Science

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Vaccine Vaccine Vaccine

There Are So Many Conspiracy Theories About Dolly Parton and Vaccines

Influential right-wing conspiracy theorists and MAGA-aligned pundits are falsely claiming that the Covid vaccine killed Dolly Parton, the vaccination advocate and philanthropist.

David Gilbert

Livestream AMA

Submit Your Questions: The Great Data Center Backlash

Tim Marchman, Maxwell Zeff, Molly Taft, and Hugo Lowell

Eyes on the Sky

How to See the Partial Lunar Eclipse and Blood Moon on August 27

Jorge Garay

Health

A Mutation Is Making It Easier for Drug-Resistant Malaria to Spread

New findings shed light on what’s making the parasite less treatable using the drug that’s considered a first line of defense.

Ritsuko Kawai

The US Just Recorded Its First 2 Measles Deaths This Year

The fatalities come amid declining vaccination rates and calls from President Donald Trump to split up the MMR vaccine.

Emily Mullin

Is Expensive Bottled Water Actually Better for You?

Luxury water can contain different minerals and taste noticeably different. But a remote source, alkaline pH, and high price do not necessarily mean better hydration.

Megan Tomos

Salmonella Is Everywhere

From granola to guacamole, a wide variety of foods have been recalled lately over salmonella risks. Experts say common-sense precautions go a long way.

Emily Mullin

Environment

How Rising Temperatures Likely Contributed to Nepal’s Deadly Flood

Climate change is causing glaciers to retreat and become less stable, upping the odds of catastrophic collapses.

Molly Taft

Border Wall Construction Threatens 6,000 Years of History on Private Lands

Archeologists are confronting an “unfathomable” loss as border wall construction is set to cut across ranches that are home to unique historical sites, many of which haven’t been fully studied.

Gabrielle Saulsbery

A One-Two Punch Has Atlantic Hurricane Season on the Ropes

El Niño coupled with Saharan dust is making this year’s hurricane season a dud. But there’s still potential for dangerous storms.

Dennis Mersereau

Puerto Rico Is Rationing Water. It Could’ve Avoided It by Harvesting Rainwater

The island could capture billions of gallons of water a year if it implemented systems to catch it as it falls from the sky.

Yessenia Funes

Climate

The Super El Niño Won’t Fix the West’s Water Crisis

“People have talked about the Colorado River crisis for decades—we’re now in it,” says one expert. “Everyone you talk to is like, ‘Shit, man.’”

Molly Taft

What Is El Niño, and What Does It Mean for Weather, Water, and the Global Economy?

This year’s El Niño is shaping up to be the strongest on record. Here’s what to expect.

Ritsuko Kawai

Spokane Shows What the New Era of Wildfires Looks Like

With rising temperatures and drier conditions, fires are more likely to explode. And with more people living next to forests, the results can be catastrophic.

Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

DeepMind Says Its AI Can Predict Hurricanes Earlier Than Everyone Else

Its WeatherNext model, which will be open-sourced, can accurately predict a storm’s track and intensity using lower-resolution weather data. Researchers don’t yet fully understand how it does this.

Victoria Turk

Energy

Data Centers Are Driving an Alarming Gas Power Expansion in the US

There’s no clearer sign of the data center boom than rampant gas projects that have been proposed or that are already under construction.

Molly Taft

Transistors Changed Everything. Here’s How They Work

How a tiny little electronic switch sparked the computer revolution.

Rhett Allain

Squeeze More Juice Out of Your Dead Batteries—Using Physics

How the joule thief circuit “steals” energy from seemingly depleted power cells.

Rhett Allain

The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty

A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.

Molly Taft

Space

NASA’s New Space Telescope Is Poised to Discover Hidden Facets of the Universe

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to discover as many as 200,000 new planets and reveal details about the elusive nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Jay Bennett

NASA Cancels Its Rescue Mission for the Aging Swift Telescope

The LINK probe was supposed to use robotic arms to capture Swift and lift it into a safe orbit. Problems with its control system forced NASA to call off the attempt.

Jorge Garay

The Galaxy’s Fastest Star Could Reveal the Secrets of a Supermassive Black Hole

S301 passes close to Sagittarius A*—so close that its orbit could reveal how the black hole’s rotation warps the spacetime around it.

Jorge Garay

Astronomers Discover the Existence of a Black Hole Star

An object observed by the James Webb Space Telescope lends credence to a strange explanation for the mysterious red spots in the early universe.

Jorge Garay

Physics and Math

Microsoft’s Quantum Chief Doesn’t Care That Scientists Don’t Believe His Results

Zulfi Alam thinks his team doesn’t need to “prove” they engineered a new state of matter in their bid to reinvent computing. Science would disagree.

Isabella Ward

What Is Entropy, Really?

Never mind the “heat death of the universe.” Entropy is just a bridge between two levels of reality.

Rhett Allain

Drive Slower, Save Money on Gas. Thanks, Physics!

Planning a Fourth of July getaway? Use less gas—and cut your emissions—by easing up on the pedal.

Rhett Allain

Venezuela’s Powerful Earthquakes Were a Rare ‘Seismic Doublet’

The country was hit hard by a pair of quakes that happened in quick succession and were likely driven by stress being transferred from one part of the fault that runs through the country to another.

Fernanda González

Biotech

Seedless Blackberries and Cherries That Grow on Bushes Vie to Be the Future of Food

Startups and Big Ag are using Crispr gene editing to create crops that taste better and grow on a hotter planet. But will they find a market?

Mike Grunwald

AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive

Mini human brains are being grown in labs all over the world. Soon, they could outthink neural networks.

Claire L. Evans

Scientists Used AI to Create 16 New Viruses

The use of AI systems to create viruses opens up new possibilities for combating bacterial resistance. It also raises concerns about the pace at which technology is outstripping regulation.

Fernanda González

Gene-Edited Puppies Will Melt Your Heart—but Won’t Trigger Your Allergies

A startup has created beagles without the gene that causes runny noses and watery eyes for allergy sufferers.

Emily Mullin

Psychology and Neuroscience

Big Tech Wants to Harvest Your Thoughts

Silicon Valley companies are already working on neurotechnology products that track your brain activity. The next privacy frontier might be the things you only think.

James Crawford

Study of Buddhist Monks Finds Meditation Alters Brain Activity

Meditation isn’t thinking about nothing. New research reinforces that it’s a mind-altering, dynamic state that promotes focus, learning, and well-being.

Javier Carbajal