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Dr. Katie Mack explains what dark energy is and two ways it could one day destroy the universe.

Many contrarians dispute that cosmic inflation occurred. The evidence says otherwise.

Shoving platelet-rich plasma up your nose might restore your sense of smell after COVID. But whether it actually works still needs to be sniffed out.

Pain makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. What’s puzzling is why so many of us choose to seek out painful experiences.

To do more, it sometimes pays to do nothing at all.

The dream of zero resistance is closer than you may think. One of the biggest physical problems in modern society is resistance. Not political or social resistance, mind you, but electrical […]

It’s like radar, but with light. Distributed acoustic sensing — DAS — picks up tremors from volcanoes, quaking ice and deep-sea faults, as well as traffic rumbles and whale calls.

A study looks at how to use nuclear detonations to prevent asteroids from hitting Earth.

Yorkicystis lived during the “Cambrian explosion,” 539 million to 485 million years ago – hundreds of million years before the dinosaurs.

Each year in mid-August, Earth plows through the debris stream of an enormous comet, creating the Perseids. 2023’s show will be magnificent!

Even before the Big Bang, energetic radiation was always present. When it comes to the physical Universe, the notion of “nothing” may truly be possible only in theory, not in […]

If you think you know how an astronomical nova works, buckle up. You’re in for a ride like you never expected.

Its apples taste bad, but institutions all over the world want a descendant or clone of the tree, anyway.

And the one step we can take to show extraterrestrials we’re figuring it out. Every year, Earth’s meteor showers accomplish two important tasks. This composite photograph shows a large number of […]

Most male mammals have little or nothing to do with their kids. Why is our own species different?

Deep underwater, temperatures are close to freezing and the pressure is 1,000 times higher than at sea level.

Just 12 million light-years away, the galaxies Messier 81 and 82 offer a nearby preview of the Milky Way-Andromeda merger.

Coupled with 3D printing, biomining the Moon or Mars with microbes could sustain human colonies without constant re-supply from Earth.

If you can’t surpass it in a vacuum, try doing so in a medium instead. In our Universe, there are a few rules that everything must obey. Energy, momentum, and angular […]

The Standard Model of elementary particles has three nearly identical copies of particles: generations. And nobody knows why.

A few years ago, the first dark matter-free galaxies were announced, and then immediately disputed. Now, there are too many to ignore.

Is a proton fundamentally more ‘quarky’ or ‘gluey’ in nature? One question that every curious child winds up asking at some point or other is, “what are things made of?” Every […]

Scientists have discovered enzymes from several plastic-eating bacteria. So, why are our oceans still full of plastic pollution?

There’s a limit to how large planets can be, and it’s only about double the radius of Jupiter. At least, so far.

Massive objects like black holes, stars, and rogue planets routinely pass near our Solar System. An ensuing comet storm could destroy us.

From the present day all the way to less than 400 million years after the Big Bang, we’re seeing how the Universe grew up like never before.

The universe is only 13.8 billion years old, but we can see back 46.1 billion light-years. Here’s how the expanding universe does it.

One single plot of data embodies the most profound thing we know about the stars.

Humans who’ve lived through the same events often remember them differently. Could quantum physics be responsible?

A new technique for analyzing networks can tell who wields soft power.