Science & Engineering
A Bohemian prince's hunting trophy became an unstoppable ecological invasion
An aristocrat's hunting trophy became an ecological invasion that no trap line has ever stopped.
Universe
Mercury is closest to Earth, not Venus, when you do the math right
The planet we think is closest to Earth isn't—and neither is any other planet what it seems when you average the numbers correctly.
Science & Engineering
Alligators Keep a 70-Year Record of Nuclear Contamination in Their Blood
Decades after the reactors shut down, alligators became the most reliable measure of what remains hidden in the water.
Universe
Kepler found 2,600 worlds by staring at the same stars for four years
By refusing to look away, a space telescope discovered that planets are commonplace, not rare exceptions to the cosmic rule.
Science & Engineering
Teenager's 3D-printed experiment survived NASA rocket launch
Rifath Sharook's 64-gram, 3D-printed student experiment was one of more than 80 Cubes in Space payloads flown on a NASA sounding rocket in 2017.
Science & Engineering
Extinct bird's unlikely refuge: a sealed Staten Island landfill
A vanished bird finds refuge in the one place New York didn't think to develop: a sealed landfill where trash buried under plastic has accidentally preserved the grassland it needs to survive.
Science & Engineering
14-year-old becomes youngest to achieve nuclear fusion in basement lab
When an elite physicist's refusal only delayed the inevitable, a teenager's obsession with nuclear fusion would rewrite what's possible in a basement laboratory.
Science & Engineering
Lambs thrived under solar panels despite 38 percent less grass
Shade-grown pasture produced less herbage but higher-quality forage, supporting lamb growth rates that were statistically comparable with those in the open field.
Science & Engineering
Peregrine falcons traded cliffs for smokestacks at Wisconsin power plants
When cliffs disappeared, power plants became the most reliable real estate for one of nature's fastest predators to raise its young.
Universe
Earth's shadow will turn the Moon copper over the Americas in 2026
A rare celestial event will transform the night sky above the Americas as Earth positions itself between the Sun and Moon, casting our planet's shadow across 96 percent of the lunar surface.
Science & Engineering
Killer whale revives salmon-balancing trick after 37 years of silence
A whale that last balanced prey on its head in 1987 has suddenly revived the trick, raising an unsettling question: what else do orcas remember across decades of silence?
Science & Engineering
Pressure drop, not turbine blades, kills salmon passing through hydroelectric dams
The real killer inside hydroelectric dams isn't the spinning blades—it's physics: the sudden pressure drop forces fish swim bladders to rupture and sends fatal gas bubbles into their gills.
Science & Engineering
Wind turbines kill bats by crushing their lungs with pressure waves alone
Wind turbines are killing bats with invisible wounds, crushing their lungs from the inside with pressure waves alone.
Science & Engineering
Solar site survey missed nearly 1,000 desert tortoises, one tracked to eagle nest
When surveyors predicted 32 desert tortoises at a massive solar site, they missed nearly 1,000—and a microchipped juvenile that ended up in an eagle's nest.
Space & Missions
US Army radio crew bounced signal off Moon in 1946, eleven years before Sputnik
The Cold War space race didn't start with Sputnik—it began with a whisper bouncing off the Moon.
Science & Engineering
Melting glacier reveals 5,300-year-old murder that remains unsolved today
A prehistoric man's violent death, preserved in ice for five millennia, remains unsolved—and the mystery deepens with every scientific revelation.