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Innovations

Charlotte, an injured turtle, wears his custom-made, 3D-printed harness that helps him swim straight.

Sea Turtle With ‘Bubble Butt Syndrome’ Gets Another Chance at Floating Straight, Thanks to a 3D-Printed Harness

Named Charlotte, the animal was hit by a boat years ago, causing him to develop an affliction that traps air bubbles at the back of his shell

An illustration of the Parker Solar Probe approaching the sun

A NASA Spacecraft Will ‘Touch’ the Sun on Christmas Eve, Flying Closer to the Star Than Any Probe Before

The Parker Solar Probe will endure scorching temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit as it performs the closest solar flyby of any human-made object in history

James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, holding a soccer ball and a basket

On This Day in History

How a College Gym Teacher in Massachusetts Invented a New Sport to Keep His Students Entertained and Fit During the Frigid Winter

From a humble first game with peach baskets and a soccer ball on this day in 1891, basketball evolved quickly into one of the world’s most popular sports

The wasp species known as the "velvet ant" has a pattern of white and ultra-black coloration.

Meet the Brazilian Velvet Ant, a Rare ‘Ultra-Black’ Wasp That’s So Dark It Absorbs Almost All Visible Light

While the distinctive coloration is thought to be a warning to predators, it also has intriguing implications for designing man-made materials

Towana Looney's surgery at NYU Langone Health lasted seven hours and involved dozens of medical professionals.

An Alabama Woman Got a Gene-Edited Pig Kidney Transplant. Three Weeks Later, She Has ‘Never Felt Better’

On November 25, 53-year-old Towana Looney became just the third living person to receive a pig kidney in an experimental procedure

A solar flare erupts from the sun on June 20, 2013, seen at the left of the image.

Superflares Erupt From Sun-Like Stars Roughly Every 100 Years, a New Study Finds. Is Our Sun Overdue for a Massive Blast?

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections could cause serious damage to telecommunications systems, satellites and power grids here on Earth

A collection of Nokia mobile handsets, including unseen prototypes

If You’re Nostalgic for Nokia, See the Devices That Defined ’90s Cellphone Design in a New Online Archive

The iconic brand’s mobile phones were pop culture mainstays. Soon, a new online archive will bring together thousands of documents, early models and design concepts

DNA on Earth is built from sugars with a property known as right-handedness. Though left-handed sugars aren't used by any known life, scientists can create them—but now, researchers say they shouldn't.

Scientists Warn of an ‘Unprecedented Risk’ From Synthetic ‘Mirror Life,’ Built With a Reverse Version of Natural Proteins and Sugars

So-called mirror cells could rampage through our ecosystems, food supply and immune systems, experts say, potentially without existing barriers to protect against them

Lightning strikes over the countryside near Potsdam, Germany, on July 10, 2024, following a period of high temperatures.

Google Reveals New A.I. Model That Predicts Weather Better Than the Best Traditional Forecasts

Instead of crunching mathematical calculations, GenCast was trained on four decades of historical weather data to produce an array of 15-day forecasts

An illustration of the Westminster semaphore from the January 16, 1869, issue of the Illustrated Times

On This Day in History

Chaotic Traffic From Horse-Drawn Carriages Inspired the World’s First Traffic Lights

Initial reactions to the signal, installed in London on this day in 1868, were mixed. Then, a freak accident scrapped the project entirely after just a month

A photo of the 124th Army-Navy Game, which was held on December 9, 2023

On This Day in History

When Instant Replay Debuted During the Broadcast of a College Football Game in 1963, It Revolutionized the Way We Watch Sports

Piloting the new technology was a risky move in front of the national audience that watched the Army-Navy showdown on this day in 1963

Grazing cows produce more methane than feedlot cows because of the fiber content of the grass they consume.

Eating Seaweed Could Make Cows Less Gassy, Slashing Methane Emissions From Grazing by Nearly 40 Percent

A new study finds that feeding seaweed pellets to grazing beef cattle dramatically reduces their greenhouse gas emissions

Scientists created a spear using tar they produced from a makeshift hearth to test whether Neanderthals might have used similar methods to obtain tar.

New Research

A 65,000-Year-Old Hearth Reveals Evidence That Neanderthals Produced Tar for Stone Tools in Iberia

While Neanderthals have been found to create glue-like substances with other materials, this finding, if confirmed, would be the first sign of Neanderthals burning the rockrose plant to make tar

The yellow powder is a type of compound known as a “covalent organic framework,” or COF.

This New, Yellow Powder Quickly Pulls Carbon Dioxide From the Air, and Researchers Say ‘There’s Nothing Like It’

Scientists say just 200 grams of the material could capture 44 pounds of the greenhouse gas per year—the same as a large tree

The BYU research team at Boca Chica Beach, Texas.

Here’s What a SpaceX Starship Rocket Launch Sounds Like, According to New, Detailed Data

Just six miles away from the mega-rocket’s fifth test flight, the noise level was equivalent to a rock concert, researchers found

The 3D bioprinter at the Collins BioMicrosystems Laboratory at the University of Melbourne.

New 3D Bioprinter Could Build Replicas of Human Organs, Offering a Boost for Drug Discovery

The invention uses light, sound and bubbles to quickly create copies of soft tissue that might one day support testing individualized therapies for cancer and other diseases

Australian Reptile Park spider expert Rob Porter milks a male Sydney funnel-web spider to create antivenom in 2001.

Australian Zoo Asks Residents to Capture the World’s Most Venomous Spider: the Deadly Sydney Funnel-Web

The Australian Reptile Park’s annual callout is crucial to creating life-saving antivenom

The researchers made experimental spindles and whorls based on 3D scans of the pebbles.

These Mysterious 12,000-Year-Old Pebbles May Be Early Evidence of Wheel-Like Tools, Archaeologists Say

Researchers in Israel suggest the roughly donut-shaped artifacts could be spindle whorls, representing one of the oldest examples of rotational technology

An artist's rendering of the X-37B conducting an aerobraking maneuver using the drag of Earth's atmosphere, with the bottom of the craft glowing red as it heats up.

The Secretive Spaceplane of the U.S. Space Force Conducts First-of-Its-Kind Maneuvers

Called aerobraking, the technique allows the highly classified craft to change orbit without using propellant—and some are wondering why the agency has let us in on this news

The decorative coffin of Lady Chenet-aa, a high-status woman who died some 3,000 years ago

New Research

Scientists Are Using CT Scanners to Reveal the Secrets of More Than Two Dozen Ancient Egyptian Mummies

For the first time, researchers were able to see inside the mummies in the Chicago Field Museum’s collections. Their findings paint a more comprehensive picture of ancient Egyptian life

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