As intense temperatures break records around the world, a little-known fact offers hope for cooling cities: Even during the height of extreme heat, some city blocks never experience a heat wave. How is this possible? Civilizations have recognized for centuries the power of cities to heat and cool themselves. City architects in ancient Rome wanted… Read More »
The past decade has seen rapid expansion of the commercial space industry, with rival nations jockeying for key military and economic positions beyond Earth, public and private enterprises scrambling to mine the Moon, and a growing halo of space debris littering low-Earth orbit. In a 2023 white paper, a group of concerned astronomers warned against… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more. August continues to be an exciting month for skywatchers. Following closely behind the peak of the Perseid meteor shower last week, the first of four consecutive supermoons of the year will rise on August 19.… Read More »
If you go somewhere expecting an eight-day trip and can’t leave for eight months, most people would consider that “being stranded.” That’s what happened to two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who traveled to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in June. During the test flight, the propulsion system failed, and… Read More »
COPALIS BEACH, WASH. — When Japan first issued a “megaquake” warning last week, Washington state seismologist Harold Tobin was watching the event closely. The advice comes after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit the southern island of Kyushu. While the tremor didn’t cause much damage — the largest tsunami wave it produced would have reached up… Read More »
Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, Register for free here. When archaeologists mine layers of soil to tell stories about the past, sometimes their discoveries capture exciting traces of humanity. Excavations in the ancient city of Pompeii have unearthed the remains… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more. Amateur fossil hunter Eddie Templeton usually knows when he’s found something. Having combed Mississippi stream banks since he was a kid, Templeton has made some striking finds of extinct mammals, including a mastodon lower jaw,… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more. Sixty-six million years ago, the story of life on Earth took a dramatic turn when an asteroid struck the Yucatán Peninsula in Chicxulub, Mexico. The aftereffects of the impact resulted in the extinction of an… Read More »
Most scientists whose primary goal is to advance scientific knowledge are not trained or incentivized to consider the societal impacts of the technologies they develop. Even in genomic medicine, which is geared toward benefiting future patients, time and funding pressures make real-time ethical review difficult. In 2015, three years after scientists discovered how to permanently… Read More »
When you buy through links in our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn commission. NGC 3972, located 66 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, was one of 10 galaxies used to measure the expansion of the universe in a new study. | Credit: Yuval Harpaz, data via JWST Observations by the… Read More »