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Science
Physics, climate, planetary science, and the research that shapes how we understand the universe and our place in it.
Before JWST began science operations, a dust-sized particle struck one segment of its 6.5-metre mirror at hypervelocity and left an uncorrectable deformation — damage revealed because Webb can detect nanometre-scale changes in its own optical surface.
The mimic octopus off Indonesia can transform itself into a flatfish, lionfish or banded sea snake — and researchers have even watched it switch into the form of a predator of the fish attacking it, suggesting the disguise can change with the threat
Researchers modelled the micrometeoroid threat to an Artemis-era Moon base and found an ISS-sized outpost could be struck up to 23,000 times a year, with the fastest particles arriving at 72 kilometres per second — yet modern shielding should stop 99.9997 per cent of them.
Radio telescopes have accumulated petabytes of observations originally used to map galaxies and black holes—but no one had searched those archives minute by minute for activity from every star in view. In 2026, a new algorithm reprocessed 1.4 years of LOFAR data and uncovered eight faint bursts from low-mass stars that conventional images had missed, including signals potentially produced by magnetic interactions with orbiting planets.
Two surveys produced a striking divide: 58.2% of astrobiologists said intelligent extraterrestrial life probably exists, while 95% of a self-selected sample of highly educated, scientifically engaged adults believed the same—the experts were substantially more cautious than the online respondents.
The ocean looks like one vast sunlit body of water, but below about 600 feet there is too little light for photosynthesis, and below 3,300 feet sunlight disappears entirely—leaving much of Earth’s surface in permanent darkness.
A fifth-grader in Kansas City clicked ball-and-stick atoms together in science class and asked her teacher if she'd made a real molecule — he photographed it, sent it to a chemistry professor, and at ten years old she became co-author of a published paper on a structure nobody had ever described
The first man-made object recovered from orbit came down in the Pacific instead of being caught in mid-air, and by the time the capsule reached Honolulu the Navy had painted "Compliments of the US Navy" on the shipping can
In 1981 Pablo Escobar flew four hippos into his private zoo north of Medellín; the estate was seized, the hippos were left because nobody knew how to move them, and the last government census put their descendants in the Magdalena basin at around 200
At the Cape Canaveral power plant, a single winter count found 585 manatees packed into its warm-water discharge, because prolonged exposure below 68°F can kill a tropical mammal and a cooling system built to dump waste heat has become the artificial spring it returns to
