Science

If you’re struggling to handle the long line of tabs open in your browser right now, you’re not alone. A small new study has found many people who browse the internet experience tab overload, saving articles to read later, leaving tasks as reminders, or burrowing down an internet hole until the stack of open web

DoD spokesman: Countries that conduct activities in space should share information about those activities, especially when they put people at risk. WASHINGTON — Less than two days after parts of an uncontrolled Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said allowing a large booster to free fall toward Earth is “irresponsible behavior.” “We

A symbiotic relationship between two marine lifeforms has just been discovered thriving at the bottom of the ocean, after disappearing from the fossil record for hundreds of millions of years. Scientists have found non-skeletal corals growing from the stalks of marine animals known as crinoids, or sea lilies, on the floor of the Pacific Ocean,

Quantum entanglement is the binding together of two particles or objects, even though they may be far apart – their respective properties are linked in a way that’s not possible under the rules of classical physics. It’s a weird phenomenon that Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance“, but its weirdness is what makes

IQ tests are widely used by educational and professional organizations to assess applicants. They are also the focus of psychological studies which seek to identify the many factors that influence intelligence. Like all tests, it seems reasonable to assume that you could improve your IQ score by practicing the test many times. Is it possible to improve

A large segment of a Chinese rocket re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated over the Indian Ocean on Sunday, the Chinese space agency said, following fevered speculation over where the 18-tonne object would come down. Officials in Beijing had said there was little risk from the freefalling segment of the Long March-5B rocket, which had

Mexico City, the most populous metropolis in North America, has sunk too low for us to save it, according to new research.  After centuries of water drainage from underground aquifers, the lake bed on which this city sits has grown increasingly dry, causing the clay sheets to compress and crack at a largely unstoppable rate.

Scientists have gotten one step closer to a quantum internet by creating the world’s first multinode quantum network.  Researchers at the QuTech research center in the Netherlands created the system, which is made up of three quantum nodes entangled by the spooky laws of quantum mechanics that govern subatomic particles. It is the first time that more than two

The United States is expected to play a supporting role in an international campaign to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from space. Through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, nations are coordinating efforts for space-based monitoring of air quality, greenhouse gases, the ozone layer and natural climate drivers like solar energy. China, Europe and Japan are

Using detailed fossil comparison techniques, scientists have been able to identify a giant new saber-toothed cat species, Machairodus lahayishupup, which would have prowled around the open spaces of North America between 5 and 9 million years ago. One of the biggest cats ever discovered, M. lahayishupup is estimated in this new study to have a

In a major milestone for quantum physics, thousands of molecules have been induced to share the same quantum state, dancing together in unison like one huge super molecule. This is a goal long-sought by physicists, who hope to harness complex quantum systems for technological applications – but getting a bunch of unruly molecules to work

The number of babies born in the United States took a hit last year, just like experts predicted it would. In 2020, according to initial government data, the national birth rate fell by a total of 4 percent – the largest annual decrease in 50 years. Obviously, most babies born last year were conceived before

The Pentagon has said it is tracking a chunk of a Chinese rocket that is expected to come back into the atmosphere in the coming days in an uncontrolled reentry. As of now, it does not know where the debris will land. The exact point where the rocket will enter the atmosphere will be known

River piracy, also known as stream capture, happens when melting glaciers divert the path of a river. Due to our warming planet, a major Alaskan river is under threat of being redirected in this way – stealing an essential source of water away from the ecosystems and people that rely on it. The threatened waterway is

In our efforts to rein in our overwhelming burden upon Earth’s living biosphere, every little thing adds up. Even the shape of pasta (of all things!) can make a difference in our consumption of resources. Which is why scientists have now created flat-packed pasta that’s more efficient to package and transport, but can then unfurl

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Starship prototype successfully carried out a brief suborbital flight May 5 after four previous vehicles were destroyed during or shortly after landing. The Starship SN15 vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site at 6:24 p.m. Eastern. The vehicle flew to an altitude of approximately 10 kilometers before descending

Our feline friends certainly wow us with their cleverness – they can fetch things, open doors, navigate seemingly impossible obstacles, and even understand basic instructions (when they feel like it, anyway). At other times, they can be hilariously silly. Any cat lover is familiar with their quirks, such as seemingly endless joy at knocking things

Scientists have discovered a new type of uranium that is the lightest ever known. The discovery could reveal more about a weird alpha particle that gets ejected from certain radioactive elements as they decay. The newfound uranium, called uranium-214, is an isotope, or a variant of the element, with 30 more neutrons than protons, one fewer neutron

It’s called Dunbar’s number: an influential and oft-repeated theory suggesting the average person can only maintain about 150 stable social relationships with other people. Proposed by British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar in the early 1990s, Dunbar’s number, extrapolated from research into primate brain sizes and their social groups, has since become a ubiquitous

There’s a lot we don’t understand about white dwarf stars, but one mystery may finally have a solution: how do some of these cosmic objects end up having insanely powerful magnetic fields? According to new calculations and modelling, these super-dense objects can have a magnetosphere-generating dynamo – but the strongest white dwarf magnetic fields, a

Lightning could be a much more important atmospheric cleanser than previously thought, according to a new analysis of historical measurements gathered from a storm-chasing airplane back in 2012 – data which were originally thought to be inaccurate. While some of the air-scrubbing qualities of lightning bolts are already well understood – in particular the creation

WASHINGTON — Former senator Bill Nelson formally became NASA’s 14th administrator in a short ceremony May 3. Vice President Kamala Harris gave the oath of office to Nelson at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington. Only a handful of guests and a media pool were in attendance, and the swearing-in ceremony was not broadcast

Updated 3:10 p.m. Eastern with NASA statement about stop-work order on HLS award to SpaceX. WASHINGTON — NASA should have revised its approach to the Human Landing System (HLS) program or withdrawn the solicitation entirely once it was clear the agency didn’t have the funding to support two companies, one of the losing bidders argues

Satellites are leading the charge in the battle against climate change, providing critical insights about Earth that can only be gained from space. But are they also contributing to the problem? Putting aside environmental impacts of the rockets that launch them to orbit, satellites inject a complex mix of chemicals into the atmosphere when their

Updated 7 a.m. Eastern after post-splashdown briefing. WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico May 2, returning four astronauts from a five-and-a-half-month stay on the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Resilience undocked from the station at 8:35 p.m. Eastern May 1. After departing the vicinity of

King: Without an adequate N3C system ‘none of the rest of it works’ WASHINGTON — The U.S. nuclear command, control and communications system that serves as the link between U.S. nuclear forces and presidential authority could be vulnerable to cyber attacks and needs upgrades, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) told reporters May 1. King, an independent

TAMPA, Fla. — The space market is at a watershed moment as private and public investments continue to surge. Boutique research and advisory firm Quilty Analytics recorded $5.7 billion in investments for the first quarter of 2021, a 356% increase from $1.2 billion in the same period last year. Growing investor appetite in the public

Updated 1:55 p.m. Eastern with Nelson statement. WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will put her “personal stamp” on the National Space Council as it takes on both existing and new priorities under the Biden administration. Senior administration officials, speaking on background in a call with reporters May 1, confirmed that the administration will retain

WASHINGTON — Raytheon received a $228 million contract to continue development of a ground system for Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center announced April 30. The contract is for work on the operational control system for the newest version of GPS 3 satellites made by Lockheed Martin. The

WASHINGTON — With four flights now complete, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter will transition from being strictly a technology demonstration to a test of its ability to work in cooperation with the Perseverance rover. Ingenuity performed its fourth flight April 30, staying aloft for 117 seconds. The helicopter flew to an altitude of 5 meters, then