Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Picture your perfect morning wake-up. Your eyes flutter open, the sun is gently streaming in through the window, and you actually feel rested from the night before instead of groggy. That sensation of getting a really good night’s sleep…
Scientists know that Mars spins a little faster each year, but the cause has been a mystery. Now, a new study published Feb. 18 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets suggests the reason may lie deep underground, where a huge plume of buoyant rock could be stirring beneath the Red Planet’s crust. This strange…
As NASA seeks to understand the mysteries of the universe, the agency is advancing technologies to locate and explore Earth-like planets far beyond our solar system. A key element of this research involves observing reflected light from exoplanets, which can reveal indicators of Earth-like features such as water and oxygen. However, detecting this faint reflected…
The saltiest lakes on Earth usually appear in closed basins where water cannot flow out to the ocean. Rain, snow, and small streams bring dissolved minerals into the basin. As water evaporates, salt stays behind and builds up over time. The result is a hypersaline lake with extremely high density water where only specialized life…
Krita, an open source digital painting app, has rolled out version 5.3.0 and 6.0.0 simultaneously. After several years in development, both versions come with significant updates and share nearly identical features. Krita 5.3 continues to run on Qt 5, while Krita 6 moves to Qt 6 and is still considered in the experimental phase. The…
Rescue teams in northern Germany are working to refloat a humpback whale stranded in shallow water in the Baltic Sea. Experts gathered at Timmendorfer Strand beach on Tuesday after a midnight high tide failed to lift the animal free. German news agency dpa reports crews were trying to find ways to pull the whale back…
March 24, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Astronomers witness the birth of a new solar system The decades since scientists confirmed the first planet around another star have been rich in discovery, but it’s rare to see a new solar system as it forms By Joseph Howlett edited by Lee Billings…
A second set of mountain gorilla twins has been born in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in what conservationists are celebrating as an “extraordinary” event for the endangered primates. Just two months after tiny twin mountain gorillas were discovered by rangers in the Virunga massif, in eastern DRC, another…
At an academic function, a guest asks what I do and I say, “public hospital doctor”, which seems more benign than “oncologist”. When he asks me to elaborate, his eyes widen as he exclaims, predictably, “Wow, isn’t that depressing?” By now, I have form in explaining that being an oncologist is sobering but not depressing…
A combination of infrared imaging, thermal imaging and color cameras on an uncrewed drone, along with an AI system to interpret the data, can help emergency responders and search-and-rescue teams locate, identify and track people who have gone missing in the wilderness. The experimental system helps responders pinpoint where a missing person is and determine…
