Hard Science

Astronauts aren’t floating in space, they’re free falling—and so are you. Here’s the amazing science behind so-called zero gravity.

Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, founders of the popular blog, have landed at ORBITER.

The quest for the cause of the cosmos is an ancient quest. Neil Turok offers a fascinating new theory.

Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest scientific and analytical minds of our time, says NASA’s Michelle Thaller.

Think getting along with people that are nothing like you is hard? Here’s how astronauts do it, 254 miles above Earth on the ISS.

Podcast host Robert Wright’s lively conversation with the Harvard psychologist.

Spirituality plays a different ballgame than science, so the language used in either of them doesn’t often match up to the other side. This, says religious teacher Rob Bell, creates a lot of conflicts.

Is the world actually flat? Let’s ask someone who has some actual perspective on the subject… from space.

Sending a tiny spaceship to the nearest habitable planet at 20% of the speed of light? No problem, says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.

What can cause a ripple in both space and time? Neutron stars colliding. And what can observe that phenomenon? A two-mile-long laser.

Miles away from the site of the site of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea, eight teams raced skiing robots down a mountain for a chance to win $10,000.

Space is not the place to put waste, as it turns pretty much anything into a high-velocity projectile capable of causing incredible damage. 

Environmental concerns have caused some to opt-out of reproduction, both to help the planet and to protect their would-be children.

Need more astronomical phenomena in your life? We’ve got you covered. 

What if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?  

The bacteria C. metallidurans is able to take trace amounts of gold and copper and turn it into teeny tiny gold nuggets a few nanometers in size. 

A debate over the physics of time in an alleged “block universe.”

Singer-songwriter Ryan O’Neal composes the songs of the cosmos.

While millions catch a glimpse of a rare lunar event, NASA plans to shut down an orbiter whose purpose is to study the moon.

While the Patriots battle the Eagles during Super Bowl LII, asteroid AJ129 is flying pretty close to Earth, cosmically speaking. But how close exactly will it be, and should you be concerned? 

Measuring quantum gravity has proven extremely challenging, stymying some of the greatest minds in physics for generations.

Granted, genetic manipulation has been a dream for decades. Here’s what is different now.

Researchers find that an ancient chunk of North America is now a part of Australia, shedding light on Earth’s first supercontinent Nuna.

Scientists can now virtually reconstruction certain long-dead individuals, without the need for DNA samples from physical remains.

Global warming and climate change is already reshaping coastlines due to higher waters. Pretty soon our next big cities will have to be at sea. But how will they make sustainable food?

The thick sheets of ice at these eight sites could provide the reservoir of water necessary for human expeditions to Mars. 

You can watch the Cosmos marathon right now, for free!

Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real. 

Debunking the myth that Enlightenment-era pastors opposed modern science.

The fragility of digital memory could let the entire story of our time turn to sand.