Physicists have many delightful theories about how our universe might end, including one that suggests it isn’t in its most stable state. If it transitions to that state, we could all be squelch

I’ve lived in Portland, Oregon, for nearly seven years, and I’ve been part of dozens of discussions—whether at bars or book clubs—regarding the “Big One,” the much-

Pigs are mammals. That means they have teats that produce milk for their piglets. But of all the different types of milk we humans drink and use in cooking, pig's milk is not one of them. There are se

For four decades, the United States has run one of the most profitable trades in the world economy, and almost no one calls it by its name. It imports young people that the global labor market has und

How and where life first emerged on Earth is one of the great unsolved puzzles for scientists exploring the possibility of life on other worlds. For the past decade or so, the prevailing theory has be

It is that time of year again, when the Twitter crowd erupts about “Who is going to win the Nobel Prize this year?” Unfortunately, there seems to be a real disconnect between the process,

Are you proud of your chin? You should be. In fact, give it an appreciative rub right now, or admire it in the mirror: That bony protuberance jutting out past your teeth is a trait that distinguishes

Pharaoh ants are very small and light in colour. You can see them, but they quickly disappear into a crack in the wall or under a shirt collar in your closet. They can establish a colony anywhere indo

Much of the public is unaware of the gradual transformation of space activity from a purely governmental arena to a commercial industry—or mistakenly assumes that this change arrived only with S

Ghost poops'. They haunt the U-bends of our toilets and spook us into thinking we haven't gone number two yet. But are these phantom feces a sinister sign? In some cases, they may actually be a good t

An image of the Shark Nebula (see below), which is some 650 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus, has been crowned the overall winner of this year’s ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Ye

Throughout the summer of 2026, there were plenty of signs of what was to come. Every week, it seemed, artificial intelligence models were offering proofs of decades-old mathematical conjectures. So wh

One of the things that gives the Fermi paradox its punch is the age of the galaxy. Back in 1950 when Fermi uttered his famous ‘Where is everybody?’ question, ideas about how old the Milky

Sobriety is becoming cool. Gen Z, in particular, is less likely to drink than generations before them. Drinking rates among US adults under the age of 34 have fallen by 10 percentage points over the l

Charles Darwin—a man who is usually pictured sporting sideburns or a massive beard—famously suggested that male facial hair is like a peacock’s tail, “an ornament to charm or e

We can often understand more about the future by looking into the past – and in the case of a new study published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, almost 240,000 years into the history

Humans have a cognitive quirk for the number three. Think of the many stories that use it, from The Three Little Pigs to Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Musketeers. Public information and

Twenty meters beneath a lake in northern Germany, archaeologists have found wood cut, split and shaped by people more than 10,000 years ago. Normally, wood this old would have vanished thousands of ye

It would shock you to know that Costco, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health methodology, caused 120,687 cases of cancer mortality nationally every year, simply due to living in close pr

A bizarre neutrino that crashed into Earth in February 2023 is gaining no shortage of equally bizarre explanations. About 35 times more energetic than any neutrino seen before, it was picked up by the

Pompeii is a tale that you’ve probably heard before. It’s one of the most famous from the ancient Roman world: a deadly volcanic eruption that destroyed an entire city – now an eerie

In the aftermath of the death of Jason Arday, there has been considerable reporting on the network of white supremacists who support the views of the people who, apparently motivated by racial animus,

A paper that called into question many central data linking carbon dioxide to the rapidly warming climate has been retracted for “significant concerns,” including “unsupported conclu

There is a superstition that has seeped into many aspects of our world in ways most of us are not aware of. It bends the greatest banks to its idiosyncrasies. It hollows out towering buildings, donati

My mom has always been my biggest cheerleader. During the pandemic, I didn’t see her for many months, and I missed her. When she was able to travel, she braved a long cross-country trip to spend

Next week, the Nobel Prizes will raise a handful of scientists to global, if fleeting, fame. Since the Nobels were first presented in 1901, the physics prize has honored advances ranging from the disc

Empiricists believe that scientific theories are true only if they make correct empirical predictions: if we can't verify these predictions, then there is no reason to expect that they tell us anythin

Faced with quadratic equations, Richard Scott couldn’t resist the temptation. The Pennsylvania eighth-grader knew that the Google search box on his school laptop was essentially an AI chatbot th

One of the most urgent questions facing society today is the potential impact of AI on education and labor markets. So it’s no surprise that two scientists attempted to provide an answer, produc

The execution team went through at least seven needles trying to find a vein suitable for delivering doses of a lethal drug to Tennessee inmate Christa Pike, her lawyers said on Thursday. Ms. Pike, wh

According to historians, the Manhattan Project began as a response to Nazi Germany’s perceived lead in nuclear technology. While their reactor never really took off, scholars are divided as to h

William came to me for a third opinion. He was 53 and healthy, with a wife and two teenage children, a busy job, and a typically hectic work-and-family schedule. He’d taken time to do the right

If you're trying to improve your heart health, cholesterol is one of the biggest buzzwords you will likely hear. It is written on food labels, discussed on social media, and you may even have spoken t

Isaac Newton suspected that the gravitational dance between the Sun and Jupiter would eventually destabilize the solar system, but modern computational research has shown that its long-term stability

The ‘Godzilla’ of weight-loss drugs could help improve blood sugar levels, reduce inflammation and cut a person’s body weight by a quarter, according to the largest study of its kind

The physicist Antony Valentini recently argued in IAI News that quantum mechanics is a straightforward—though incomplete—description of material reality. Today, philosopher and former Dire

Southern California communities such as Malibu, Long Beach, and San Clemente are watching their beaches disappear. In recent years, rising sea levels have swallowed huge chunks of the coastline, threa

If your morning routine rotates around the moment your lips first brush against the soft froth of a flat white, well... ahem... you’re probably over-romanticising your relationship with coffee.

Cancer may seem like an inevitable part of life, but there are so many factors that can help reduce your risk. When we think about reducing cancer risk, we usually think of lifestyle factors: smoking,

The textbooks and history lessons tend to treat the Black Death as one devastating wave of pestilence that hit Europe between 1347 and 1353. However, the full story of the disease goes on for many cen

For two decades, largely in service to the International Space Station, NASA has sought to foster an “economy” in low-Earth orbit. Twenty years ago, with a program to develop private space

The 2026-27 El Niño is on track to be the strongest event in the instrumental record. The latest (September 2026) runs of the 14 seasonal forecast models that I track over at the Climate Dashbo

The infamous Carrington Event of 1859 has long been considered the first extreme space weather event, but there have been reports of minor disturbances to telegraph equipment during geomagnetic storms

On the morning of 20 November 1820, 15-year-old Thomas Nickerson had just escaped from one whale punching a hole in the side of his boat. Rowing quickly back to the main whaling ship as the boat took

The internet loves an underdog story, especially when the underdog is an actual dog going up against a bear. Last week, a French bulldog named Cassie made headlines for engaging with a bear that attac

A study in Finland measured heating capacity and resilience to temperature changes of breasts of nursing women, non-nursing women, and men. Results showed that breastfeeding women had overall higher b

The late Ronald Graham wore two hats. He was a renowned mathematician, at one time president of the American Mathematical Society. He was also a serious juggler, and president of the International Jug

On a spring day last year, Andrew Willoughby drove three and a half hours to a cheap motel in Nags Head, N.C. From the parking lot, he texted a stranger he had met online. Julia Van Etten appeared, us

Nearly 2 million years ago, a leopard in Africa sank its teeth into the face of an early human. This bite etched tiny tooth marks into the unlucky person’s jawbone. That bone now speaks to a chi