Science

The World’s Largest King Penguin Colony Is Catastrophically Shrinking—and We Don’t Know Why

The last time scientists visited Ile aux Cochons in 1982, an island that is part of an archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, the king penguin population was booming. Over 500,000 breeding pairs (around 2 million penguins total) huddled together there, making the island the largest king penguin colony in the world. But new research…

Biology Jessica Boddy Jul 31

Hong Kong Subway Study Shows How Quickly Bacteria Travel Across a City

If you’re one of the billions of people worldwide to use mass public transit regularly, you’re sharing a lot more than a commute with your fellow passengers, suggests a new study published Tuesday in Cell Reports. You’re also sharing and swapping the teeming microbes that call our bodies home. Researchers in Hong Kong—home to a…

Health Ed Cara Jul 31

This Solar System Catalog Could Be Key to Finding an Earth-Like Exoplanet

By searching for the telltale, periodic dimming of light from distant stars, astronomers can spot orbiting exoplanets tens to hundreds of light-years away. But how do they know what these bodies look like? Perhaps they first try to imagine how the planets in our own Solar System might appear to a faraway alien world. A…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 31

NASA’s TESS Spacecraft Has Begun Its Search for Faraway Planets

NASA’s newest exoplanet-hunting spacecraft has started taking scientific data as of last week, according to a NASA release. TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is a two-year-long mission tasked with surveying the skies for planets around other stars. After launching this past April and delivering an incredible first image of the sky, the real hunt has…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 30

Can You Get Sick From Air Conditioning?

At the peak of summer, when just walking to and from the corner store necessitates a shower and a change of clothes, air-conditioning can seem almost too good to be true. It is one of the few staples of modernity without severe and readily apparent downsides: all it does, or all it seems to do,…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz Jul 30

Arctic Cruise Line Staff Reportedly Shoot and Kill Polar Bear After Attack on Guard

Guards for Arctic cruise line passengers shot and killed a polar bear on the island of Spitsbergen in the remote Svalbard region of Norway, resulting in condemnation on social media and swift apologies from the tour operator. Per the Guardian, the Joint Rescue Coordination for Northern Norway tweeted that tourists on board the MS Bremen…

Biology Tom McKay Jul 29

California’s Devastating Carr Fire Is Now at Least 89,000 Acres, With Five Dead and More Missing

California’s devastating Carr Fire is now measured to have spread to over 89,000 acres on Sunday, resulting in at least five deaths, hundreds of destroyed structures, and severe damage to western parts of the city of Redding after it ravaged the nearby communities of Shasta and Keswick. Per SFGate, officials now say that the blaze…

Climate Change Tom McKay Jul 29

Supermassive Black Hole Stretches Starlight, Proving Einstein Right Again

Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is magnificent. For a hundred years, it has consistently predicted all sorts of wacky phenomena scientists have later observed throughout space. One international team is now announcing that a 26-year-long observation campaign has once again confirmed the theory. Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) watched…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 27

The ‘Scutoid’ Is Geometry’s Newest Shape, and It Could Be All Over Your Body

Scientists have just defined a new shape called the scutoid (SCOO-toid) while studying epithelial cells, the building blocks of embryos that eventually end up forming our skin and lining our organs and blood vessels. They think the scutoid shape is extremely efficient at keeping cells tightly-packed and organized in the literal twists and turns of…

Tech News Jessica Boddy Jul 27

Russian Scientists Claim to Have Resurrected 40,000-Year-Old Worms Buried in Ice

A team of Russian scientists is lining themselves up to be the opening cast of a John Carpenter film. Earlier this month, in the journal Doklady Biological Sciences, they announced they had discovered ancient nematode worms that were able to resurrect themselves after spending at least 32,000 years buried in permafrost. The discovery, if legitimate,…

Biology Ed Cara Jul 27

Mars and Saturn Are Looking Really Good in These New Hubble Pics

Mars is in opposition tonight, meaning it’s about as close and as bright as it’s going to get. To celebrate, Hubble has released new images of the dusty red planet, as well as of Saturn, which was in opposition last month. Opposition means the Sun, Earth, and Mars are lined up (and the Earth is…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 27

Here’s a Live Feed of the Century’s Longest Lunar Eclipse

The longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century will start today at 3:30 p.m. and last until 5:15 p.m. EST (12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. PST). The moon won’t rise in North America until after the eclipse is over, so no one in North America will be able to see it, except for some folks…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 27

More Snack Foods Likely to be Recalled Due to Possible Salmonella Contamination, FDA Warns

Late last week, certain lots of popular snack foods such as Ritz Cracker Sandwiches and Pepperidge Farm’s Goldfish crackers were recalled over concerns they might contain disease-causing Salmonella bacteria. But the worst may yet be to come. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration warned that more recalls of products traced to contaminated dry whey…

Health Ed Cara Jul 26

Congressional Committee Grills NASA and Northrop Grumman on James Webb Space Telescope Delays

The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has concluded two days of hearings focused on trying to understand how the James Webb Space Telescope—NASA’s flagship telescope project—could have gone from a 2007 planned launch with a $500 million budget to a 2021 launch with a $9.6 billion budget. The discussion was mostly subdued, with…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 26

Scientists Figured Out Why Our Mouths Heal So Freakishly Fast

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health think they’ve uncovered just why the mouth heals so easily. Their findings, published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, might even help us discover how to make the rest of our body heal quicker, too. And all they had to do was (slightly) hurt some innocent people. Hoping to…

Health Ed Cara Jul 26

Hear the Aztec ‘Death Whistle’ That Mystified Scientists

In the 1990s, archeologists in Mexico City unearthed a 500-year-old skeleton near an ancient Aztec temple—a victim of human sacrifice. A grisly discovery, yes, but perhaps even more chilling was what the beheaded skeleton was holding: two small whistles, one in the shape of a skull. When a researcher blew into one of the tiny instruments,…

Tech News Rose Pastore Jul 26

23andMe Is Getting Lots of Money From Big Pharma and Sharing Your Genetic Data

23andMe customers might just play a role in helping create one of Big Pharma’s next blockbuster drugs. On Wednesday, the genetic testing company announced it was entering a partnership with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to develop new drugs and therapies. As part of the collaboration, the company will allow GSK to peek at the (voluntarily…

Privacy & Security Ed Cara Jul 26

Japanese Spacecraft Hayabusa2 Snaps Incredible Close-Up Image of Asteroid Ryugu

The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 has made some of its closest approaches to asteroid Ryugu yet, returning breathtaking images. Here you can see the an image of the asteroid from just six kilometers (3.72 miles) away. One pixel in the image is around 60 centimeters (1.9 feet). Here’s the full image: Hayabusa2 will eventually try to…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jul 26

Why Your SPF 15 Sunscreen Probably Isn’t Enough to Protect You From the Sun

Are you always careful to apply sunscreen before a day outdoors, but find yourself getting burned anyway? It might be due to your application technique. Dermatologists say that most people don’t put on a thick enough layer sunscreen, and new research—in which scientists put varying amounts of sunscreen on volunteers’ butts—shows how those thin applications…

Health Jessica Boddy Jul 25

A Parasitic Disease Spread by Sandflies Is More Common in the U.S. Than Previously Thought

A disease spread by sandflies seen as an exotic nuisance in the U.S. might not be solely a traveler’s disease after all. A new study published Wednesday in JAMA Dermatology suggests that most American cases of leishmaniasis are actually spread by native bugs, not caught while traveling. And thanks to climate change, the parasitic illness…

Health Ed Cara Jul 25

The World’s Largest King Penguin Colony Is Catastrophically Shrinking—and We Don’t Know Why

Hong Kong Subway Study Shows How Quickly Bacteria Travel Across a City

This Solar System Catalog Could Be Key to Finding an Earth-Like Exoplanet

NASA’s TESS Spacecraft Has Begun Its Search for Faraway Planets

Can You Get Sick From Air Conditioning?

Arctic Cruise Line Staff Reportedly Shoot and Kill Polar Bear After Attack on Guard

California’s Devastating Carr Fire Is Now at Least 89,000 Acres, With Five Dead and More Missing

Supermassive Black Hole Stretches Starlight, Proving Einstein Right Again

The ‘Scutoid’ Is Geometry’s Newest Shape, and It Could Be All Over Your Body

Russian Scientists Claim to Have Resurrected 40,000-Year-Old Worms Buried in Ice

Mars and Saturn Are Looking Really Good in These New Hubble Pics

Here’s a Live Feed of the Century’s Longest Lunar Eclipse

More Snack Foods Likely to be Recalled Due to Possible Salmonella Contamination, FDA Warns

Congressional Committee Grills NASA and Northrop Grumman on James Webb Space Telescope Delays

Scientists Figured Out Why Our Mouths Heal So Freakishly Fast

Hear the Aztec ‘Death Whistle’ That Mystified Scientists

23andMe Is Getting Lots of Money From Big Pharma and Sharing Your Genetic Data

Japanese Spacecraft Hayabusa2 Snaps Incredible Close-Up Image of Asteroid Ryugu

Why Your SPF 15 Sunscreen Probably Isn’t Enough to Protect You From the Sun

A Parasitic Disease Spread by Sandflies Is More Common in the U.S. Than Previously Thought

Artemis 2 Day 6: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

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The Imperial Credits From the ‘Andor’ Aldhani Heist Are Up for Auction, Which We’re Sure Is Not a Commentary on Capitalism at All

Check Your Medicine Cabinet for These Eye Drop Bottles After Millions Recalled

Artemis 2 Astronauts’ Epic iPhone Photos Are All… Selfies?

OpenAI Releases Its Vague Vision for Reorganizing Society Around Superintelligence

Lego Is Getting Mark Hamill on the Phone to Sell You Its Smart Bricks

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