Sweden is bringing back books amid declining test scores. In 2023, the Swedish government announced that the country’s schools would be going back to basics, emphasizing skills such as reading and writing, particularly in early grades. After mostly being sidelined, physical books are now being reintroduced into classrooms, and…
“It’ll go when the engines light at T-0.” KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—Launching to the Moon is an all-day undertaking, something the four astronauts waiting to climb aboard NASA’s Artemis II rocket know well. “It is actually a very long day,” said Victor Glover, the pilot on Artemis II. “We…
“I just don’t want to get caught flat-footed when we start to have to protect US interests out there.” KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—The US military has always been part of NASA’s human spaceflight program. The first astronauts were nearly all military pilots, and two of the four crew members…
The key is to evenly distribute elderly passengers, who move more slowly, among the aircraft cabins. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that, in the event of an emergency, all airplane passengers must be able to evacuate any aircraft within a 90-second window. But is that a realistic requirement,…
“Things are certainly starting to feel real here at the Cape.” KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—The two-day countdown for the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission began Monday evening, with clocks timed for the first of six opportunities in early April to send a crew of four astronauts around the…
Rachel Hartigan on her new book, Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life. Famed aviator Amelia Earhart mysteriously disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe. Speculative theories abound about what really happened to Earhart, but while tantalizing…
Research proceeds on alternatives, but some doubt whether true lie detection is possible. When George W. Maschke applied to work for the FBI in 1994, he had already held a security clearance for over 11 years. The government had deemed him trustworthy through his career in the Army. But…
Breathing capacity could have compensated for lower atmospheric oxygen. Three-hundred million years ago, the skies of the late Palaeozoic era were buzzing with giant insects. Meganeuropsis permiana, a predatory insect resembling a modern-day dragonfly, had a wingspan of over 70 centimeters and weighed 100 grams. Biologists looked at these…
A quantum experiment shows that we can formally test if the order of events matters. Over a decade ago, when I was first starting to pretend I could write about quantum mechanics, I covered a truly bizarre experiment. One half of a pair of entangled photons was sent through…
Specially equipped nets can help save some species, while allowing fisherman to still catch others. Our oceans are full of sophisticated, perfect traps: Nets, hooks, fishing lines. Designed to capture animals destined for our dinner tables, they often catch other wildlife too. This accidental harvest is known as bycatch,…
