spotted by Earth-observing satellites on March 25.

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In Science, You Can’t Always Get What You Want Mar 30, 2017

I teach an introductory physics course to elementary education majors, but my lessons aren't really about physics. At first glance, it might seem that they are, but it's a trick. The course examinesthe nature of science. That's what makes it so awesome. When I talk about the nature of science, I don't mean the list of steps outlined on thatposter in your fourth grade classroom-that's not howscience works.

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What’s the Point of Going to Space if You Don’t Make Booze? Mar 29, 2017

Last week, Anheuser-Busch announced a plan to sponsor research aboard the International Space Station to learn how to someday serve beer to astronauts on Mars. This is a dumb plan—not because beer is bad, or because astronauts responsible for settling the red planet won’t deserve a brewski at the end of a sol. It’s just, why beer? Distilled spirits—liquor—has always been a better fuel for exploration, or at least for explorers.

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Meet the Woman Who Can See With Her Ears Mar 28, 2017

The last thing twenty-one-year-old Pat Fletcher saw before the explosion was the chemical-filled steel tank beside her suddenly ballooning outward. With alarm she realized the plastic hose in her hand had grown unusually hot. Then the world flashed blindingly bright and turned a brilliant blue, the color of the flames engulfing her body. When she awoke, Pat thought she might be dreaming. The world around her was featureless and dark, as though she were lost in a gray, smoky fog.

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Somebody Just Buy the ISS Already Mar 27, 2017

Two hundred and twenty miles above Earth flies the International Space Station, a $70 billion1 engineering marvel that no onehas any idea what to do with. Short term, sure: astronauts, science, zero-gravity viral videos. Longer term, spending $3 billion to $4 billion annually to keep the ISS running conflicts with NASA’s other ambitions, like visiting Mars. Congress holds NASA’s purse strings, so ultimately the decision lies with that august body.

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The Billionaire on a Mission to Save the Planet From Trump Mar 24, 2017

Tom Steyer isn't your average California tree hugger. The former hedge fund manager—number 1,121 on Forbes' wealthiest people list, with $1.61 billion—was once best known for turning $15million into $30billion in about two decades. But then he went hiking. Steyer and environmental activist and author Bill McKibben spent a day trudging through the Adirondacks.

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Catnip Ain’t the Only Plant That’ll Send Your Kitty to Blissville Mar 23, 2017

The feline approaches its prey. Slowly at first, then crescendoing to a pounce that lands near, but not on the unmoving target. The cat bats an investigatory paw, then claws its target and yanks it faceward. But the cat does not bare its fangs; it does not bite. It closes its eyes and rubs the prey—a sock flecked with bits of dried herb—across its whiskers, then falls to the ground, its body humming with purrs that oscillate into soft meows.

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Got a Sock Stuck in Your Vacuum? It’s Time for Some Physics Mar 22, 2017

Imagine yourself running the vacuum cleaner over the carpet when all of sudden—a sock. Boom. It’s stuck in the hose, the whine of the vacuum getting higher andhigher, louder andlouder. It sounds like overload is imminent, like the motor is working way too hard. But is it? To know, let’s look at some cool physics principles. Vacuum cleaners don’t actually suck. They blow. No, really. They use a fan that blows air out of a hole.

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Artificial Intelligence Is Learning to Predict and Prevent Suicide Mar 21, 2017

For years, Facebook has been investing in artificial intelligence fields like machine learning and deep neural nets to build its core business—selling you things better than anyone else in the world. But earlier this month, the company began turning some of those AI tools to a more noble goal: stopping people from taking their own lives. Admittedly, this isn’t entirely altruistic. Having people broadcast their suicides from Facebook Live isn’t good for the brand.

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Trump’s Budget Would Break American Science, Today and Tomorrow Mar 20, 2017

You can go ahead and assume President Trump’s proposed federal budget will never be the actual federal budget. Members of Congress from every political persuasion will find a lot to hate about it, and they’re the ones who have to approve it—assuming they can sort out the arcane, procrustean rules for getting any budget passed in Washington.

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What if Quantum Computers Used Hard Drives Made of DNA? Mar 17, 2017

You’ve heard the hype: The quantum computer revolution is coming. Physicists say these devices will be fast enough to break every encryption method banks use today. Their artificial intelligence will be so advanced that you could load in the periodic table and the laws of quantum mechanics, and they could design the most efficient solar cell to date.

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Humans Made the Banana Perfect—But Soon, It’ll Be Gone Mar 16, 2017

On a plate, a single banana seems whimsical—yellow and sweet, contained in its own easy-to-open peel. It is a charming breakfast luxury as silly as it is delicious and ever-present. Yet when you eat a banana the flavor on your tongue has complex roots, equal parts sweetness and tragedy. In 1950, most bananas were exported from Central America. Guatemala in particular was a key piece of a vast empire of banana plantations run by the American-owned United Fruit Company.

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The Feds Are Spending Millions to Help You Survive Nuclear War Mar 15, 2017

Last week, as tens of thousands of US and South Korean soldiers gathered at a base in Iwakuni, Japan for an annual joint military exercise, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles from Pyongyang into the sea off Japan’s northwest coast. In a world where the US is headed by a Twigger-happy political neophyte and the risk of a Cold War reboot looms larger with each Wikileaks disclosure, this demonstration wasn’t just an empty display of dictatorial propaganda.

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Want to Make It as a Biologist? Better Learn to Code Mar 14, 2017

Namrata Udeshi knows how to globally analyze the proteomics of human cells. You’d be forgiven for having no idea what that means or why it matters—it’s a complicated technique that you’d need years of post-graduate training to master. But for now, just know it’s important for disease research. Udeshi is a group leader in a proteomics lab at MIT’s Broad Institute, working long days to understand the intricacies of cellular life.

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Telemedicine Could Be Great, if People Stopped Using It Like Uber Mar 13, 2017

These days, more people are working from home, shopping from home, and yes, even seeing the doctor from home. Last year more than a million people traded the waiting room for the comfort of their own couch—which sure beats thumbing through a sad collection of creased magazines.

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Ben Carson Just Got a Whole Lot Wrong About the Brain Mar 10, 2017

Today, in his first speech to his staff at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, newly minted Secretary Ben Carson delivered an extemporaneous disquisition on the unparalleled marvel that is the human brain and memory. “There is nothing in this universe that even begins to compare with the human brain and what it is capable of,” he began. “Billions and billions of neurons, hundreds of billions of interconnections.

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The Beauty of Mathematics: It Can Never Lie to You Mar 09, 2017

A few years back, a prospective doctoral student sought out Sylvia Serfaty with some existential questions about the apparent uselessness of pure math. Serfaty, then newly decorated with the prestigious Henri Poincaré Prize, won him over simply by being honest and nice. “She was very warm and understanding and human,” said Thomas Leblé, now an instructor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

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Let’s Do the Physics Of Knocking an Asteroid Into the Sun Mar 08, 2017

I don't know how to start this analysis without a spoiler. I can try settingit up with ageneric physics question, but if you are behind on the excellent SyFy program The Expanse, you may want to walk away and do something else, like read about why flying at light speed is pretty much impossible unless you're Han Solo. Still with me? OK.

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You Spend 5 Percent of Your Day Outside. Try Making It More Mar 07, 2017

This storyoriginally appeared on Gristand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. For two decades, Florence Williams could sit on her porch at night and watch the alpenglow on the Rocky Mountains. Then she moved from remote Colorado to Washington, DC, and started noticing the changes. “I felt disoriented, overwhelmed, depressed,” she writes in her recent book, The Nature Fix. “My mind had trouble focusing.

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MIT’s Crispr Guy Braves Enemy Territory at UC Berkeley Mar 06, 2017

UC Berkeley undergraduate Megha Majumder was fired up. Just a few weeks after Feng Zhang, MIT, and the Broad Institute won the interference proceeding over Crispr/Cas9 patents against UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna, solidifying Zhang’s patent claims and the vast rewards they promise, Majumder learned of Zhang’s upcoming public talk at her college.

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Italy’s Etna Volcano Throws Lava Bombs in Its First Big Eruption of 2017 Mar 03, 2017

After one of the most quiet years in decades, Etna has decided to make 2017 a little more exciting. Early this week, the volcano had a moderate strombolian eruption, what the folks who monitor Etna call a “paroxysm,” that produced a lava fountain over the summit of the volcano. Strombolian eruptions(named after nearby Stromboli)are caused by gas-rich magma reaching the surface and erupting explosively.

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California Needs Atmospheric Rivers. But Like, Not This Many Mar 02, 2017

California likes whiplash weather. The state’s greenery, rivers, and dams are used to dry summer and wet winters. But recently—as the land has gone from parched and on fire to a complete deluge—things have gotten out of hand. From the strained Oroville dam to the flooding in San Jose last weekend, all this water, water everywhere has a single meteorological source: atmospheric rivers.

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SpaceX Plans to Launch Humans Around the Moon in 2018 Mar 01, 2017

SpaceX is planning to send two private individuals on a trip around the moon sometime next year. In a phone briefing today, CEO Elon Musk gave details of the mission, which would use two of SpaceX‘s long-awaited technologies: a crew-rated capsule, the Crew Dragon, and the high-powered Falcon Heavy rocket. The two mystery astronauts will be packed inside the capsule, stacked on top of a Falcon Heavy.

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Inside the Extreme Machine That Mimics Bombs and Black Holes Feb 28, 2017

It's 5:15 a.m. and dark when I drive over Raton Pass, the 7,835-foot-high saddle right at the boundary between Colorado and New Mexico. Animal crossing signs whiz by my window: first a clip-art bear, then an elk, then a deer. "Watch out" is an apt way to enter the state, particularly on this trip: New Mexico is the birthplace of the nuclear bomb and the site of its first test. That initial blast occurred southeast of Socorro, under the auspices of Los Alamos National Lab-led Manhattan Project.

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7 Earth-Like Worlds Orbit a Star So Cool, You Didn’t Know It Existed Feb 27, 2017

Forty light years away, a small, orange star called Trappist-1 sits unnoticed in the sky. You can’t see it with your bare eyes—it burns colder than the brightly shining stars that fill the night sky, the ones that have inspired millions of people to imagine life beyond Earth. But most stars in the galaxy are neither big nor bright. And it’s those abundant, dim dwarfs that might actually be the best place to look for worlds capable of supporting life.

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Forget Weather Apps: Measure the Wind Yourself With an Old Electric Motor Feb 24, 2017

One of the best ways to measure wind speed is to usean anemometer. You could go out and buy one, but I find it much more fun to build my own. There areseveral types of anemometer tochoose from, but I am going to build one that uses electromagnetic induction. Normally, we think of electric potential as something you can get from a battery. But you also can get it from induction. It turns out that changing magnetic field also creates an electric potential.

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A Wet Winter Is Overwhelming California’s Ancient Infrastructure Feb 23, 2017

Donna Harold isn’t worried about the river. “Some of our neighbors panicked and left,” she says, “but we stayed behind.” She turns and shushes the pair of toddlers squabbling in the red wagon behind her. Late Sunday night, state officials sent out an evacuation order saying that Lake Oroville—30 miles north, feeding into the Feather River that runs through Harold’s hometown of Marysville—was hemorrhaging water and in danger of bursting.

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Flying at Light Speed Is Pretty Much Impossible—Unless You’re Han Solo Feb 22, 2017

SPOILER ALERT. I'm going to talk about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you haven't seen it by now, I have a feeling that you either don't really care about the movie or you don't care about spoilers. But don't worry, I'm not going to give away anything major. Still-you have been warned. In one scene in the movie, Han Solo and Finn (oh, and Chewbacca too) are trying to get on the surface of the Star Killer to disable the shields. Here is the important dialogue as they approach the planet.

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How to Avoid Getting Tricked into Assassinating Someone Feb 21, 2017

Let's say you find yourself in the airport in Kuala Lumpur. A stranger approaches with a spray bottle and a fistful of money and points to a man who looks more than a bit like the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Must be a coincidence, you think. The stranger explains that she'd like you to star in a hilarious prank TV show that asks ordinary citizens to spray random people with water for the lulz. What's the risk, right? Right? Wrong. Congratulations.

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Why Is Oroville a Big Deal? Look at All the Places That Need Its Water Feb 20, 2017

Lake Oroville contains about 3.2 million acre feet of water, making it the second-largest reservoir in California. It provides water for more than 22 million people and 700,000 acres of farmland. The lakenearly ruptured this week, swollen by a constant deluge of rain that overwhelmed the spillways and threatened to flood everything downstream. Keeping California properly hydrated requires some of the most complicated plumbing in the world.

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A Patent Decision on Crispr Gene Editing Favors MIT Feb 17, 2017

The fight over who owns the most promising technique for editing genes-cutting and pasting the stuff of life to cure disease and advance scientific knowledge-has been a rough one. A team on the West Coast, at UC Berkeley, filed patents on the method, Crispr-Cas9; a team on the East Coast, based at MIT and the Broad Institute, filed their own patents in 2014 after Berkeley's, but got them granted first.

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How Does a $575 Life-Saving Drug Jump to $4,500? Blame a Perverse System Feb 16, 2017

Your friend is on the floor unconscious. The culprit: a heroin overdose. You panic, but then remember a gadget that can save her life. She told you where it would be if this ever happened, didn’t she? You run to her bedside table, fling open the drawer, and grab the compact purple and yellow injector. After you pull off the lid, the device speaks, telling you to place the plastic case on your friend’s thigh, press down, and dispense the life-saving drug inside.

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Robo-Telescopes Capture the Last Gasp of a Dying Star Feb 15, 2017

A very long time ago in a faraway galaxy, a star blew up. When the flash of light finally reached Earth on October 6, 2013, nobody noticed. Not at first. Three hours of supernova photons streamed by before an old telescope perched on a mountain north of San Diego started snapping pics. The 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope is a 60-year old veteran of astronomical missions.

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How Much Energy Does Iron Fist Pack Into His Superpowered Punch? Feb 14, 2017

I am super pumped up about the Iron Fist series that will premiere on Netflix soon. At this point, all I really have is this trailer-but that has never stopped me before. Why would it stop me now? If you don't know anything about Iron Fist, let me say one important thing. Other than being a martial arts guy, he also has the ability to make this superpowered punch. (That's what's going on in the trailer when his hand gets all glowing and stuff.

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Squid Communicate With a Secret, Skin-Powered Alphabet Feb 13, 2017

Squid and their cephalopod brethren have been the inspiration for many a science fiction creature. Their slippery appendages, huge proportions, and inking abilities can be downright shudder-inducing. (See: Arrival.) But you should probably be more concerned by the cephalopod’s huge brain—which not only helps it solve tricky puzzles, but also lets it converse in its own sign language.

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Earth’s Best Defense Against Killer Asteroids Needs Cash Feb 10, 2017

Ed Rivera-Valentin grew up in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, less than 15 minutes away from the jungle home of a 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope. When he was four or five, his parents brought him to the observatory for the first time. He saw the telescope’s mesh dish, resting inside a huge sinkhole in the soft rock formations that shape the region. If he had walked around the Arecibo radio telescope’s dish, he would have clocked more than a mile. The young Rivera-Valentin was awed.

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The Secret to Running a Faster Marathon? Slow Down Feb 09, 2017

As part of WIRED’s exclusive look at Breaking2, Nike’s revolutionary attempt to break the two-hour marathon mark, our writer is using the same training regime, apparel, and expertise as Nike’s three elite athletes—including Olympic gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge—to try to achieve his own personal milestone: a sub-90-minute half-marathon. This is the second in a series of monthly updates on his progress.

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Physicists, Lasers, and an Airplane: Taking Aim at Quantum Cryptography Feb 08, 2017

On a clear night last September, at a little Ontario airport, two pilots, two scientists, and an engineer took off in a small plane. They’d pulled the left-side door off its hinges, and a telescope poked out of the portal—not at the night sky, but at the ground below. The team was about to play a very difficult, very windy game of catch.

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A Blackjack Superstar Explains the Odds of the Historic Patriots Win Feb 07, 2017

Last night, football fans witnessed the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. With eight minutes and 30 seconds left in the third quarter, the New England Patriots were down 28-3. But they inched forward until they pushed the game into overtime—a first for the Super Bowl—and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady marched his team down the field to win Super Bowl LI. It was an epic turnaround—but it wasn’t really the Patriots that made it happen.

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Doctors and Patients Reel After Trump’s Immigration Ban Feb 06, 2017

Azi Tourkamani is eight months pregnant and working 12-hour shifts at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, New York. She’s a resident doctor in internal medicine. Most days she has so many patients she doesn’t have time to stop and eat lunch; she eats as she walks from floor to floor treating patients.

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Spill-Proof Cups Aren’t Magic. They’re Physics! Feb 03, 2017

They call it the Mighty Mug-and the idea is that it isn't easily knocked over. Of course, you can tip just about anything over if you try hard enough. But really, how does this work? Let me be clear: I haven't actually played with a Mighty Mug-so most of this is just physics-based speculation. It seems the key component of this mug is some type of suction cup on the bottom. When you put the cup down, a rubber seal forms with a smooth table surface.

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Ever Had a Really Long Acid Trip? Now Science Knows Why Feb 02, 2017

Few tropes in modern America are as enduring as the LSD Trip Gone Far Too Long. It should all be over after a few hours, right? OK maybe not. Eight? Ten? Probably should have cleared more of my calendar. Even though science has long had an intimate relationship with LSD-chemist Albert Hofmann first synthesized it way back in the '30s-why the drug insists on producing such lengthy hallucinations hasn't been so clear. Until now.

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Trump’s Muslim Ban Isn’t Just Inhumane—It’ll Make America Dumber Feb 01, 2017

Alireza Edraki spends weekends in the lab. It’s what he does. For the past three years, test tubes full of bacteria have been his constant companions. Not this weekend. “I’m so stressed out that I can’t work,” he says. Edraki is a third-year PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts’ medical school in Worcester. You know Crispr/CAS-9, the gene-editing technology that’s in all the headlines lately? That’s what Edraki works on.

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So You Wanna Get Into Physics. Here Are Three Tips and Tricks Jan 31, 2017

For many, it's the start of a new semester of physics labs. That means there are new students in that introductory course. Of course, no one is really 100 percent ready to start these labs-but that's OK. Here are three big ideas that I find students need to work on to be successful in lab. Converting Units This is a pretty easy problem to fix, but I think I should go over it.

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First Human-Pig Chimera Is a Step Toward Custom Organs Jan 30, 2017

Every day, 22 people in America die while waiting for an organ transplant. But when scientists can grow replacement livers or kidneys or pancreases inside of animal hosts, medicine’s organ shortage may end. That’s the hope anyway—and this week there’s more reason to hope than ever that it might become reality. The key to producing human organs in other animals is the chimera, a mixture of cells from more than one species growing together as a single animal.

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How Being Bored Out of Your Mind Makes You More Creative Jan 27, 2017

“I’m dying of Boredom,” complains the young wife, Yelena, in Chekhov’s 1897 play Uncle Vanya. “I don’t know what to do.” Of course, if Yelena were around today, we know how she’d alleviate her boredom: She’d pull out her smartphone and find something diverting, like BuzzFeed or Twitter or Clash of Clans. If you have a planet’s worth of entertainment in your pocket, it’s easy to stave off ennui.

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Sorry, But Speed Reading Won’t Help You Read More Jan 26, 2017

The late Nora Ephron famously felt badly about her neck, but that's minor compared to how people feel about their reading. We think everyone else reads faster than we do, that we should be able to speed up, and that it would be a huge advantage if we could. You could read as much as a book critic for the New York Times. You could finish Infinite Jest. You could read all of Wikipedia.

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It’s Time to Stand Up for the Climate—and for Civilization Jan 25, 2017

During his campaign for president, Donald Trump promised to end action on climate change and kill the climate treaty adopted in 2015 in Paris. To truly understand why that’s such a big deal—perhaps the biggest deal ever—you need to think about a few things. Yes, you need to think about the oft-repeated but nonetheless true and alarming statistics: 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded till 2015 snatched the crown—till 2016 obliterated the record.

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Soft Robot Exosuits Will Give You Springier Steps Jan 24, 2017

Robots are coming to take your jog. Or, at least, your walk. Each spring in your step costs your body calories. Robotic assistants could help ease fatigue for people who earn their living on their feet—or who have been hobbled by disease. But many robotic exoskeletons are so bulky that they actually cause wearers more fatigue.

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Physics Explains How (But Not Why) Humans Can Throw Washing Machines Jan 23, 2017

Why would you throw a washing machine? Who knows. Maybe that machine lost your socks. Maybe you have something against washing machines. You could have any number of reasons. But here it is-a washing machine throwing contest, and even a world record distance for washing machine throws. (4.13 meters, Zydrunas Savickas.) But when I see something like this, I just wonder how hard it would be to throw.

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Why It’s Impossible to Predict When That Giant Antarctic Ice Sheet Will Split Jan 20, 2017

Over the past several months, scientists working in Antarctica have been watching—with a mixture of professional fascination and personal horror—a fissure growing in the continent’s fourth-largest ice shelf. Since last November, the crack has lengthened by some 90 miles. It has 13 miles more before it rends completely, and a chunk of ice the size of Delaware goes bobbing into the Weddell Sea.

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Did LeBron James Flop? Here’s What Physics Says Jan 19, 2017

This is one of my jobs. When there is something that happens, I have to do an analysis-the internetneeds me. In this case, it's a hit between Draymond Green and LeBron James. Was it a hit, or did LeBron flop? I'm not the judge, I'm just going to present evidence. Collisions When an object interacts with another object (with zero external forces), this is called a collision. Here are some important physics ideas about collisions. When two objects collide, there is a force.

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The Man in the Zebra Suit Knows the Secret of the Stripes Jan 18, 2017

At four in the morning, Tim Caro roused his colleagues. Bleary-eyed and grumbling, they followed him to the edge of the village, where the beasts were hiding. He sat them down in chairs, and after letting their eyes adjust for a minute, he asked them if they saw anything. And if so, would they please point where? Not real beasts.

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Think Exercise Is Hard? Try Training Like a Nike Super-Athlete Jan 17, 2017

As part of WIRED’s exclusive look at Breaking2, Nike’s revolutionary attempt to break the two-hour marathon mark, our writer is using the same training regime, apparel, and expertise as Nike’s three elite athletes to try to achieve his own personal milestone: a sub-90-minute half-marathon. This is the first in a series of monthly updates on his progress. Running is a simple sport: lace ’em up, and put one foot in front of the other.

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Don’t You Dare Try to Teach Science Without Building Models Jan 16, 2017

It's the start of a new semester, so I think now is a good time to talk about the nature of science. As a physics faculty member, I teach all sorts of classes. Some of those classes are for chemistry and physics majors and some classes are for non-science majors. Whatever class you teach, though, I think it's important to bring up a discussion of the nature of science.

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To Understand PTSD, Send Scientists to War Jan 13, 2017

It started with a thumb into my eye socket as he tried to gouge out my eye. When he bit into my ear, the adrenaline flooding my veins masked the pain; I would not even realize my ear was gone till after the fight. Twenty years ago, in that dimly lit alley in Kent, Washington, as I walked into a ring of teenage onlookers to face off, my heart was pounding so hard my chest hurt. My vision narrowed—I could only see faces—and I felt sick in my gut.

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Don’t Turn Earth Into Venus, Warns NASA Ex-Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan Jan 12, 2017

Unlike many of her colleagues at NASA, Ellen Stofan never wanted to be an astronaut. She saw her first rocket launch at age four. It didn’t go well. Stofan,who recently left her position as the space agency’s chief scientist, dimly recollects traveling from Ohio to Cape Canaveral to watch the fifth flight of the uncrewed Atlas-Centaur launch system, a project of her NASA engineer father‘s.

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Let’s Learn Some Physics Playing With Compound Pulleys Jan 11, 2017

One of the most common topics covered in a high school physics class is simple machines. An I think the compound pulley is the coolest simple machine. Let's start with some basic physics. Work-Energy Principle The compound pulley, like all simple machines, uses the work-energy principle. I will skip theexplanation of energy (it's very abstract) and start with this: Don't worry about the change in energy and just look at the definition of work.

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NASA’s Newest Robots Will Spy on Mysterious Lil Asteroids Jan 10, 2017

NASA missions come packaged two ways. They’re either deep explorations of the familiar—STEREO’s focus on the sun, the International Space Station’s study of what microgravity does to the human body—or a trip to some crazy place no one has ever seen before. But still, any strange, distant object the agency targets will likely hold some clue about the origins of life. Humans are spacefaring narcissists that way.

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The Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts Only Gets More Beautiful From Here Jan 09, 2017

Billions of years ago, an unknown object sent a seriously bright burst of radio waves into space. They traveled across the universe, past galaxies and clouds of gas and who knows what else. And in 2012, the burst arrived at the Arecibo radio telescope when astronomers happened to be watching. They kept searching that same spot in the sky. In 2015, they found 16 additional flashes. Then, in August and September 2016, nine more appeared.

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California’s Huge Storm Could Cause Disastrous Melting in the Mountains Jan 06, 2017

California is having a notably wet winter. Since October, a succession of weather systems has greened the Golden State’s valleys, whitened its mountains, and washed its rivers and reservoirs in rippling blue-green. The state is currently between storms. The one that just ended was cold. It dropped snow as low as 2,500 feet in California’s highlands. The successor storm, expected to hit on Saturday, will be warmer—forecasters are calling for snow levels to rise up to 9,000 feet.

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WIRED’s Required Science Reading From 2016 Jan 05, 2017

If your resolution for the coming year is to spend less time on your commute scrolling through Twitter or playing “Puzzler on the Roof,” there’s no shortage of fantastic and fantastical new books you can use to take a break from mindless screen time. Curating this year’s new arrivals was tough, but we managed to narrow the list down to our top-ten favorites.

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How Long Would It Take to Scale a Mountain in a Human-Powered Chairlift? Jan 04, 2017

It's been a long timesince I've skied. Of course, the fun is in going down the mountain, not going up. But you have to go up to get down, so what's the best way of doing that in terms of energy and power? Let's examinea few options inan excellent example of physics in action. I can't believe I just said that-it sounds like it's straight out of a middle school textbook.

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Inside the Lab that Grows Human Skin to Test Your Cosmetics Jan 03, 2017

Monday is shipping day at MatTek. A truck pulls up to its red brick lab outside of Boston to load box after box, all kept at a cool 39 degrees. The precious, perishable cargo is human skin—thousands of dime-sized pieces in plastic dishes that add up, altogether, to about two whole adult humans’ worth. Every week. It’s not harvested from people, though.

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Vote for the 2016 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year Jan 02, 2017

2016 is coming to a close so know it's time to look back on the volcanic action of the year. Take a moment and vote for your top 3 volcanoes that you think deserve the honor of Volcanic Event of the Year - the coveted Pliny Award. If you need some refreshers, check of the Atlantic's review of some cool eruptions, browse through the Global Volcanism Program's Weekly Volcanic Activity Reports or flip back through the posts here on Eruptions.

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SpaceX’s Year of Fiery Triumphs and Explosive Failure Dec 29, 2016

Maybe 2016 wasn’t your year. Buck up, at least your $60 million dollar rocket bearing a $200 million dollar payload didn’t explode on the launchpad. Or, perhaps your year was great. Again, some perspective: Did you land four rockets on ocean barges after inserting satellites into orbit around the Earth? No? Neither? Then lay off the superlatives, because SpaceX probably had both a better, and worse, 2016 than you.

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The Mysterious Virus That Could Cause Obesity Dec 28, 2016

Randy is 62 years old and stands tall at six foot one. He grew up on a farm in Glasford, Illinois, in the 1950s. Randy was raised with the strong discipline of a farming family. From the time he was five, he would get out of bed at dawn, and before breakfast he’d put on his boots and jeans to milk cows, lift hay, and clean the chicken coops. Day in and out, no matter the weather or how he felt, Randy did his physically demanding chores.

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WIRED’s Guide to Turning Your Kids Into Masterful Makers Dec 27, 2016

This should be an officially labeled time of the year. I suggest we call it Maker Time-it's that time after kids get out of school, but before all of the holiday festivities begin. This is the perfect time for kids (and adults) to make something. This is what I tell my own children (I probably heard it from someone else). Don't just be a consumer, be a creator (or the rhyming version-be a maker, not a taker).

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How Science Uncovered $80 Million of Fine Art Forgeries Dec 26, 2016

Something was wrong with the Jackson Pollock. For one thing, 3-D images from a stereomicroscope revealed that the signature was traced with a needle—forged. And, working with a hyper-precise Raman microscope, a tool capable of analyzing sample areas as small as a thousandth of a millimeter across, Jamie Martin identified the presence of Red 170, a pigment that wasn’t widely available until decades after Pollock’s death. Yep. The painting was a fake.

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Let’s-a-Go: The Physics of Jumping in Super Mario Run Dec 23, 2016

Of course I'm not the first to look at the physics in Super Mario Bros-there was this interesting paper looking at the optimal jump to get to the highest point on the flag at the end of the level. There is also a nice page looking at the acceleration of jumping Mario in the different games. Good stuff. But there's a new game out-Super Mario Run on iOS and Android. This is a great chance to take another look at the physics of Mario.

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Here’s How Much That Lego Brick You Stepped on Is Worth Dec 22, 2016

This post is Chad Orzel's fault. It started with this tweet: Hey, @rjallain , is this consistent with your regression analysis of the Lego brick cost a while back? pic.twitter.com/RaTcP07xI1 — Chad Orzel (@orzelc) December 13, 2016 Yes, it's true that I have pondered the price of Lego bricks before, by looking up the cost and number of pieces in various sets. Here is the data, and a link to my original analysis. I arrived at a price of about 10.4 cents per piece.

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Why Do Dogs Love Yoga Mats So Much? Dec 21, 2016

You unfurl your yoga mat at home, ready to stretch out into downward dog and take some deep breaths. Just for a second, you look away to grab your water bottle and block. But when you turn around, you find that your pup has already staked her territory on your mat, doing some stretches of her own. If you’re an asana-ing dog person, you’ve probably already figured out a way to tap into your canine’s weird yoga mat affinity.

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Civil War Turns Syria’s Doctors Into Masters of Improvisation Dec 20, 2016

Basil Al-Reabi was riding home from school in southern Syria, in the fall of 2014, when a roadside bomb struck. The eight-year-old watched as shrapnel shredded his classmates and reduced them to a collection of body parts. As the remnants of the minibus bounced, rolled, and finally came to rest at the foot of a low embankment, three of his limbs were scythed off, his cheeks peppered with shards of blue vehicle paint.

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Thousands of Invisible Oil Spills Are Destroying The Gulf Dec 19, 2016

Hurricane Ivan would not die. After traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, it stewed for more than a week in the Caribbean, fluctuating between a Category 3 and 5 storm while battering Jamaica, Cuba, and other vulnerable islands. And as it approached the US Gulf Coast, it stirred up a massive mud slide on the sea floor. The mudslide created leaks in 25 undersea oil wells, snarled the pipelines leading from the wells to a nearby oil platform, and brought the platform down on top of all of it.

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A Swarm of Earthquakes Shakes Mount St. Helens Dec 15, 2016

Let's look at some volcanic rumblings and eruptions from the last week: Washington Mount St. Helens is keeping up its unsettled 2016, this time with another small earthquake swarm. The USGS detected over 120 earthquakes over the last few days, all occurring 2-4 kilometers (1-2 miles) beneath the volcano and all very small (less than M1).

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Inside the Hunt for a Ghost Particle Dec 14, 2016

Even for a particle physicist, Janet Conrad thinks small. Early in her career, when her peers were fanning out in search of the top quark, now known to be the heaviest elementary particle, she broke ranks to seek out the neutrino, the lightest. In part, she did this to avoid working as part of a large collaboration, demonstrating an independent streak shared by the particles she studies.

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John Glenn, First US Astronaut to Orbit Earth, Has Died at 95 Dec 13, 2016

John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth and, later, the oldest human to leave the planet, died on December 8, 2016. He was 95 years old. In 1962, Glenn became the face of American technological triumph. NASA rocketed him upward in a vessel that looked more like a spotlight bulb than a space capsule, not sure that he would make it back. But they knew they had to try, and that this was the time.

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SpaceX Says It’s Ready for Liftoff Again. The FAA Begs to Differ Dec 12, 2016

Today, SpaceX announced it expects to begin launching again in early January—just four months after one of its Falcon 9 rockets burst into flames on a Florida launchpad. But the private space company helmed by Elon Musk is still missing one important thing before it leaves Earth: a license from the Federal Aviation Administration.

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NASA’s Power Supply Mistake on the ISS Was Totally Avoidable Dec 09, 2016

The International Space Station is currently home to six intrepid astronauts, one Robonaut, and four 14,000-pound payload-holders called ExPRESS Logistics Carriers. Experiments from Earth like the laser-communicator OPALS fly up to Station and Lego-attach to these carriers, which provide them with a place to stay and, just as importantly, the electrical power and data links they need to do their jobs. But since 2013, scientists sending up payloads have had trouble with the on-orbit utility grid.

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Trump’s Chief Strategist Steve Bannon Ran a Massive Climate Experiment Dec 08, 2016

Before Steve Bannon was Donald Trump’s campaign advisor, a right-wing media mogul, or a conservative Hollywood documentarian, he helped a group of climate scientists steer a controversial experiment in the Arizona desert back from financial chaos. Twenty-five years ago, a New Agey-experiment called Biosphere 2 set out to recreate life on another planet with eight people locked in a giant glass habitat.

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Magnets Aren’t Miracles, But Solar Flares Burst With Magic Dec 07, 2016

Magnets aren’t miracles, but neither are they a phenomenon that physicists completely understand. Particularly big magnets, like the sun. Until recently, the annals of research failed to completely explain how massive currents blooming on the sun’s surface burst into solar flares, releasing incredible volumes of energy in short time frames.

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Dozens of Earthquakes Rattle a Chilean Volcano, Raising Alerts Dec 06, 2016

Last night, the ONEMI (Oficina Nacional de Emergencias) and SERNGEOMIN (Chilean Geological Survey) in Chile raised the alert status for the area around Cerro Hudson in the southern Andes. Normally, raising the alert status like this is due to an acute change, when the behavior of the volcano shifts suddenly. However, this time, the elevation to Yellow alert status at Cerro Hudson is due to accumulated events over the past month.

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New Zealand, the Kardashians, and the Battle to Control Manuka Honey Dec 05, 2016

Kourtney Kardashian hawks its health benefits. Counterfeiters and chemists labor to unlock its molecular secrets. And now it's at the center of an international branding war. It's honey, but not just any honey. It's ManÅ«ka honey, a sweet extravagance from New Zealand that sells for a sticky $2.50 an ounce—six times the cost of conventional honey—and has attracted a slew of famous fans.

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How Humans Can Force the Machines to Play Fair Dec 02, 2016

Theoretical computer science can be as remote and abstract as pure mathematics, but new research often begins in response to concrete, real-world problems. Such is the case with the work of Cynthia Dwork. Over the course of a distinguished career, Dwork has crafted rigorous solutions to dilemmas that crop up at the messy interface between computing power and human activity.

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No, Gotham, That’s Not How Tightropes Work Dec 01, 2016

I'll be honest. I don't really watchGotham, but it looks interesting. It chroniclesthe events in Batman's city before he became Batman. That's about all I know. However, when I saw a recent commercial for an upcoming episode, I had to do something. I'm not sure what's going on here, but from my research this appears to be Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne doingsomething with a tightrope.

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Blood Diseases Could Show Crispr’s Potential as Therapy Nov 30, 2016

You know you’ve struck marketing gold when a brand becomes a so-called “proprietary eponym.” Need to blow your nose? Grab a Kleenex. Track some sand from the beach onto your floor? Hoover it up. In biology, Crispr is the proprietary eponym of the moment. The gene-editing technique is so inexpensive and easy to use that, in just four years, it’s become a ubiquitous tool in labs across the world. And soon, it could jump from bench-top workhorse to human therapeutic.

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Why Japan’s 6.9 Quake Wasn’t 2011 All Over Again Nov 29, 2016

Sequels rarely live up to the original. And thank goodness for that. Yesterday, a 6.9 earthquake shook the coast of Japan almost exactly where a 9.1 quake hit nearly 6 years ago. Japan is fortified against quakes and tsunamis. But the 2011 quake was so powerful it generated 30 to 60-foot tsunamis, overtopping the island nation's extensive sea walls and shore protections, killing over 15,000, leaving 228,000 homeless, and causing a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

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Nobody Knows Where This Big Raft of Pumice Came From Nov 28, 2016

Last week, a Royal New Zealand Air Force flight spotted a new pumice raft in the middle of the Pacific ocean to the west of Tonga. Pumice rafts are floating islands of pumice created during a submarine volcanic eruption and they can persist for months or longer. This raft was seen by aircraft and satellite in an area with no known volcanoes. However, from the looks of the raft, it might be a long way from home.

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Record Temperatures Are Robbing the Arctic Of Its Winter Nov 25, 2016

November started out pretty normal for the Arctic. The sun had set for the season, temperatures were dropping, ice was growing rapidly. Winter was coming, right on schedule. And then, a few days ago, everything came screeching to a halt. Ice stopped forming. And then it actually started to melt, thanks to a sudden heat wave that blistered the region with temperatures 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above average. For now, the mass of warm air doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

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The Physics of Throwing a Starship Off a Cliff to Make It Fly Nov 24, 2016

I want to analyze a scene from Star Trek Beyondbut don't want to spoil the movie. Let me set things upin the most generic way possible. If you are very allergic to spoilers, maybe you should just move along tothis nice post about radioactive bananas. You have been warned. Here is the scene: Some people have found an old starship at the top of a cliff. They want toget itflying andleave the planet.

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Apple Pay Will Change the Way Your Brain Thinks About Buying Things Nov 23, 2016

Drunk shoppers beware: Impulse buying online just got even easier. With Apple’s new MacBook Pro launched last month, all you have to do is tap your finger to the Touch ID scanner located on the Touch Bar to buy—no more searching through your wallet for the right card, no more typing in three-digit security codes and expiration dates. On the front end, the new method is faster and probably more secure than using stored credit card info online.

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China Used Crispr to Fight Cancer in a Real, Live Human Nov 22, 2016

Do you remember President-elect Trump holding forth on the campaign trail about "China beating us at our own game"? Well, it's true, as long as the game in question is editing human DNA using Crispr/Cas9. China is now using Crispr-edited cells in living, breathing human beings. Last month, Chinese scientists at Sichuan University injected cancer-fighting, Crispr-modified white bloodcells into a patient suffering from metastatic lung cancer.

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The Biologist Trying to Make the First Pregnancy Test for Sharks Nov 21, 2016

Earlier this year, James Gelsleichter got a call from the Bahamas. A group of researchers had been tracking the movements of some oceanic whitetip sharks off the coast of Cat Island, a long, thin stretch of land in the center of the Bahamas. Maybe, they thought, the sharks were moving certain directions because they were pregnant and looking for a place to give birth.

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You Can’t Just Link Batteries Willy Nilly and Expect Everything to Be OK Nov 18, 2016

Anyone who has taken introductory physics will recognize this famous question: Why can't you start your car with 8 AAA batteries instead of one 12 volt car battery? Eight AAA batteries do add up to 12 volts, but they still can't provide enough electrical current to run the starter motor. But that's not the whole story. Any battery has a limit on the maximum current it can produce. To explain why, I'll make a model to represent a real battery.

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Can’t Imagine Shapes in 4 Dimensions? Just Print Them Out Nov 17, 2016

Last spring, mathematician Henry Segerman found a peculiar post on Facebook. It was by a programmer who had could not conjure mental images—a condition called aphantasia. Segerman immediately recognized that he lives with the same limitation. “When I try to visualize something, I don’t see anything,” he says. Which is curious—because Segerman, 37, has made a career out of visualizing complex mathematical shapes.

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Legal Weed Has Arrived. Get Ready for the Budweiser of Bud Nov 16, 2016

Yesterday, four US states voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Casual smokers in Massachusetts, Nevada, and California are now free from the social stigma—and threat of jail time—that had clouded cannabis use for decades. (Maine is still up for grabs; Arizona voters kept the status quo.) In these states, downlow smokers will become legal consumers, and formerly clandestine growers and sellers will start responding to the demands of bona fide mass market.

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To Build A Viable HIV Vaccine, Start from the Molecule Up Nov 15, 2016

An HIV diagnosis is a nightmare, but it is no longer a death sentence. Someday, vaccines might bat the virus out of your system without you ever knowing you’d been exposed. If successful, such a vaccine would effectively cure AIDS. Someday, maybe. So scientists are working on it. Like yesterday: Researchers published results to a promising study on primates infected with SIV, a monkey version of HIV.

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A Groundbreaking 30-Year Old Evolutionary Experiment Is Still Going Strong Nov 14, 2016

Early in his career, the decorated biologist Richard Lenski thought he might be forced to evolve. After his postdoctoral research grant was canceled, Lenski began to look tentatively at other options. With one child and a second on the way, Lenski attended a seminar about using specific types of data in an actuarial context—the same type of data he had worked with as a graduate student.

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2016’s Election Data Hero Isn’t Nate Silver. It’s Sam Wang Nov 11, 2016

Forget Nate Silver. There’s a new king of the presidential election data mountain. His name is Sam Wang, Ph.D. Haven’t heard of him just yet? Don’t worry. You will. Because Wang has sailed True North all along, while Silver has been cautiously trying to tack his FiveThirtyEight data sailboat (weighted down with ESPN gold bars) through treacherous, Category-Five-level-hurricane headwinds in what has easily been the craziest presidential campaign in the modern political era.

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How NASA Will Choose Astronauts for Its Incredible Journey to Mars Nov 10, 2016

Christine Corbett Moran was in Antarctica when she got the news: NASA wanted to interview her, in person, for the next class of astronauts. Moran is a coder and theoretical astrophysicist, and she'd been holed up in the southernmost part of the world for 10 months, studying the echoes of the Big Bang.

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Physics Says This Is the Best Way to Deal With Hot Coffee Nov 09, 2016

Like many people, I enjoy gettinga nice cup of coffee. Not that silly sugary stuff like a double-whip, non-fat, vanilla bean, espresso, iced with a twist of lime. No, I get plain old boring black coffee. But there's a problem: It's almost always too hot to drink right away. When life gives you coffee that's too hot, you must find the best way to cool it. I have two methods to cool off my coffee. Method No.1 is to remove the lid (coffee usually comes with a lidso you don't spill it).

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A Material From Shapeshifting Planes Could Heal Human Flesh Nov 08, 2016

What generates voltage when you warm it up, push on it, or blow on it? Get your mind out of the gutter. The correct answer is polyvinylidene fluoride, a material NASA researchers have refined for use in morphing aircraft that shapeshift in response to their environment. But wait! There’s more: It can also kickstart the human body’s healing process.

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The Dismal Science of the Standing Rock Pipeline Protests Nov 07, 2016

The protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota are, on the surface, about water quality. The pipeline’s planned route—which closely mirrors the path of the would-be Keystone XL pipeline—goes right through the tribe’s water source. And like Keystone XL (which President Obama vetoed this February), the Dakota Access Pipeline has taken on larger significance as a conduit for worsened global climate change.

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Electron Microscopes Can Finally See in Wonderful Color Nov 04, 2016

Imagine a Where’s Waldo book with nothing butblack and white pictures. Good luck using his candy-stripesweater as a visual cue. Now you know what it’s like trying to find a virus on a greyscale microscopic image. Microbiologists have dealt with this problem for decades, because when things get small, things go dark. Photons, bits of light essential to discerning color, are too clunky to resolve anything much smaller than say, a synapse connecting two neurons.

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How NASA Got Every Last Piece of Pluto Data Down From New Horizons Oct 31, 2016

Last summer, as it sped through the Pluto system, the New Horizons spacecraft only had a few hours to pack its memory banks with as much data about the dwarf planetary system as possible. On October 25, the last few hundred bits of that data finally arrived in one of NASA‘s deep space radio dishes. For posterity’s sake, take a moment and remember that before the flyby—a mere 15 months ago—the dwarf planet was a pixellated blur.

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Molten Salt Reactors Could Soon Help Power Earth—And One Day Mars Oct 28, 2016

If we get our way and really put humans on Mars in the coming decades, they’re going to need power. NASA has had concrete plants to send people to the Red Planet since 2010—with target dates in the 2030s, while Elon Musk thinks SpaceX can make it to Mars faster. But no matter who gets there first, the power problem remains.

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The Lava That Doesn’t Erupt Anymore Oct 26, 2016

Volcanoes have been a persistent feature on Earth since the planet condensed out of the primordial nebula of our solar system. The scale and style of that volcanism has changed dramatically over that 4.5 billion years—heck, after Thera bumped into proto-Earth to form the Moon, we probably had a planet-wide lava lake as the molten Earth coalesced and cooled from the collision. However, we lack much of a record of that tumultuous time beyond a few zircon found in younger sediments.

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China wants a Moon base, but first it needs two people to survive 30 days in space Oct 21, 2016

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Facing Climate Change, Tanzania Can’t Afford to Fear GM Crops Oct 20, 2016

Last week, Tanzania planted its first ever genetically modified crop—a drought-resistant white corn hybrid. Government researchers will spend the next two to three years monitoring the plants for safety and effectiveness at growing in perilously dry conditions. It’s a notable milestone, given the nation’s longstanding lack of enthusiasm towards biotechnology.

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Obama Geeks Out Over a Brain-Controlled Robotic Arm That ‘Feels’ Oct 19, 2016

When Nathan Copeland got into a car accident in 2004, he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed in both arms and both legs. Eventually, Copeland got a prosthetic-but one that is very different from most anyone else's out there. Copeland is the first person in the world to use a system created by DARPA and the National Science Foundation, which allows him to "experience" the sensation of touch via a special robotic prosthesis.

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If Billionaires Fund Your Research, Don’t Take Public Money Oct 19, 2016

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's announcement in September that they will pour $3 billion into research, mainly at elite universities in California, with expressed interest to "cure all disease" within a century, was an endearing move from new money billionaires who have pledged to devote their phenomenal wealth to supporting biomedical research.

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MacGyver’s Body-Bag Freefall Might Actually Work. Physics Says So Oct 17, 2016

Everyone knows MacGyver. He's the guy who gets out of sticky situations by cobbling stuff together. Here he is in the reboot, maybe four floors up, with a sudden need to jump from a window. Solution? Use a fire extinguisher and body bag to create an impromptu cushion. Could that really work? First, a disclosure. I'm the technical consultant for MacGyver, which means I check if MacGyver's hacks are legit.

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One Great Way to Reduce Gun Violence? A Whole Lot of Data Oct 16, 2016

At their core, data tell stories. They reveal patterns, show changes over time, and confirm or challenge our theories. And in cities across the country, mayors, police chiefs, and other local leaders are turning to data to help them understand and address gun violence, one of the most persistent crises they face. Innovative, data-driven programs are showing encouraging results.

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Cholera in Haiti Isn’t Just Bad News—It’s Not Going Away Oct 14, 2016

The odds are stacked against Haiti. Geologically, it's wedged between tectonic plates, where earthquakes happen. Meteorologically, it's in the center of hurricane alley, where massive storms roil. And historically, the country is forever fighting a colonial legacy that left it largely incapable of recovering from natural disasters.

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Japan’s Mount Aso Had a Yuge Eruption. Yuge! Oct 13, 2016

It's been a busy week or so in the world of volcanoes. Japan's Mount Aso had its largest eruption in recent memory. Canada's Mount Meager might be rumbling to life. And the USGS and Global Volcanism Program released a great animation of 50 years of earthquakes and eruptions. Japan Mount Aso in Japan had a large explosive eruption last week (10/8), sending ash over 11 kilometers (36,000 feet) upwards. Although eruptions aren't rare at Aso, the scale of this one was larger than usual.

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Don’t Get Shaken Up Over California’s Newly Discovered Fault Oct 12, 2016

People aren't doodling sea monsters over blank spots on the map anymore, but that doesn't mean scientists have Earth all figured out. Plenty of geological features have yet to be discovered and understood-especially where things get watery, or subterranean, or both. Case in point: a team of seismologists recently discovered what they believe is a fault line running along the the eastern shore of the Salton Sea in southern California.

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Florida’s Beaches Have a Problem, and Hurricane Matthew Ain’t Helping Oct 11, 2016

Hurricane Matthew is already a tragedy. It killed hundreds battering through the Caribbean, and knocked out power, forced evacuations, and flooded beaches as it scoured the Florida coastline. But thinking long-term, the storm is a punctuation mark in the creeping erosion narrative playing out on many southeastern shorelines. Erosion is nothing new. Shorelines experience seasonal ebbing from winter, and typically regrow in the summer.

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Farmers Are Manipulating Microbiomes to Help Crops Grow Oct 10, 2016

In the back of Indigo's Boston headquarters-past the gleaming new desks, past empty rooms awaiting new employees after a $100 million fundraising round-is a giant elevator. The elevator has one main purpose: to haul dirt up by the pallet load. Indigo is an agriculture company. But it doesn't sell seeds or fertilizer or pesticides or any of the typical products agriculture companies have made billions selling in the past century.

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Blue Origin’s Escape Pod Worked, and, Bonus! The Rocket Didn’t Go Kaboom Oct 06, 2016

This morning, Jeff Bezos had predicted an explosion: His hard working little rocket, the New Shepard, would go up in flames during its fifth-and final-launch. That's because this launch, unlike previous ones testing the rocket's ability to land, was an experiment of its escape system. The New Shepard is, like all rockets, a carefully contained catastrophe. It is also topped by a crew capsule, which needs a way to get clear of the booster should anything go wrong.

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Hawaii’s Mysterious Coral Reefs Turn Out to Be Super Weird Oct 05, 2016

The Hawaiian coral reefs you know-the brilliant blue waters and rainbow fishes and the occasional sea turtle-are just a facade. Sorry, but it's true: Science says so. Dive past these upper-ocean paradises, deeper and deeper, and you'll find even more incredible reefs-ones that, shrouded in near-total darkness, shouldn't exist at all. Hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface, the so-called deep reef-also known as the twilight zone-is just coming into view.

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An Ode to the Rosetta Spacecraft as It Flings Itself Into a Comet Oct 03, 2016

Today, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will engage its thrusters for one final maneuver: a suicidal plunge toward the comet it has been orbiting for two years and chasing for a decade. After Rosetta collides with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, its systems will go dark. Scientists will never hear from it again.

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House Republicans Are Trying to Blackball the Climate Investigation into Exxon Sep 29, 2016

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The Government’s Top Financial Regulator Is Investigating ExxonMobil Sep 29, 2016

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Elon Musk and SpaceX Announce a Plan to Colonize Mars and Save Humanity Sep 29, 2016

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IBM Just Made It Easier to Build Apps That Harness the Weather Sep 29, 2016

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The US May Not Be Able to Hit Its Ambitious Climate Goal Sep 29, 2016

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Jeff Bezos’ New Rocket Could Send the First People to Mars Sep 14, 2016

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Want to Be a Good Science Communicator? You Have to Build Bridges Sep 08, 2016

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Spraying Mosquitoes by Plane Ain’t Perfect, But It’s the Best We’ve Got for Zika Sep 05, 2016

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SpaceX Rocket Explosion Sets Facebook’s Internet Expansion in Africa Back Sep 01, 2016

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How Lightning Can Kill 300 Reindeer With One Strike Aug 31, 2016

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Cluster of Big Earthquakes Rattles Iceland’s Katla Volcano Aug 31, 2016

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Genes Might Be Helping the Tasmanian Devil Fight Off Face Cancer Aug 30, 2016

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The Mystery of How Cancer Cells Barrel Through Your Body Aug 29, 2016

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This Aquanaut Is Defining the Next Era of Spaceflight Aug 29, 2016

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Instagram Probably Can’t Predict Depression. GPS, Though… Aug 25, 2016

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Lava Flows Added 5 Acres to Hawaii’s Shoreline This Month Aug 25, 2016

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Aliens in Orbit? Probably Not. $100K on a Kickstarter to Check? Oh, Sure Aug 24, 2016

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A Magical Mushroom Powder Blocks Bitterness in Food Aug 23, 2016

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The Feds Just Made It Easier to Do Research on Weed Aug 22, 2016

According to the US government, marijuana is one of the most dangerous drugs in existence; a Schedule 1 narcotic, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Like heroin, LSD, and ecstasy, cannabis has no accepted medical use, is highly addictive, and harmful. Oh, you don’t agree? Disprove it.

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How to Succeed in the Asteroid Business Without Really Mining Aug 19, 2016

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If You Want a Superstar Horse, Start by Hacking Its DNA Aug 18, 2016

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How Can California Cut Methane Emissions if Cows Keep Cutting the Cheese? Aug 17, 2016

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The Price of Zika? About $4 Million Per Child Aug 16, 2016

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How That Chucklehead Climbed Trump Tower Without Splattering Aug 11, 2016

I’m not sure how they got the name “human fly” for this guy climbing Trump Tower. It appears he was using suction cups for his climbing device, so maybe a name like “Suction Cup Boy” would work better. Also, I’m not sure of his motive—but I’m sure it was super important. Whatever the reason for this crazy Gecko Man stunt (that’s what I’m going to call him), there’s still some cool science here.

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The Untold Story of Neuroscience’s Most Famous Brain Aug 10, 2016

Like most famous patients in the history of neuroscience, Henry Molaison—or HM, as he was known among scientists—was famous because his brain was defective. Unlike the other patients, his case was not an accident but the deliberate work of a surgeon. In 1953, a neurosurgeon suctioned out two slivers from brain Henry’s skull, hoping to cure him of epilepsy. The surgery helped the seizures, if not completely, but it made Henry unable to form any new memories.

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Sorry, Folks. The LHC Didn’t Find a New Particle After All Aug 09, 2016

The last thirty years of particle physics have been a little disappointing. A scientist’s job is to prove themselves wrong, but despite their best efforts, despite recreating the conditions of the Big Bang, particle physicists just keep being correct. Aside from a few unexplained observations [1] (meddling neutrinos [2]!), the Standard Model, which describes interactions between all known particles, has exactly predicted the outcome of every experiment in the history of particle physics.

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Crafty Ideas to Make Drone Deliveries Work for Everybody Aug 08, 2016

Someday soon, you'll stand on your front lawn, tapping your toe impatiently, waiting for a pair of shoes to fall from the sky. You’ll hear a distant buzzing, then see a brightly colored aircraft come over the trees, its falcon wings arcing out gracefully from the body, four blades whirring intently to ease the aircraft into a steady hover. It’ll touch down at your feet, and you’ll be able to reach in, grab your new kicks, and head off on your vacation.

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Germs Are Magic and Other Things We Learned From Ed Yong’s New Book Aug 05, 2016

We tend to describe our immune systems with military metaphors. Pathogens invade our bodies, knock down our defenses, and try to kill us dead. We fight back with hand sanitizer and mild germ-related panic. Or we go nuclear and blast them with antibiotics. Ed Yong [1]’s beautiful, smart, and sometimes shocking new book I Contain Multitudes [2]: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life will make you take a deep breath.

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Crap’s Spontaneously Combusting in Upstate New York Aug 04, 2016

HUMANS DON’T SPONTANEOUSLY combust, but manure does. A stable full of manure caught fire last week in Throop, New York, leaving the town smelling … unpleasant. The horses aren’t to blame, though. Microbes are.

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