Pure Science

Popular Science

A new type of 3D printer could help households do their part to reduce food waste while also producing some nifty household accessories. In 2019 alone, the US generated 66 million tons of food waste. The majority of that waste (60 percent)...

Popular Science

3D-printing has come a long way from dinky plastic models. In recent years, engineers have started experimenting with applying the technology to houses. While many of these projects rely on polymers, wood composites, or stone materials,...

Popular Science

The Midway Atoll (Kuaihelani in Hawaiian) is a group of small, remote pacific islands north west of Hawaii. If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you learned about the Battle of Midway in school—a pivotal World War II naval...

Popular Science

In the early to mid–first millennium BCE, ancient horse-riding peoples known as the Siberian Scythians lived in the Altai-Sayan Mountains—a region that spans parts of modern-day Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and China. While studying...

Popular Science

Cigarette butts create a massive and messy environmental burden. To help address the ongoing issue, engineers recently developed a method to extract something beneficial from the discarded trash. According to their findings, published in...

Popular Science

Most people don’t often witness the dramatic results of trees struck by lightning  firsthand—a fact that may lead you to believe thunderstorms don’t present too large a threat to our shade-providing friends. But according to the...

Popular Science

Earthquakes are violent events that alter the face of the planet. In many cases, those changes occur beneath the surface and only gradually become visible over thousands of years. Occasionally, however, an earthquake’s effects aren’t just...

Popular Science

Ample sunshine, ice cream, and afternoons at the beach might leave you wishing that summer would never end. Unfortunately, this year the season is speeding by a smidge faster than normal. Through July and August of 2025, slight...

Popular Science

In Antarctic waters, glaciers calve like distant thunder and the air stings with salt and cold. It is in these waters that marine mammal ecologist Ari Friedlaender shuts off the inflatable boat’s engine and waits. This is the edge of the...

Popular Science

As the early-2000s bop goes, you would not believe your eyes, if 10 million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep. While 10 million may not be the exact number of the summer staple lighting up the sky, several states across the...

Popular Science

National Parks are often referred to as “America’s best idea.” That’s what followers of the National Parks and Forests Supporters believe, anyway (and they’re probably not wrong). Earlier this month, the Facebook page highlighted another...

Popular Science

Researchers have discovered a new genus and species of prehistoric mole in Spain. Vulcanoscaptor ninoti lived during the Pliocene Epoch, from 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago and belonged to the Scalopini, a tribe of moles that currently...

Popular Science

Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) looking to save some energy on their 1,200-mile-long journeys may have tapped into using one of the ocean’s most dynamic forces for help. The sea birds can sense shifts in currents and use it...

Popular Science

At the end of a long day, many of us humans unwind with an episode of a favorite TV show. If you’ve got a dog at home, you might have wondered if your beloved pet can do the same. Despite the modern proliferation of dog-centered TV...

Popular Science

If you’re scrolling on Instagram, TikTok, or the more specific sub genre #CatTok you may have come across some interesting feline behavior as of late: Numerous videos of excited cat owners presenting their pets with concrete slabs, even...

Popular Science

Lithium-ion batteries are a hot commodity for the renewable energy industry. Their high energy density allows them to store huge amounts of power relative to their size, making them a go-to choice for electric vehicles, smartphones, and...

Popular Science

Researchers from the University of Florida have uncovered the largest known nesting site for the threatened giant South American river turtle (Podocnemis expansa). How did they find over 41,000 nesting reptiles? By deploying a meticulous...

Popular Science

“A memorable experience, amongst the best large animal encounters I have had.” That’s how photographer Byron Conway described his rendezvous with Silky Sharks off the coast of Cuba. Conway used a slow shutter speed to capture a bit of...

Popular Science

Superman’s only major weakness—aside from bright red capes—is kryptonite. The fictional mineral was first described in 1943 during an episode of The Adventures of Superman radio serial, but it would take another six decades before fans...

Popular Science

Excerpted from A YEAR WITH THE SEALS: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sea’s Most Charismatic and Controversial Creatures by Alix Morris. July 2025, Algonquin Books. Published with permission. The construction of dams across the Pacific...

Popular Science

It’s pretty rare, but just like us mammals, some flies actually give live birth. One of them is a parasitic fly species Ormia ochracea (O. ochracea). A new study published this week in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America...

Popular Science

A truly sustainable future requires solar power, but trying to consistently maximize the energy harvested by panel arrays remains one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Unlike fossil fuels, solar power yields are dictated by the complex...

Popular Science

Pepper the cat is at it again. After his hunting skills helped virologists identify the first jeilongvirus in the United States, the virus-hunting feline has detected a new strain orthoreovirus. It helps that Pepper’s owner is John...

Popular Science

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science already houses a vast trove of dinosaur bones, but it recently received an unexpected addition to the collection. The latest fossil didn’t come from a generous benefactor or anonymous donor–it came...

Popular Science

For guppies (Poecilia reticulata) getting ready to mate, the color orange speaks volumes. The more orange coloration on a male guppy, the more virile it is, according to a study recently published in the journal Nature Ecology and...

Popular Science

Sometimes, high-tech solutions aren’t the best way to solve a problem. The US Army apparently came to that realization recently while exploring new methods to deter birds and other “problematic wildlife” from air bases. The military...

Popular Science

The Iditarod is the longest annual sled dog race– covering over 1,500 miles across Alaska. But there’s another impressive, long-distance sled dog journey worth considering: their slow motion race through time. A close look into canine...

Popular Science

Life can get off to a rough start for loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) hatchlings. In fact, it can look more like a feeding frenzy with the  sea turtles as the featured dish. After they hatch from their nests on the beach,...

Popular Science

A famous prehistoric cave site in Belgium has yielded the oldest multifunctional tool of its kind. This Ice Age “Swiss Army knife” wasn’t crafted by early Homo sapiens, however. Instead, the handy accessory came from our evolutionary...

Popular Science

Pseudoscorpions may lack the pointy, poisonous tail of their more famous desert-dwelling cousins, but their crab-like front pincers still make them look quite formidable. Now, these small, sometimes overlooked arachnids are getting a...

Popular Science

The United States military has utilized horses since the nation’s inception, but its equine era is finally ending. On July 2, the US Army announced plans to shutter its Military Working Equid (MWE) program, an organization within the...

Popular Science

Fifty years ago, Jaws kept scores of people away from the ocean–the primal fear of what lurks beneath, a terrifying soundtrack dominated by two low notes, and the constant need for a bigger boat. But for one family, the pull of the big...

Popular Science

Few predators swallow their prey whole. Even fewer can digest their meals with bones and all. But for some reptiles like the Burmese python (Python bivittatus), calcium-rich skeletons aren’t a digestive concern—they’re a necessity....

Popular Science

A few flecks of residual paint and an engraved anchor were enough to link mystery wreckage at the bottom of the South Pacific to the saga of the USS New Orleans. Researchers aboard the NOAA Ocean Exploration Trust’s Nautilus vessel...

Popular Science

Johnston Atoll, an unincorporated US territory and Pacific island wildlife refuge with a complicated military history, is no longer slated to become a SpaceX reusable rocket test site. The Department of the Air Force’s confirmation, first...

Popular Science

A mother lemur leaps across the rugged limestone cliffs near Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in western Madagascar. Her daring jump would be impressive on its own, but she’s carrying a passenger: her only weeks-old baby. Photographer Zhou...

Popular Science

While many 13-year-old boys might spend their summers playing video games or attending camp, Oliver Taylor decided to build a custom-made, 3D-printed beehive—in his bedroom. Oliver, who lives in Utah, built the DIY insect habitat with two...

Popular Science

A US astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently caught a glimpse of one of Earth’s least understood atmospheric phenomena. While orbiting in the early hours of July 3, Nichole “Vapor” Ayers snapped a photo of a...

Popular Science

Mosquito bites are much more than just a red and itchy summertime nuisance. The diseases that they carry are notoriously difficult to control and kill over 700,000 people worldwide every year. What’s more, many mosquitoes have developed...

Popular Science

It’s only July, and it has been a busy year for zoo staff and pet owners alike for animals going viral for going missing. These noteworthy animal escapes from the last several months would make the plucky penguins from the cinematic...

Popular Science

Downtown Miami might not be the first place that comes to mind when it comes to coral. Yet the Magic City is bordered by two enormous national parks–Everglades National Park to the west and the busy waters of Biscayne National Park to the...

Popular Science

Step aside, Joey Chestnut (the award-winning competitive eater famous for his hot dog consumption every 4th of July). The first-ever professional eating competition between goats, appropriately called The Great Goat Graze-Off, will take...

Popular Science

If you’ve ever sifted along a tide pool or visited a souvenir stand on a coastal boardwalk, you may have seen a hermit crab. These crustaceans that have been on Earth for roughly 500 million years, are always alert, monitoring their...

Popular Science

Despite their bee-like appearance, hoverflies are all buzz, no bite. The harmless insects, more closely related to midges than wasps, imitate their distant stinging cousins with stripes, high contrast colors, and narrow waists. In theory,...

Popular Science

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and...

Popular Science

Orcas (Orcinus orca) don’t appear to be big fans of yachts, but some of them may be curious about humans themselves. According to a study published on June 30 in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, cetology researchers have confirmed...

Popular Science

Paleontologist Andre LuJan had an assist from nature with his latest exciting fossil find. Heavy rains helped expose a nearly complete skull of an enormous ancient salamander-like creature in a quarry in northern central Texas. And while...

Popular Science

A few years ago I upgraded from gas to induction. This sentence might confuse you.  Gas stoves have a reputation as being the best, mostly because of marketing, so you might think I’m only saying I “upgraded” to induction because of...

Popular Science

Amidst an excited crowd, 17 endangered and threatened sea turtles were released into the refreshing waters off Cape Cod earlier this month. Nine Kemp’s ridleys, five loggerheads, and three green sea turtles were among the first group of...

Popular Science

Leopards are “near threatened” worldwide, and listed as critically endangered in Bangladesh. That’s why staff members at the country’s non-profit organization Creative Conservation Alliance (CCA) were so excited when their camera traps...