Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

— Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law

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Updated: 21 hours 7 min ago

A new study says homing pigeon livers act like compasses. Other experts aren’t so sure

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 2:00pm

How animals use Earth’s magnetic field to navigate is one of biology’s biggest unsolved mysteries. This study proposes a totally new source for the sixth sense

Categories: Astronomy

San Antonio Spurs star ‘Wemby’ is rocking the NBA playoffs. Science can help explain why

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 1:00pm

Wemby’s height gives him an advantage in blocking and rebounding, but how does the tallest player in the NBA keep hitting all those threes?

Categories: Astronomy

Back-to-back chemical accidents raise alarm over EPA push to reduce oversight

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 1:00pm

A near-miss incident and a deadly chemical accident in a single week have affected thousands and drawn scrutiny to federal rules around risk management at chemical plants

Categories: Astronomy

Kamala Sohonie: The biochemist who wanted to feed a nation

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 12:00pm

Biochemist Kamala Baghvat, later known as Kamala Sohonie, forced open the doors of India’s male-only laboratories and used her knowledge to help feed a nation

Categories: Astronomy

Are the roots of consciousness hidden in the ancient deep brain?

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 11:00am

Some neuroscientists argue that the roots of experience lie deep inside the brain. If they’re right, the consciousness club will get a lot bigger

Categories: Astronomy

Trump plan to give start-ups plutonium harvested from Cold War–era nuclear weapons is risky, experts say

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 10:30am

Weapons-grade plutonium can fuel nuclear reactors known as mixed oxide reactors, but none of these exist in the U.S.

Categories: Astronomy

The ‘age of gravitational astronomy’ is here

Thu, 05/28/2026 - 5:00am

A record-setting collection of precisely measured gravitational waves reveals new information about how black holes behave and evolve

Categories: Astronomy

A quantum computing system’s perfect randomness could keep your secrets safe

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 3:00pm

Generating and confirming the randomness of qubits could lead to breakthroughs in computer data encryption

Categories: Astronomy

The secret to immortality might be a sea cucumber

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 2:00pm

The discarded fragments of this creature apparently refuse to die, leading researchers to claim immortality

Categories: Astronomy

NASA’s Jared Isaacman unveiled the first moon base rovers and landers

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 12:30pm

At an event at NASA Headquarters, space agency officials unveiled the first rovers and landers headed to the future site of its planned lunar south pole outpost

Categories: Astronomy

‘Universal’ aging clocks offer new clues to longevity

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 12:30pm

A new study could help identify promising treatments to extend the human lifespan, researchers say

Categories: Astronomy

Gigantic ‘little red dot’ threatens to upend cosmic history

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 11:00am

Debate still swirls around the nature of “little red dots,” black holes glimpsed in the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope. A controversial new weigh-in may settle the matter

Categories: Astronomy

Tiny quantum computers could help create giant telescopes

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 8:00am

Advances in quantum technology might allow astronomers to circumvent age-old issues that limit the size of optical observatories

Categories: Astronomy

Iran threats expose the aging fleet that repairs undersea Internet cables

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 7:00am

A small, aging fleet repairs the fiber-optic cables that carry data around the globe, and conflict zones can slow that work to a crawl

Categories: Astronomy

This sci-fi novel asks—can what you will never know kill you?

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 7:00am

There Is No Antimemetics Division explores how to survive when memories and meaning are malleable

Categories: Astronomy

How doctors will handle abortions if mifepristone telehealth access is banned

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 6:30am

One in four abortions in the U.S. rely on telehealth access to mifepristone, but antiabortion activists want to ban it

Categories: Astronomy

Are humans really selfish? Rewriting the rules of civilization

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 6:00am

Author Jeremy Lent argues that human society runs on a flawed, exploitative worldview—and that embracing interconnectedness could enable a more sustainable future

Categories: Astronomy

Anthropic asks religious thinkers to help shape Claude as pope warns about AI

Tue, 05/26/2026 - 3:00pm

Anthropic has been consulting theologians and ethicists on Claude’s behavior, raising questions about who gets to shape a chatbot’s values

Categories: Astronomy

How the mathematician Gödel proved that not everything can be proven

Tue, 05/26/2026 - 2:00pm

A statement can be true or false. But as Kurt Gödel demonstrated, there will always be mathematical assumptions that can neither be proven nor disproven

Categories: Astronomy

Why a ‘heat dome’ over Europe is shattering temperature records right now

Tue, 05/26/2026 - 1:15pm

Western Europe is essentially trapped in the weather equivalent of a Dutch oven, a situation that one scientist said has “the fingerprints of climate change all over it”

Categories: Astronomy