For decades, scientists have concentrated on what now looks to be a blind alley. At the end of last month, a scientific journal pulled a research paper on Alzheimer’s disease. The retraction came from Neurobiology of Aging, which removed a 2011 paper claiming to show that a version of a…
“We believe this is the final nail in the coffin of the proton radius puzzle.” There has been considerable debate among physicists over the last 15 years about conflicting measurements of the charge radius of a hydrogen atom’s proton—some confirming the predictions of our strongest theoretical models, others suggesting…
“It’s a special thing to be human, and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.” HOUSTON—Their mission is complete. The four people who flew beyond the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission are back home in Houston with their families. But the lessons from Artemis II are…
LLM use is the most demoralizing problem I’ve faced as a college instructor. I’ve been teaching college Earth science courses as a part-time faculty member for a long time now, all while juggling other jobs. I started because it was enjoyable; no one gets into this line of work…
Record domestic oil and gas production hasn’t saved US drivers from price spikes. In President Donald Trump’s telling, the United States has fuel enough to hover above the chaos that his attack on Iran has triggered in global energy markets. “We’re in great shape for the future,” Trump said…
“I can’t imagine a better crew that just completed a perfect mission right now.” Slamming into the atmosphere at more than 30 times the speed of sound, NASA’s Orion spacecraft blazed a trail over the Pacific Ocean on Friday, returning home with four astronauts and safely capping humanity’s first…
A now-vanished plate under North America may open the crust below Yellowstone. North America wouldn’t look much like it currently does without a tectonic plate that has largely been lost to the Earth’s geological history. The Farallon plate, which has since largely vanished underneath North America, helped build the…
Dense drops of oobleck with high shear rates spread out like a liquid before stiffening into a solid. Mixing corn starch and water in appropriate amounts produces a slurry that is liquid when stirred slowly but hardens when you punch it—a substance colorfully dubbed “oobleck.” (The name derives from…
Supposed “first octopus” was something else entirely. Pohlsepia mazonensis, a visually underwhelming fossil from Illinois, fundamentally broke our understanding of cephalopod evolution. Described in 2000 and hailed as the oldest known octopus in the fossil record, the specimen dated back to the late Carboniferous period, roughly 311 to 306…
After leaks on Artemis I and II, Orion’s next flight to the Moon will need new valves. Apart from pesky issues with the spacecraft’s toilet and waste disposal system, most of the Artemis II mission has proceeded like clockwork. NASA has made few changes to the flight plan since…
