Science

CDC Warns Against Kissing, Snuggling Pet Hedgehogs Amid Salmonella Outbreak

It’s not every day that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues an advisory about pet hedgehogs, but here we are. The CDC said Friday that it is currently investigating a Salmonella typhimurium outbreak that it believes may be tied to contact with these prickly critters, adding that you definitely shouldn’t be cuddling or smooching…

Health Catie Keck Jan 26

Wake Up, Oppy! NASA Sends New Commands to Mars Opportunity Rover

NASA’s beloved Mars rover Opportunity has been silent for months after getting swept up in an enormous dust storm on the Red Planet last summer, and NASA engineers have been pinging the rover to answer to no avail. Now, NASA says it will send new commands to the resilient explorer in hopes of making contact,…

Space & Spaceflight Catie Keck Jan 26

Researchers Create the Noise-Cancelling, Snore-Silencing Pillow of Your Partner’s Dreams

Noise-cancelling headphones, like Sony’s excellent WH-1000XM3, do an impressive job of silencing the world around you—assuming you’re actually able to wear them. Wearing headphones to bed to silence a snorer next to you isn’t practical or comfortable. So researchers at Northern Illinois University are integrating similar technology into a pillow that’s custom-designed to reduce the…

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski Jan 25

New Horizons Transmits Incredibly Clear Picture of MU69

If you’re anything like me, you were probably a little disappointed when you saw the first pictures of Kuiper belt object MU69. Sure, we could make out a snowman-like shape, but it also looked like something a shot with a smartphone from a moving car. Ok, that’s not far off, as the New Horizons spacecraft snapped…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 25

Opioid Expert Accuses FDA of ‘Willful Blindness’ After It Approves Powerful New Painkiller

An expert tasked with helping the Food and Drug Administration weigh potential new opioid drug approvals is openly calling out the agency for what he alleges are its continued missteps in handling the opioid crisis. In an interview with the Guardian Thursday, Raeford Brown claimed that the FDA has failed to learn from its past…

Tech News Ed Cara Jan 25

AI Finds Traces of a Lost Species in Human DNA

Buried deep within the DNA of Asian individuals is a genetic clue pointing to the existence of an unknown human ancestor. Remarkably, it wasn’t a human who reached this startling conjecture, but rather an artificially intelligent algorithm. Welcome to archaeology in the 21st century. New research published last week in Nature Communications suggests a yet-to-be…

Human History George Dvorsky Jan 25

Scientists Figured Out How to Send Secret Messages to Your Ear With Lasers

Scientists have devised a way to communicate secretly by sending laser-transmitted messages directly into the area around a person’s ear. Humans enjoy talking with one another, and often do so in ways that prevent eavesdroppers from listening in. This new research could have potential military applications—but who knows where else it might find use? “The…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 25

Apollo Astronauts May Have Brought a Piece of Ancient Earth Back From the Moon

A re-analysis of lunar materials collected during the Apollo 14 mission has resulted in a rather astonishing conclusion: One of the rocks brought back appears to contain a small chunk of Earth dating back some 4 billion years. Incredibly, it’s now amongst the oldest terrestrial rocks known to exist. New research published this week in…

Earth Science George Dvorsky Jan 25

Lead Exposure Could Be Making Mockingbirds More Aggressive

You may be familiar with the aggressive behavior of the northern mockingbird, found throughout most of the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean. A new study implies that less-than-lethal lead concentrations might make that behavior worse. While not all city dwellers realize it, we share our environs with hundreds of wild avian species, from migratory…

Earther Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 25

The E-Scooter Craze Is Sending Lots of People to the ER, Often With Head Injuries

Electric scooters have become wildly popular, thanks to single-named companies like Bird, Scoot, and Lime creating easy-to-ride, if legally iffy, scooter rental services in cities across the U.S. But a new study out Friday is seemingly the first to quantify a drawback to these convenient devices: lots of riders are getting hurt and ending up…

Health Ed Cara Jan 25

Orbital Sculpture Stays Flaccid Due to Government Shutdown

An inflatable space sculpture launched to orbit in December remains unfurled, in one of the more unanticipated consequences of the ongoing government shutdown in the United States. Designed by U.S. artist Trevor Paglen, the Orbital Reflector was launched to low Earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on December 3, 2018, along with dozens…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky Jan 25

How Australia’s Deadliest Fires Made Thousands of Students Fall Behind

Natural disasters come in all many forms, from hurricanes to wildfires. They all have something in common, though: They ruin people’s lives. And the effects can linger years after the event has passed, especially for elementary school children whose education has only just started, according to a new study. Published in the Child Development journal…

Environmental Justice Yessenia Funes Jan 25

Even Adults Sleep Better After Being Rocked to Sleep

A pair of new studies just might make you pine for the old days of being cradled by your parents. For both mice and healthy young people, the studies found, a gentle rocking motion before and during sleep resulted in a deeper slumber. And in humans, the rocking even seemed to improve their memory skills…

Health Ed Cara Jan 24

Woman Sues NASA for Allegedly Damaging Her Precious Apollo 11 Lunar Sample Bag

In 2017, Nancy Lee Carlson of Illinois auctioned off a genuine Apollo 11 lunar sample bag for $1.8 million dollars. That’s a good score given she purchased the bag for $995, but she was expecting as much as $4 million. The reason for the low value, she says, is that NASA damaged the bag—and she’s now…

Tech News George Dvorsky Jan 24

Scientists Try to Recreate Freakishly Tall ‘Rogue’ Waves in the Lab

On New Year’s Day, 1995, an instrument off the coast of Norway measured a rogue wave 84 feet high. Now, scientists are recreating these waves—albeit in miniature—in the lab. Rogue waves like these aren’t tsunamis. Instead, they’re unexpectedly large waves that appear among a population of smaller waves. As researchers continue to measure these mysterious…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 24

Record-Setting Ice Hole Drilled in Antarctica

Using a hot-water drill, British scientists have dug a 7,060-foot borehole through the Antarctic ice sheet. The comically long ice hole is the largest ever for West Antarctica, and it’s meant to improve our understanding of climate-related sea level rise. This project, run by the British Antarctic Survey, is called “Bed Access, Monitoring and Ice…

Earth Science George Dvorsky Jan 24

Complete Axolotl Genome Could Pave the Way Toward Human Tissue Regeneration

The adorable and enigmatic axolotl is capable of regenerating many different body parts, including limbs, organs, and even portions of its brain. Scientists hope that a deeper understanding of these extraordinary abilities could help make this kind of tissue regeneration possible for humans. With news today of the first complete axolotl genome, researchers can now…

Biology George Dvorsky Jan 24

Scientists Turned a Regular Fidget Spinner Into a Centrifuge That Separates Blood

Kids are already over fidget spinners after adults rapidly made them uncool, but a team of scientists in Taiwan has found a nifty way to repurpose these small toys. They turned them into inexpensive centrifuges that could allow health workers in impoverished areas to carry out certain blood tests with ease. Centrifuges are used to…

Health Ed Cara Jan 24

How a Periodic Table of Brains Could Revolutionize Neuroscience

Between your ears sits perhaps the most complex piece of biological machinery on the planet: an all-in-one computer, simulator, and creation device that operates out of a squishy, folded gray mass. And scientists aren’t quite sure how it works. Gül Dölen, assistant professor of neuroscience at the Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins, thinks that neuroscientists…

Science Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 24

People in Red and Blue States May Use Weed Very Differently—and Not Just Due to Legalization

A U.S. state’s politics could be influencing how people use cannabis, suggests a new study out Wednesday from Columbia University. It found that liberal states had higher rates of pot use than conservative states, but conservative states had higher rates of harmful, addictive use. These differences could be seen among certain age groups whether a…

Health Ed Cara Jan 23

CDC Warns Against Kissing, Snuggling Pet Hedgehogs Amid Salmonella Outbreak

Wake Up, Oppy! NASA Sends New Commands to Mars Opportunity Rover

Researchers Create the Noise-Cancelling, Snore-Silencing Pillow of Your Partner’s Dreams

New Horizons Transmits Incredibly Clear Picture of MU69

Opioid Expert Accuses FDA of ‘Willful Blindness’ After It Approves Powerful New Painkiller

AI Finds Traces of a Lost Species in Human DNA

Scientists Figured Out How to Send Secret Messages to Your Ear With Lasers

Apollo Astronauts May Have Brought a Piece of Ancient Earth Back From the Moon

Lead Exposure Could Be Making Mockingbirds More Aggressive

The E-Scooter Craze Is Sending Lots of People to the ER, Often With Head Injuries

Orbital Sculpture Stays Flaccid Due to Government Shutdown

How Australia’s Deadliest Fires Made Thousands of Students Fall Behind

Even Adults Sleep Better After Being Rocked to Sleep

Woman Sues NASA for Allegedly Damaging Her Precious Apollo 11 Lunar Sample Bag

Scientists Try to Recreate Freakishly Tall ‘Rogue’ Waves in the Lab

Record-Setting Ice Hole Drilled in Antarctica

Complete Axolotl Genome Could Pave the Way Toward Human Tissue Regeneration

Scientists Turned a Regular Fidget Spinner Into a Centrifuge That Separates Blood

How a Periodic Table of Brains Could Revolutionize Neuroscience

People in Red and Blue States May Use Weed Very Differently—and Not Just Due to Legalization

Ryan Coogler Is Shifting ‘Animorphs’ Into a Disney+ Show

No Fooling, ‘Spaceballs 2’ Will Hit Theaters April 2027

I Regret to Inform You That the Artemis II Astronauts Are Having Lots of Screen Time

The First ‘Maul: Shadow Lord’ Reactions Are Most Solid

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 3 Is Doing What You Hoped

Wearables Are Getting Very Messy

Trump Wants to Start Privatizing TSA in Latest Budget Proposal

Lost Warship From Battle of Copenhagen Found After 225 Years

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

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