As I walk through life, I often look down at people’s shoes. No disrespect intended. I’m not trying to avoid eye contact with you. I’m paying attention to the imperfections in the world and looking for ways to help fix […]
This much scientists know: Humans pump about 40 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Less clear is where the planet puts it. About half of it stays in the air, where it adds to the annual, two- […]
In 1985, when Carl Sagan was writing the novel Contact, he needed to quickly transport his protagonist Dr. Ellie Arroway from Earth to the star Vega. He had her enter a black hole and exit light-years away, but he didn’t […]
In the complex cells of humans and other organisms, two different genomes collaborate to sustain life. The larger genome, with DNA encoding thousands of genes, resides in the cell nucleus, while copies of the much smaller one sit in all […]
Elephants and other large animals have a lower incidence of cancer than would be expected statistically, suggesting that they have evolved ways to protect themselves against the disease. A new study reveals how elephants do it: An old gene that […]
The alerts started in the early morning of Aug. 17. Gravitational waves produced by the wreck of two neutron stars—dense cores of dead stars—had washed over Earth. The thousand-plus physicists of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory rushed to decode […]
Since causing major outbreaks in Saudi Arabia in 2014 and in Korea a year later, the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is laying low. But it hasn't disappeared: A cluster of 34 cases cropped up in July in […]
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 […]
This Thanksgiving, you have a plan: You've signed up for a race. Nothing crazy, just a few miles, but what better way to offset the culinary onslaught of Turkey-day dinner than by torching a few calories first thing in the […]
There’s the Marvel Universe, and then there’s the Larval Universe, and the star of the latter is the black soldier fly. In its squirmy maggot phase, it feasts on our messes—and can in turn be feasted on by farm-raised fish […]