Technology
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
NASA's Starliner Astronauts Face Another Delay in Their Return Home, Drawing Out Their Unexpectedly Long Mission
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were supposed to stay at the ISS for a little over a week. It's now been more than six months, and the end date has been pushed again
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
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
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
'Brain Rot,' the Scourge of the Chronically Online, Becomes Oxford's 2024 Word of the Year
The term refers to "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state" that's linked to spending extensive stretches of time scrolling through low-quality content
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
Engineers Choose the Ten Best STEM Toys to Gift in 2024
Creative circuitry and rolling robots make up this year’s top toys for teaching kids to love science, technology, engineering and math
Crews Remove Miles of Abandoned, Lead-Coated Telephone Cables From the Bottom of Lake Tahoe
The cables have been resting on the lakebed for decades, raising fears from environmentalists and residents about possible lead contamination
'Demure' Is Dictionary.com's Word of the Year for 2024
The term's popularity skyrocketed after content creator Jools Lebron used it in a now-viral TikTok video, in which she described being "very demure, very mindful"
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
These Ice Age Artworks Etched Into Rock 15,800 Years Ago May Be the Earliest Known Depictions of Fishing
Found in western Germany, the stone plaques feature etchings of fish trapped in grid-like nets, according to a new study
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
From Jealous Spouses to Paranoid Bosses, Pedometers Quantified Suspicion in the 19th Century
The devices were used to track movement and measure productivity—an insightful foreshadowing of our current preoccupation with personal data
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
ChatGPT or Shakespeare? Readers Couldn't Tell the Difference—and Even Preferred A.I.-Generated Verse
A new study suggests people might like chatbot-produced poems for their simple and straightforward images, emotions and themes
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
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
Watch a Starlink Satellite Plummet Through the Atmosphere in Videos Captured Last Weekend
The fireball—one of many decommissioned satellites from SpaceX's internet service—was spotted by dozens of people across at least four states, and many mistook it for a meteor
Visions of Nuclear-Powered Cars Captivated Cold War America, but the Technology Never Really Worked
From the Ford Nucleon to the Studebaker-Packard Astral, these vehicles failed to progress past the prototype stage in the 1950s and 1960s
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