Last semester in my Harvard freshman class, I stated that Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the sun, emits largely infrared radiation and has a planet, Proxima b, in the habitable zone around it. “Suppose organisms are crawling on the surface of Proxima b?” I challenged the students. “What might their infrared-sensitive eyes look like?”…
JEDI has become a popular acronym for academic committees and STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) initiatives that address social justice issues. JEDI stands for “justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion” in this context. A growing number of prominent institutions and organizations, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, have adopted this acronym…
People are accustomed to communicating with disembodied robotic voices such as Alexa or Siri, and in other circumstances, humans are met with genuine robots attempting to converse with them. Will people trust the bots to instruct them what to do when it happens? The answer is most likely no. Most humans, it appears, still do…
Copyright 2021, from Leigh Cowart’s Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. PublicAffairs, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., has granted permission for this reprint. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of a rental car in a dusty lot of the county fairgrounds in Auburn, California, my hands trembling subtly.…
Fresh eyes can transform the world, and a world beset by pandemics, climate change, and unfairness is primed for change like none we’ve ever seen. That’s why, after a five-year hiatus, Popular Science is reintroducing the Brilliant 10: an annual list of early-career scientists and engineers who are coming up with novel solutions to issues…
Wade into the gently lapping waves late at night Wade into the gently lapping surf at Boca Chica Beach, a pristine stretch of beach about 20 miles east of Brownsville, Texas, and you’ll see nothing but Gulf seas meeting sky—endless, dark but for the stars and lazy whitecaps. A contemplative, antique vista that makes you…
It’s been almost a decade since Harvard geneticist George Church initially proposed using synthetic biology to resurrect woolly mammoths. His plan to change history is now moving forward. Today, Church and software entrepreneur Ben Lamm announced the creation of Colossal, a biotech firm with $15 million in preliminary capital. The company’s objective is twofold: to…
Aaron Bolds didn’t think about becoming a doctor until he tore a ligament in his knee in a basketball competition when he was 15 years old. His orthopedic surgeon was Black, and the two got along swimmingly. “When he asked how my grades were, I told him, ‘I’m a straight-A student,’” she said. Bolds, who…
My family, like many others who enjoy traveling, went from taking road trips and flying cross-country to doing almost nothing in 2020. I had anticipated that our newfound seclusion would be just temporary and easily reversed. Even though coronavirus cases in our area were declining and scientists advising that wearing a mask and going outside…
Expended rockets are falling to Earth as more frequent rocket launches make space more accessible. In May, a 23-ton Chinese rocket landed in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, ending days of speculation over where it would land. In March, the four-ton top stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket broke apart above the Pacific…