Science
The Average American Melts 645 Square Feet of Arctic Ice Every Year
Global warming is hard to understand. This statistic isn’t.
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NASA What President Trump Will Mean for Earth’s Climate
He could prove cataclysmic.
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NASA / Reuters The First American to Vote From Space
In 1997, David Wolf cast his ballot in microgravity. This year, he’s happy to wait in line on Earth.
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Michael Dalder / Reuters Not Doomed Yet: The Election Is Today
It’s time to vote.
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davidope / Quanta Magazine Can Quantum Physics Explain Consciousness?
A new approach to a once-farfetched theory is making it plausible that the brain functions like a quantum computer.
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Reuters 2016's Most Interesting Climate-Change Fights Are in the States
Ballot provisions in Washington and Florida reveal the conflicting ways that Americans are responding to climate change.
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Tim Wimborne / Reuters The Advantages of T. Rex's Awkward Teen Years
Adolescent tyrannosaurs’ lean bodies may have given them hunting skills that allowed them to avoid competition with their beefier elders.
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Guillermo Granja Planet Earth II Puts Stunning Images Above All Else
The gorgeous sequel to the BBC’s groundbreaking wildlife series reveals how far nature documentaries have come—and what they lost in the process.
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Eduardo Munoz / Reuters The Lasting Harm of Trump-Style Sexism
The Republican nominee has dismissed his misogynist speech as “just words.” But multiple studies show rude rhetoric can have a major impact on thinking, stress, and self-esteem.
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TMT Hawaii’s Thirty Meter Telescope Could End Up in the Canary Islands
The group behind the contested project is still pushing for construction on the Big Island, but has selected an alternate site just in case.
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Tatiana Kolesnikova / Getty Why Are There So Few Women Mathematicians?
How a corrosive culture keeps women out of leadership positions on math journals
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National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National ... How Ebola Adapted to Us
During the recent record-breaking outbreak, the virus picked up a mutation that made it better at infecting human cells.
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Christopher Watson / Wikimedia A Desert Lizard That Drinks From Sand
The thorny devil stays hydrated thanks to its skin, which pulls water away from moist grains, against gravity and into its mouth.
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J. F. Broekhuis How the Mouse Got Its Stripes
A simple study of rodent patterns hints at our growing ability to link genetic changes to physical ones.
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Amy Forliti / AP The ‘Sioux Chef’ Reviving Native American Cuisine
Native chefs and farmers are bringing back lost flavors in hopes of fighting diabetes and obesity.
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Jon Nazca / Reuters Climate Change Could Transform Southern Spain Into Desert
The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees of global warming might be dramatic.
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Reuters When a President Banishes Science From the White House
Since the 1950s, presidential science advisors have juggled researchers’ and politicians’ demands—except when Nixon abolished his administration’s entire Science Advisory Committee.
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Jim Urquhart / Reuters How the Concept of Deep Time Is Changing
The idea that humans are ephemeral compared to the workings of nature isn’t as persuasive as it once was.
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Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters DNA Reveals That Chimps and Bonobos Had Sex in the Past
Their prehistoric liaisons mirror those between our own ancestors, Neanderthals, and other groups of early humans.
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Pilar Olivares / Reuters The Answer to Zika May Be More Mosquitos
Insects that have been implanted with a virus-blocking bacterium will finally be tested at large scales, over two cities in Brazil and Colombia.
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Marta Iwanek / Quanta Magazine Uncovering Cells' Hidden Genetic Scaffolding
A 17-years-long study reveals how the complex relationships between a cell’s genes allow it to function.
