Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech For years now, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has had its fair share of brushes with death. The groundbreaking observatory launched into low-Earth orbit 36 years ago, and it’s now been operational two decades longer than its expected lifespan,
Growing older brings a higher risk of serious illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, and dementia. For years, researchers have tackled these conditions individually. Now, many scientists are stepping back to ask a broader question. Instead of treating diseases one by one, could slowing the aging process reduce the risk of several at once? To
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that exposed prehistoric hookups, marched toward death, feasted on their own bodies, and found a buried legend in the Sahara. First, Neanderthal males had lots more babies with human females than human males had with Neanderthal females. What’s up with that?! Then, strap in
Residents of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic endured a formidable winter in 2025-2026, marked by several high-impact storms and prolonged stretches of cold temperatures that left parts of the Chesapeake Bay frozen over. Longtime residents may recall a winter nearly 50 years ago when the region saw even more widespread ice cover. The MSS (Multispectral Scanner System)
Organic molecules discovered within a stone on Mars cannot be fully explained by nonbiological processes, and it’s “reasonable to hypothesize” that living things could have formed these odd organic molecules, a NASA-led team reports in a new study. However, this doesn’t mean scientists have found definitive proof of life on Mars, they cautioned. In March
A rare celestial event will be taking place in the sky above California on Saturday night, as six planets are expected to be visible in what is being called a “planetary parade.” Look towards the western horizon 30-60 minutes after sunset. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn will all be lined up along an arc, visible
For billions of years, life on Earth has undergone dramatic changes, from the rise of the first single-celled organisms to the explosion of complex life during the Cambrian period. But what happened before that explosion of diversity? One of the most significant and mysterious events in Earth’s early history remains the first mass extinction, which
Vojec/Getty Images Forget about your dumb Toyota Prius, the king of transportation efficiency was invented in 1885 and it runs on whatever you had for breakfast. According to Scientific American’s newly updated report, based on consumption of calories to transport one gram of mass one kilometer, the
Although not as reviled as the sound of nails on chalkboard, the sound of adhesive tape being peeled is quite probably at least as distinctive. With every millimeter of the tape’s removal from the roll sounding like it’s screaming in protest, it has led some to wonder just why this process is noisy enough to
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s automated alert system is online and already bombarding astronomers with things to look at in the night sky. The system went live publicly on Tuesday, February 24th, and on the first night dropped some 800,000 alerts about asteroids, supernovas, and feasting black holes. And that number is only expected to