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Science
Physics, climate, planetary science, and the research that shapes how we understand the universe and our place in it.
When archaeologists excavating a Han Dynasty tomb near Changsha in 1971 opened the innermost of four nested coffins, they found the body of a noblewoman named Xin Zhui — who had died roughly 2,140 years ago — so perfectly preserved that her skin was still soft, her joints still moved, and her stomach still contained 138 melon seeds from her last meal, making it the best-preserved human body ever recovered from the ancient world
We tend to think of Earth’s atmosphere as a vast protective shield, but astronauts looking back from the ISS see something far more fragile: a thin blue-green line, like the skin of an apple wrapped around a basketball, separating every living thing we know from the complete inhospitality of space.
Most cat owners I know assume their older cat is just slowing down with age — veterinary research suggests up to 92% of cats over ten have arthritis, and most are hiding it
In September 2025, NASA announced that a Perseverance sample from a Mars rock called Cheyava Falls contained one of the strongest potential biosignatures yet found on the planet: evidence of ancient water, organic carbon, and chemical reactions that could have supplied energy for microbes, all preserved in a dried-up river valley.
Scientists have directly observed less than 0.001 percent of the deep ocean floor — an area comparable to the state of Rhode Island — despite decades of exploration, according to a global dataset of 44,000 deep-sea dives compiled by the Ocean Discovery League
When Michel Siffre emerged from a lightless cave in 1962 after 63 days alone, he was stunned to learn the real date. Cut off from clocks, calendars, and sunlight, he believed it was only August 20 — nearly a month earlier than it really was. His sense of time had compressed so dramatically that two months underground had felt like little more than one.
China's high-speed rail network now stretches more than 50,000 kilometres across the country — longer than the combined high-speed rail networks of every other nation on Earth put together — and the entire system was built in roughly 17 years, beginning with a single line opened for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and now connects 33 of the country's 34 provincial-level divisions with trains running at routine commercial speeds of 350 kilometres per hour
The tomb chamber of China's first emperor has never been opened in the 2,200 years since his death in 210 BC — sealed beneath a 76-metre pyramid mound outside Xi'an, surrounded by 8,000 life-sized terracotta soldiers discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well, and described by ancient texts as containing rivers of mercury that modern soil readings around the mound have now quietly confirmed
Astronauts returning from spacewalks report that space carries a distinct smell of seared steak and hot metal that clings to their suits once they climb back inside
In 1977, a Hawaii guru named Chris Butler broke from the Hare Krishna movement and built a parallel sect whose members were instructed to enter politics under their own names
