A big chunk of space junk came crashing down in California, and it’s just been identified
When a farmer in Hanford, California took a casual stroll out to his walnut orchard recently, the last thing he expected to find was a …
Science
Virtual reality experience forces people to lose their jobs and homes, boosts empathy
Reading a news story about an increase in the homeless population might make you feel sad for a moment but if we’re all being honest …
Last winter’s flu season was even more deadly than you can imagine
For many people, flu season is little more than annoyance, but every single year thousands of people die from whatever strain of the disease is …
The T Rex’s tiny baby arms might have been way more useful than they seem
Running into a Tyrannosaurus rex in the wild would have been a truly frightening thing for just about any animal that roamed the earth between …
China wants to put a big fake moon in orbit to reflect sunlight back down at night
The Moon is great, but apparently it’s just not enough for the city of Chengdu in China. Not satisfied with the meager light the Moon …
Humans have found a way to kill the world’s largest living organism
Humans are already thought to be largely responsible for the almost complete extinction of massive mammals, simply because we can’t stop killing the big ones. …
Oops: Researchers say 3.7 billion-year-old ‘fossils’ are probably just rocks
Hunting for fossils is a difficult business in the first place, but the challenge is multiplied the farther back in time you’re searching. Finding bones …
NASA is playing a ‘claw game’ on Mars, and it’s even more complex than your local arcade
Scoring a stuffed animal or small trinket from a classic claw game at your local arcade can leave you feeling frustrated and full of rage, …
Man’s death linked to consumption of squirrel brains
Hunting for your own food can be a rewarding and liberating thing, but knowing where to stop when preparing wild game for consumption is obviously …
The robots are dancing now
As humans, it’s important to keep track of what robots are doing. We know with 99 percent certainty — thanks to Hollywood films pre-historical documentaries …
NASA’s Chandra spacecraft snaps out of ‘safe mode’ funk, resumes operations
It was only a few days ago that NASA announced its Chandra X-Ray Observatory was experiencing a bit of unexpected downtime. The spacecraft was forced …
Scientists are going to face off in Los Angeles to decide where the next Mars rover lands
Hey, we’re going to Mars! Well, not us specifically, but NASA is, and they really need to know where to land before they light the …
NASA astronaut on failed Soyuz launch: ‘The first two minutes were great’
It’s now been nearly a week since the Soyuz rocket ferrying a NASA astronaut and Russian cosmonaut failed during launch, leading to a mission abort …
Massive planets spotted near young star leave astronomers scratching their heads
Astronomers have a pretty good handle on how stars and the planets around them form, and it’s believed to be a process that takes many …
Google’s AI is now better than doctors at spotting breast cancer
Cancer researchers are constantly advancing the technology that doctors use to screen for, detect, and treat all kinds of cancers, and the survivability prospects have …
Archaeologists found a child who was given a ‘vampire burial’ to keep them from becoming a zombie
When archaeologists discover remains that have been hidden for hundreds and hundreds of years there’s a few things they might expect. Brittle bones, loose teeth, …
Russia thinks it knows why its trusty Soyuz rocket failed
Last week’s seemingly routine Roscosmos launch to the International Space Station went a bit sideways after the rocket carrying a NASA astronaut and his Russian …
NASA’s one last hope for reviving the Opportunity rover may rest with Mars itself
With NASA’s Hubble and Chandra spacecraft both choosing the same week to malfunction, it’s obviously been a trying time for space agency engineers who are …
Now there’s something wrong with NASA’s Chandra spacecraft, too
It’s been something of a rough week for NASA. First, news broke that the legendary Hubble space telescope has been forced to enter a safe …
Prescription drugs keep popping up in dietary supplements
If you choose to take an over-the-counter supplement for weight loss, muscle building, or even sexual enhancement you probably trust what it says on the …
The world has a new fastest camera, and it shoots at 10 trillion frames per second
The “slow motion” modes on modern smartphones crank up the speed of video recording so that when it’s played back at regular speed the motion …
Study says over half of US citizens can be hunted down with a drop of their DNA
If you’ve ever succumbed to the temptation to have your DNA sequenced by a genealogy company you probably learned some pretty interesting things about your …
The failed Soyuz rocket looked like a giant needle and thread from space
Traveling to the International Space Station is a pretty special thing that only a very select group of people will ever have the opportunity to …
Astronomers now have the dumbest possible name for a moon that’s the moon of another moon
If you gaze up at the night sky there’s a good chance you’ll spot Earth’s only large natural satellite. We just called it “the Moon,” …
Japan forced to delay touchdown of asteroid probe because it’s too darn rough
Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid probe has already completed a number of scientific firsts. It successfully entered orbit around the Ryugu asteroid, deployed a pair of rovers …
The volcano that destroyed Pompeii caused heads to literally explode
Being in proximity to a volcano as it unleashes hellfire upon the land is, well, not good. The residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum likely never …
Bees act really strange when there’s a solar eclipse and scientists can’t explain it
The much-hyped total solar eclipse that streaked across the United States in 2017 changed how a lot of us behaved for a very short period …
Astronauts headed for ISS forced to make emergency landing after in-flight rocket failure
It’s been an interesting couple of months for Russia’s space program. Everything had been going quite smoothly for Roscosmos ahead of the bizarre hole discovered …
More mysterious radio signals heard in deep space, and scientists are still baffled
Humans love staring at images of distant galaxies snapped from high-powered telescopes, but sometimes listening instead of looking can yield even more tantalizing hints at …
Catch-and-release fishing might actually be doing more harm than good
Catching fish for food is something that has been done for, well, pretty much since the dawn of mankind, but fishing as a hobby or …
