Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. In the latest episode of old museum collections revealing new discoveries, two researchers in Australia have solved a paleontological mystery with an Ice Age fossil first discovered over 100 years ago. The fossil was found in the underground Foul…
Naked mole rat queens rule with an iron forepaw: these wrinkly, bucktoothed monarchs forbid any other female from reproducing — that is, until they die and all hell breaks loose. Then the once-deferential females rise up and wage bloody battles against one another to vie for the crown. They attack other females, kill pups and…
IDEs, or integrated development environments, have long been a staple of the development world. I’ve used one for decades. However, switching to Claude Code completely changed the tools I use for development, and I’ve simply left IDEs in the dust. I used to hand-code everything in an IDE Terminal text editors worked but lacked a…
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. When did the megalodon shark go extinct, and why? – Landon, age 10 Imagine traveling back in time and observing the oceans of 5 million years ago. As you stand…
Researchers in the UC Santa Barbara Materials Department have uncovered the elusive quantum mechanism by which energetic electrons break chemical bonds inside microelectronic devices—a detrimental process that slowly degrades performance over time. The discovery, published as an Editors’ Suggestion in Physical Review B, explains decades-old experimental puzzles and moves scientists closer to engineering more reliable…
The successful Artemis II trip around the Moon was a historic achievement — the first crewed lunar fly-by in more than 50 years, and the greatest distance yet travelled by humans from our “pale blue dot“. The mission was marked by engineering, scientific and technical feats, by the astronauts and team at NASA and beyond,…
It’s not an exaggeration to say that if you’re one of the six billion people who use the internet, it’s probably one of the most important technologies in your life. Just about everything you do every day relies on the internet in some way, but that also means you have sensitive information locked away on…
Last year, tungsten diselenide (WSe2) had its magic moment. Two independent research groups discovered “magic angles” at which two atom-thin layers of the unique semiconductor, when twisted relative to one another into what’s known as a moire pattern, can superconduct electricity. Cory Dean and his colleagues at Columbia documented superconductivity at a 5° twist angle;…
Back in the control room, I sit down and start charging the capacitor banks. At this point, there’s no going back except for an emergency shutdown, and that means losing the shot and waiting for everything to cool down. “Charging.” The room goes silent. Everyone’s eyes are on the monitors. Nobody talks. I typically will…
The night sky is set to deliver one of spring’s most anticipated celestial events as the Lyrid meteor shower returns this week. One of the oldest recorded meteor showers, the Lyrids peak Wednesday (April 22), offering stargazers a rare treat: a chance to witness “shooting stars” — and possibly bright “fireballs” — in dark, moonless…
