
Reusable rockets and Starlink made Elon Musk’s company dominant in spaceflight. Its record valuation leans on making Starship flights routine and orbital AI data centers real

Reusable rockets and Starlink made Elon Musk’s company dominant in spaceflight. Its record valuation leans on making Starship flights routine and orbital AI data centers real

Meteor camera networks can reveal the hidden history of the solar system, and you can assist from your own backyard

The new movie Disclosure Day is all about a big, alien secret. But SETI researchers behind the updated postdetection protocol say they aren’t in the business of secrets

Controlling a small group of “noisy” sheep holds hints for computer algorithms

A linguist lays out what communicating with aliens could actually involve—and what that tells us about human language

Extremely curved spacetime can warp cause and effect, creating channels for backward communication

Children living in areas with low socioeconomic opportunities have more tired and stressed brains, a new study finds

In a first, the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists released its own vaccine schedule

SpaceX’s IPO—the largest in history—has out-of-this-world implications for AI, space commerce and extraterrestrial exploration

Scientists have been expecting El Niño to set in for quite a while now—and it’s finally official

Salt, with its ability to seal liquid in, is uniquely suited to storing the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Start your morning with today’s Spellements. Create as many words as you can from our daily selection of letters—including one tied to recent science news. Play now.

Dogs spontaneously aid struggling humans the way young children do—whereas cats wait until they stand to benefit
“As for Euler's formula, using Tau/2 would: (1) possibly feel more natural, since Tau would be associated with a whole circle, so Tau/2 might more easily be associated with the half-circle through which the number 1 rotates. (2) allow you get the first prime number into the formula, in addition to the other iconic things already there.”
— Doug Fay

This tiny robot might look like a high-tech hamster ball, but it could hasten lunar exploration

Put your science knowledge to the test with this week’s news quiz. Play now.

The second batch of “First Proof” problems is meant to evaluate AI’s usefulness for research-level math. The best model got six or seven of the 10 questions basically right

Math Puzzle: Go to great lengths
Flex your math muscles with this weekend’s brain teaser. Play now.

Researchers have created the first high-resolution global map of the extent of one of Earth’s largest—and least visible—living networks

New results challenge AI’s promise for solving how fluids swirl—and suggest a more human path forward

Angine de Poitrine don't abide by the usual rules of Western music, using their own custom-built guitar to strike notes that shouldn't exist

In a special report, we explore how computers that exploit the bizarre rules of the quantum realm could change the world.
Elsewhere in the issue: A New Race to the Moon | Lost Roads of the Roman Empire | The Scariest Problem in Math

Johanna Gabriela Ottilie “Tilly” Edinger dedicated her career to studying ancient brains. It saved her life

The Tianwen-2 spacecraft is slowly closing in on the near-Earth asteroid Kamo‘oalewa, on a mission that would bring China’s first asteroid samples back to Earth in 2027

The fossilized remains of more than 450 whales have amassed along a 750-mile-long stretch of the Indian Ocean floor

Totality in the Mediterranean with Clara Moskowitz

Extreme heat poses a risk to players, spectators and workers—find out where the danger is and how to keep cool

Cold fronts colliding with warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico could cause dangerous weather conditions, forecasters say

The ability to run “mental marathons” is a skill children can learn through simple, but dedicated, practice

Eight years after a Chinese scientist's report of gene-edited babies shocked the world, U.S. scientists reported editing embryos not meant for pregnancies using a more precise technique

FIFA is building temporary natural-grass fields meant to play consistently across 16 stadiums in three countries

A step-by-step guide to the “Doginburgh Inventory,” a new pawedness test developed by dog behavior researchers

As millions of soccer fans pack FIFA World Cup venues, public health scientists created a wastewater monitoring network to forecast potential disease threats—from measles to Ebola

An experiment with 2,520 participants backs Richard Feynman’s answer to every diner’s dilemma: Do I want to try something new?

Dermatologists and skincare aficionados are excited for the U.S. to finally get a new, more protective sunscreen filter after more than 20 years of regulatory roadblocks. Here’s how bemotrizinol works

Hints of high-pressure chemistry within a rare meteorite suggest this fallen space rock comes from a planet gone wrong in the solar system’s early history

To run errands across apps, Apple’s upgraded assistant needs deep access to personal data that the company has walled off for years

Weight lifting and other forms of resistance training can increase bone density, lower diabetes risk and boost mental health

NASA’s Artemis III crew includes three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency astronaut

This experimental plane, which reached supersonic speeds yesterday, is designed to travel faster than the speed of sound without creating bothersome sonic booms

When asteroids slam into Earth, they can create hydrothermal vent systems

The maker of Claude wants AI labs, including itself, to prepare for a coordinated slowdown if models begin building their own successors

This marks the first case of the New World screwworm in U.S. livestock since the parasite was eliminated in the country in the 1960s

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit the Philippines happened at a subduction zone. Such places are capable of producing the largest earthquakes possible

Culture is humanity’s secret for world domination. This calculation shows just how powerful it is