Social media crackdowns during the war in Ukraine make the internet less global
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, people around the world have watched the war play out in jarring detail — at least,...
SCIENTIFIC NEWS
Levitating plastic beads mimic the physics of spinning asteroids
Some asteroids can barely hold it together. Rather than solid lumps of rock, ‘rubble pile’ asteroids are loose collections of material, which can split...
NASA’s exoplanet count surges past 5,000
It’s official: The number of planets known beyond our solar system has just passed 5,000. The exoplanet census surpassed this milestone with a recent...
How gene therapy overcame high-profile failures
Gene therapy pioneer Richard Jude Samulski remembers when he avoided the words “gene therapy.” In the mid-2000s, he told people he worked on “biological...
How the way we’re taught to round numbers in school falls short
Imagine needing to estimate the total cost of the items in your grocery basket to decide whether to put something back. So you round...
The universe’s background starlight is twice as bright as expected
Even when you remove the bright stars, the glowing dust and other nearby points of light from the inky, dark sky, a background glow...
How climbers help scientists vibe with Utah’s famous red rock formations
As Kathryn Vollinger prepared to climb Castleton Tower, a 120-meter-tall sandstone formation in the desert near Moab, Utah, the outdoor guide assessed her gear....
Diamonds may stud Mercury’s crust
A treasure trove of diamonds may be sown into Mercury’s cratered crust. Billions of years of meteorite impacts may have flash-baked much of Mercury’s...
What do we mean by ‘COVID-19 changes your brain’?
Like all writers, I spend large chunks of my time looking for words. When it comes to the ultracomplicated and mysterious brain, I need...
What made the last century’s great innovations possible?
In the early decades of the 20th century, a slew of technologies began altering daily life with seemingly unprecedented speed and breadth. Suddenly, consumers...
WHO chief voices concern over Trump Administration’s executive order on vaccines 
Cholera spreads across borders in West and Central Africa 
Sudan: Attacks and further displacement in Blue Nile and North Kordofan 
Migrant deaths climb sharply in 2026, new UN data shows