Physical World

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Hubble Space Telescope image of Butterfly Nebula

A dying star’s last hurrah

At the end of their lives, sunlike stars metamorphose into glowing shells of gas — perhaps shaped by unseen companions

The origins and future of the Grand Canyon

VIDEO: How old is the Grand Canyon? Will the Colorado River run dry? Learn about how the Big Ditch formed and the present state and uncertain future of the Colorado River watershed.

Photograph of colorful wooden houses with a bay in the background and mountains on the far shore. Chunks of ice are floating in the water.

Physical World

The race against radon

Scientists are working to map out the risks of the permafrost thaw, which could expose millions of people to the invisible cancer-causing gas

Photo of a person’s palm holding a chunk of silver metal that pools as it melts.

Technology

Gallium: The liquid metal that could transform soft electronics

Bend it. Stretch it. Use it to conduct electricity. Researchers are exploring a range of applications that harness the element’s unusual properties.

Photograph of dozens of air conditioners on the side of a building.

Food & Environment

Rethinking air conditioning amid climate change

ACs and refrigerators help keep people safe — but they also further warm the planet. Scientists are working on eco-friendlier solutions as global demand for cooling grows.

Conceptual illustration shows lots of blue and white strands undulating on a black background. A flashy red, orange and green rocket-shaped thing is shooting through the middle, leaving a streak of color in its wake.

Physical World

How particle accelerators came to be

PODCAST: They started out so small, one could fit on the palm of your hand, but to make groundbreaking discoveries, physicists had to think really big — as in, vast machines with the power and capacity to reveal the tiniest building blocks of our universe (Season 2/Episode 5)

Conceptual illustration of a red planet with its golden star blazing out light from the left. Other small, pale stars twinkle in the background.

Physical World

The search for exoplanets

PODCAST: Not that long ago, scientists found evidence that our Sun wasn’t unique — other stars have their own orbiting bodies. It was a discovery centuries in the making. What does this mean for Earth today and our place in the universe? (Season 2/Episode 2)

Conceptual illustration shows a subterranean scene with creatures and roots in the soil. A vibration sensor is stuck in the ground.

Living World

Life in the soil was thought to be silent. What if it isn’t?

A handful of scientists have started to train their ears to the worms, grubs and roots underground. They were not prepared for what they heard.

Bubbles at the bottom of a glass, viewed from above.

Food & Environment

Champagne bubbles: the science

As you uncork that bottle and raise your glass, take time to toast physics and chemistry along with the New Year

Society

Why do thieves keep stealing catalytic converters? It’s elemental

COMIC: Rhodium is one of several precious metals that put the catalyst in catalytic. And right now it’s worth more than gold.

Photograph of a large blue glass headrest decorated with gold.

Society

The ancient origins of glass

Featuring ingots, shipwrecks, pharaohs and an international trade in colors, the material’s rich history is being traced using modern archaeology and materials science

Composite mage shows a solar filament that ribbons from a glowing red sun with areas of yellow eruptions against a black sky.

Physical World

Are we ready? Understanding just how big solar flares can get

Recasting the iconic Carrington Event as just one of many superstorms in Earth’s past, scientists reveal the potential for even more massive, and potentially destructive, eruptions from the sun

A falsely colored image combines a time-lapse image of the trajectory of larger droplets and the still image showing the distribution of a diffuse gas cloud of saliva and mucus. Most of the larger droplets are pulled down by gravity well before the smaller droplets carried in the gas cloud.

Physical World

To understand airborne transmission of disease, follow the flow

Viruses and bacteria travel in fluids, such as the air we breathe. Studying exhalations, toilet flushes and rain drops, with math and modeling, can sharpen the big-picture view of how to prevent infections.

Photo shows vessels that have been restored from fragments found in the Libyan Sahara thought to be more than 6,000 years old.

Society

What did ancient people eat? Scientists find new clues in old pottery

Remnants of molecules and microbes in shards of cooking pots help researchers reconstruct prehistoric cuisines. On the menu: stews, cheese and fermented drinks.

Photograph at night, with mountainous terrain and desert floor. In the sky one can see thousands of stars and the disk of the Milky Way galaxy.

Physical World

A galactic archaeologist digs into the Milky Way’s history

Astrophysicists now have the data and models to uncover subtle imprints from our galaxy’s past

Photograph of an aerial view of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The swirls of surface oil are colored red and orange; other parts of the water are blue layered with oily iridescence.

Food & Environment

Eyes on the deep

Decades of exploring the seafloor have helped oceanographer Samantha Joye tackle marine issues — from the underwater movement of oil from Deepwater Horizon to the biology of remote microbial communities

An artist’s conception of a primitive, supermassive black hole surrounded by a star-filled early galaxy.

Physical World

Primordial black holes could explain dark matter, galaxy growth and more

A half-century-old, still-disputed idea about dense cosmic objects from the dawn of time could solve longstanding mysteries about the universe

A cross section slice of a fragment of blue crystal edged in translucent gray.

Physical World

Keeping time with zircons

Crystals of the mineral zircon are rugged enough to survive the most violent geologic events. Impurities within them provide a time capsule of planetary history.

Food & Environment

10 years after the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, I’m still worried

OPINION: The cleanup of the past decade at the Japanese power plant could be set back if authorities don’t properly handle a massive stockpile of contaminated water

Graphic illustration of someone in a mask surrounded by red floating viruses

Health & Disease

Coronavirus transmission: SARS-CoV-2 in the air

VIDEO: One year into the pandemic, a clearer understanding of how Covid-19 infections spread suggest people need to shift efforts away from cleaning surfaces and toward better ventilation and filtration

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