Tag: popular science

This week, we’re sharing stories from Sam Biddle, Leah Sottile, Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, Megan I. Gannon, and Justin Brake.

This week, we’re sharing stories from Ben Blum, Reeves Wiedeman, Mizuho Aoki, Amy Wright, and Sarah Scoles.

When we all eventually move to Mars, we’re going to need to know how to grow our own veggies. NASA’s working on the science of farming in space.

People are building rockets to propel themselves miles high so they can look down and confirm the disk-shaped flatness of our planet.

This week, we’re sharing stories from Mark Arax, David Grann, Stephanie Nolen, Eleanor Cummins, and David Marchese.

A father and daughter tour landmarks in the early history of modern plastic and assess the toxic legacy of petrochemistry.

A climate change feature at New York Magazine leads a scientist to take on its extraordinary claims.

When we think about futurism, more often than not it’s robots and hoverboards that spring into our minds.

An Italian inventor may have created a machine that can generate so much cheap energy, it would put oil companies out of business. Or it all may be a spectacular scam: On the last day of the conference, Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at Langley Research Center, summed up the state of LENR research. Guys like […]

Excerpt from the new book Spillover, on understanding the threat of RNA viruses like Marburg, Ebola, West Nile and SARS—and how humans can help contain them: During the early 20th century, disease scientists from the Rockefeller Foundation and other institutions conceived the ambitious goal of eradicating some infectious diseases entirely. They tried hard with yellow […]

Life on the job with a team of nuclear divers. As nuclear power plants age, they require more upkeep—and much of that work can happen underwater: Last March, a tsunami hit Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to a disastrous series of reactor meltdowns. The consequences were immediate. Germany vowed to phase out nuclear […]

For years, doctors attempted to create artificial hearts that mimicked the real heart—using methods that recreate blood pumping. Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier instead developed a continuous-flow device that has worked on calves and some humans, including patient Rahel Elmer Reger: The little quilted backpack held two lithium-ion batteries and the HeartMate II’s computerized controller, […]

What happens when your teenage son is obsessed with nuclear research and wants to experiment in the backyard? How 17-year-old Taylor Wilson found support from his family and a group of scientist mentors: Kenneth and Tiffany agreed to let Taylor assemble a “survey of everyday radioactive materials” for his school’s science fair. Kenneth borrowed a […]

“This should have been Felisa Wolfe-Simon’s moment in the sun. But within days, researchers began to question Wolfe-Simon’s methodology and conclusions. Many of them cast aside traditions of measured commentary in peer reviewed periodicals and voiced their criticism directly on blogs and Twitter. Then, as the conflict spilled into the mainstream, the scientific community witnessed […]