Science

World’s Oldest DNA Paints a New Picture of Icy Greenland 2 Million Years Ago

Science / 3 min. read

Scientists have uncovered the world’s oldest known DNA in northern Greenland — a major discovery that sheds light on what the now-barren landscape may have looked like 2 million years ago. Publishing their findings in Nature in December, an international team of scientists studied 41 microscopic fragments of environmental DNA, the genetic material organisms release […]

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This arial captures the impressive scale of glaciers and icebergs in East Greenland on a sailing expedition in autumn 2017.

Meet Sabrina Thompson: The NASA Engineer Designing a Spacesuit for Women

Science / 3 min. read

Sabrina Thompson is an aerospace engineer for NASA as well as a passionate artist — and she found a way to combine the two seemingly contradictory fields. The innovator is on a mission to create the first spacesuit “designed by women for women.” Thompson is the founder and CEO of a clothing brand called Girl

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Meet the High School Student, 17, Who Became the First Person to Sequence the Angelfish

Science / 3 min. read

Making a scientific discovery is an incredible achievement at any age — and Indeever Madireddy made one at just 17 years old. The Silicon Valley high school senior, avid fishkeeper, and 2022 Davidson Fellow channeled his curiosity about his pet fish, Calvin, who recently died, into a research project. The result: Madireddy made history, becoming

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Indeever Madireddy stands in front of a pond of angelfish, the species whose genome he sequenced

Meet the “Next-Generation Asteroid Hunter”: NASA’s New Space Telescope That Will Track Hazardous Near-Earth Objects

Science / 3 min. read

NASA is making big leaps in its goal of protecting Earth from cosmic threats. The space agency is currently working on a new telescope, dubbed the “next-generation asteroid hunter,” which promises to be a “game-changer” in identifying hazardous near-Earth objects. In December, NASA announced in a press release that construction had begun on its Near-Earth

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an illustration of NASA's asteroid hunter telescope in space

Ancient DNA Shares New Insights Into the Lives and Culture of Vikings

Science / 3 min. read

In popular culture and history, Vikings are contradictory figures: both raiders and traders, settlers and explorers. According to Smithsonian Magazine, these ancient Scandinavians took to the high seas, venturing to the likes of Britain, Paris, and even North America. But Vikings didn’t just affect the lands around them — it turns out they in-process were

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Vikingaheimar (Viking Wolrd). museum in Keflavik displaying a seaworthy replica of a magnificent Viking Ship called Islendingur.

Spontaneous Baby Movements Serve a Larger Purpose Than Previously Thought, New Study Finds

Science / 3 min. read

It starts with acrobatic kicks and somersaults while still inside the womb, and progresses after birth to a never-ending stream of wiggles, wriggles, flailing arms, and jerking legs. When they’re not sleeping, babies certainly seem to always be on the move, long before they’re actually crawling or walking. And new research coming out of the

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Your Guide to the January 2023 Night Sky — Expected to Be the “Brightest” of the Year

Science / 3 min. read

The frenzy of the holiday season has come and gone, and one great way to recalibrate in this new year is by taking a few moments to step outside and admire the expanse of the sparkling night sky overhead. The Old Farmer’s Almanac is declaring January 2023 to be “the brightest night sky of the

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Snowy view of the January night sky over snowy Carpathian Mountains

Meet the 12-Year-Old Who Invented an Edible Water Bottle: “My Biggest Inspiration Was Wanting to Help the World”

Science / 3 min. read

Across the world, humans purchase around 1.3 billion single-use plastic water bottles a day. Because only about 9% of plastic is recycled, the vast majority of those bottles — 22 billion a year by some estimates — wind up in landfills, the ocean, or elsewhere in nature. When beach-loving Madison Checketts began noticing many of those

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Madison Checketts stands in front of her poster board presentation of her edible water bottle

Children Learn More Efficiently Than Adults, Study Finds: Here’s Why

Science / 3 min. read

It’s often said that children’s brains are like sponges, due to their ability to rapidly and easily absorb large quantities of information. A new study, led by Takeo Watanabe of Brown University, has now identified how and why children so effortlessly outpace adults when it comes to their capacity for learning a lot in a

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Elementary teacher and her students using laptop during computer class at school.

First Human Genome of a Pompeii Resident Sheds Light on Ancient City’s Inhabitants

Science / 3 min. read

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, the citizens of Pompeii took the secrets of their lives and what happened that tragic day to their graves. But a team of researchers from Denmark and Italy has been able to find answers in extracted DNA from the bones of a man and a woman who lived

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