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Science / Technology & Space

Christopher Vo, a roboticist at George Mason University and drone technology educator, teaches everyday users how to build and fly drones like this one.

Future Is Here Festival

What Would You Do With A Drone?

As the potential drone applications grow, so does the build-your-own drone movement

Left, a golden record (© Nasa/National Geographic Society/Corbis) Right, the other side of the golden record shows directions to play it. Identical records carrying the story of Earth were sent into deep space on Voyager 1 and 2.

Future Is Here Festival

The Golden Record 2.0 Will Crowdsource A Selfie of Human Culture

Inspired by a similar effort in the 1970s, the project wants your help in creating a portrait of humanity to send out of the solar system

A common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) stretches out on a reef environment beneath the sea.

Why Don’t Octopus Suckers Stick To Their Own Skin?

A chemical excreted by octopus skin tells their severed arms, “Don’t grab me or eat me!”

Think Big

Watch the Universe Evolve Over 13 Billion Years

A new computer simulation, called Illustris, can take you on an epic journey through space and time

When a sodium-filled model of the Earth’s outer core spins at full speed, it could generate a dynamo.

What Will Happen When the Earth’s Magnetic Field Begins to Reverse?

On the University of Maryland campus, a giant whirligig tries to predict the planet’s next big flip

An artist's rendering of Kepler-34b, an exoplanet believed to orbit two stars.

Life in the Cosmos

How Do Astronomers Actually Find Exoplanets?

A handful of ingenious methods have been used to detect the planets too far away for us to see

An artist's rendering of the Big Bang.

New Research

A New Cosmic Discovery Could Be The Closest We’ve Come to the Beginning of Time

Scientists detect the signature of gravitational waves generated in the first moments of the Big Bang

Jupiter's moon Europa, potentially home to a liquid water ocean, is considered one of the likeliest locales for extraterrestrial life.

Life in the Cosmos

Where in the Solar System Are We Most Likely to Find Life?

A number of interplanetary destinations could harbor extraterrestrial life—finding it could be just a space mission away

The traditional geographic coordinate system identifies locations on the globe with a pair of long numbers. what3words proposes using language instead.

A Plan To Replace Geographic Coordinates on Earth With Unique Strings of Three Words

The startup what3words wants to change the way we talk about locations

Dr. Woosuk Bang, a Ph.D. candidate at the time of this photograph, prepares his doctoral thesis experiment on the Texas Petawatt laser. Earlier experiments with terawatt class lasers proved that clusters of gaseous molecules could be converted into ion energy. Dr. Bang's experiment, among the first to be conducted with the Texas Petawatt, created an ion plasma of sufficient temperature and density to catalyze neutron fusion reactions.

Art Meets Science

Adventures In Laser Science

A photo series by Austin-based photographer Robert Shults casts physicists and their everyday life in the lab in a sci-fi B-movie light

A mother right whale and her calf.

New Research

Satellites Spot Whales From Space

This new method could help researchers remotely count and keep track of whale populations

A new, ultra thin circuit, shown embedded on a contact lens placed on a prosthetic eye.

This Clear, Flexible Electronic Circuit Can Fit on the Surface of a Contact Lens

The technology could someday be used in implantable medical devices or environmental sensors

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The Coolest Science of 2013, in GIFs

This year, we saw dissolving electronics, flying meteors, gravity-defying chains and rotting pineapples

The Vast Majority of Raw Data From Old Scientific Studies May Now Be Missing

A new survey of 20-year-old studies shows that poor archives and inaccessible authors make 90 percent of raw data impossible to find

Frozen seafood in the lab, ready for DNA testing.

The DNA Detectives That Reveal What Seafood You’re Really Eating

Genetic sequencing allows scientists to uncover increasingly prevalent seafood fraud

A closeup of one of the rocks, with a patch of dust brushed away by Curiosity's instruments, that provides evidence of an ancient lake.

Curiosity Found Evidence of An Ancient Freshwater Lake on Mars

Drilling into Martian rock revealed that it formed at the bottom of a calm lake that may have had the right conditions for sustaining life

One of the ancient human fossils found in Spain's La Sima de los Huesos.

Scientists Just Sequenced the DNA From A 400,000-Year-Old Early Human

The fossil, found in Spain, is mysteriously related to an ancient group of homonins called the Denisovans, previously found only in Siberia

A row of servers, housed in an Iceland data center.

Is the Future of the Internet in Iceland?

With free air cooling and 100 percent renewable electricity, does it make sense to outsource our data to Iceland?

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The Brilliance Behind the Plan to Land Curiosity on Mars

Adam Steltzner’s ingenious ideas were crucial to the most spectacular space mission of our time

Soon this field in inner-city Detroit could be lined with maple trees.

Can Planting Gardens and Orchards Really Save Dying Cities?

Urban planners sure hope so, particularly in places like Detroit where a company plans to start filling abandoned lots with small forests

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