Well-lit cities and towns are essential to public safety. That doesn’t have to ruin the night sky. For most of us here on planet Earth, navigating the world at night is […]

With 1.6 billion households in the world, how does Santa do it? With a little Christmas magic… and a lot of science! How does Santa Claus do it? In one long […]

The line between science and pseudoscience is imperceptible to most. Here’s how you can catch it in yourself. When it comes to science, the first principle is that you must […]

The world’s greatest clockmaker sent a clock to the new world, and everything went haywire. The reason why will shock you. For millennia, humanity’s one-and-only reliable way to keep time was […]

The story of John Couch Adams, “the man who failed to discover Neptune,” and his cosmic redemption. Perhaps its human nature to want to only think positive thoughts about our […]

Before there were gravitational waves, multi-messenger astronomy got its start with the neutrino. Sometimes, the best-designed experiments fail. The effect you’re looking for might not even occur, meaning that a […]

There are only two perfect numbers that fit on the calendar: 6 and 28, making June 28th Perfect Number Day. Find out what makes a number perfect, and why they matter. […]

Intelligent aliens, if they exist in the galaxy or the Universe, might be detectable from a variety of signals: electromagnetic, from planet modification, or because they’re spacefaring. But we haven’t […]

Everyone in the Universe needs a break sometimes. They say that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, and with very few exceptions, I’ve been working hard […]

In the quantum world of the unstable, even identical particles don’t have identical masses. In the microscopic world of the quantum particle, there are certain rules that are wholly unfamiliar […]

The season finale gets the one thing Star Trek is famous for — ethics — completely wrong. Life is full of dilemmas whose solutions seem paradoxical. To obtain peace, you must prepare for war. […]

If nothing can escape from beneath the event horizon, where do these phenomena come from? The most important feature of a black hole is that it has an event horizon: a […]

The deep dive into the mirror Universe, and the ethics of how we deal with purity and diversity, is just getting started. Life in the mirror Universe isn’t easy for anyone. […]

What if alien life — or even intelligence — don’t look like what we’re searching for? When the original Star Trek premiered, it was revolutionary for depicting sentient, intelligent species other than humans, living […]

A new look at the intertwined lives of two of the 20th century’s greatest minds. In the years prior to World War II, physics was in an odd, post-revolutionary state. Quantum […]

Grad students will be taxed at the highest rate in the country, even higher than billionaires. For millions of young people, the American dream is to study the thing you’re […]

Right and wrong has never been so gray in the Star Trek Universe. Imagine you’re in a fight with an enemy, and the fight itself isn’t fair. You might have […]

For the first time, I genuinely enjoyed the new series. There’s been one question that’s bothered me in every episode since Star Trek: Discovery began: why would anyone want to be […]

There’s no science in this episode of science fiction… but there’s a lot of suspicious happenings that no one’s noticing. Following up on the best episode of the season, thus […]

The first (double) episode has come and gone, but here’s what I hope for the series. “We are what we are, and we’re doing the best we can. It is not […]

Just a few simple, common conditions can create the perfect storm. 80% of the time, humans are the trigger. “I’d rather fight 100 structure fires than a wildfire. With a structure […]

A new podcast: a first-person account, by a scientist, of what it was like to live and experience totality for the first time. “I sometimes ask people, ‘Can you be aware […]

More than 90% of the eclipses to ever happen on Earth have already occurred. Don’t miss the next one! “We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded […]

If you know when, where and how to look, the show will still be spectacular. “My dad took me out to see a meteor shower when I was a little […]

This isn’t an XZibit joke; it’s a real scientific question. And the answer may be that it’s possible after all. “People who work every day are kind of scared of things […]

Your theory predicts something novel? How nice. But no one will pay you any mind unless you test it. “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards […]

The latest challenger to dark matter’s throne may not be so difficult to knock off, after all. This post was written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in […]

Why weightlessness is possible, even if there’s no place you can hide from the Universe’s longest-range force. “It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that […]

Even if the Universe grows to infinity, there might not be enough space to hold all the possibilities. “We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.” –Marina […]

We see them change in wavelength, energy and in their electric and magnetic fields over time. So how do they experience it? “Everyone has his dream; I would like to […]