The polar vortex has just been disrupted. What does this bode?
The stratosphere is a powerful place. Perhaps the most influential guitar ever devised is even named after this lofty layer in the atmosphere, which exists between some 10 to 30…
3 surprising drugs being repurposed to fight COVID-19
It’s been a year since the first case of COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan, China, and in that time, we’ve gone from not even having a name for the disease…
4 stellar new features to check out in the NASA app
The NASA app has always been a solid scientific resource for armchair astronauts, but some recent updates have taken it from educational to sensational. This is in part due to…
Photos surface of a beautifully preserved ancient Roman fast food stand in Pompeii
One of the 2020 holiday season’s most surprising holiday gifts is an unexpected glimpse into the past. Archaeologists working to uncover ancient Rome’s lost city of Pompeii made a stunning…
Samples from Ryugu asteroid revealed after delivery to Earth
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed off a collection of samples from the asteroid Ryugu on Thursday following the return of the Hayabusa2 probe. The curation work for the…
8 history-making space stories of 2020
It’s been a hard year on Earth. But despite a global pandemic, scientists made huge strides in understanding the universe beyond our planet. They detected far-off signals, launched astronauts into…
Tiny origami robot unfolds to perform microscopic surgeries
Developed by researchers at WYSS Institute, Harvard SEAS, and Sony, the mini-RCM is a small surgical robot that could help surgeons perform delicate teleoperated procedures. The robot uses the Pop-up…
NASA digs deep into the archives for a peaceful view of Earth from half a century ago
On Dec. 27, 1968, two days after Christmas in one of the USA’s worst years on record, the astronauts aboard Apollo 8 returned home after almost a week in space.…
The world’s most suspenseful iceberg is breaking apart
Crack. Crack. Crack. Last week, iceberg A-68a was larger than Rhode Island. By Dec. 23, satellite footage showed the berg had broken apart into several (though still massive) chunks of…
The deep sea discoveries of 2020 are stunning
This spring, in a canyon over 2,000 feet beneath the Indian Ocean surface, a robot happened upon a fantastical, coiled creature. This siphonophore, found laying like loosely piled rope on…