Stories by Lee Billings

Book Review: The Sports Gene

Fact or Fiction?: We Can Push the Planet into a Runaway Greenhouse Apocalypse

A new study suggests human activity could, in theory, bring about the end of most life on Earth

Solved: The Mystery of the Martian Meteorites

Precision dating of a single rock resolves lingering uncertainties about the Red Planet’s history

Cassini Spacecraft Takes 1 Last Look at Home Today

For a quarter-hour today, some of us on Earth can look up and know that almost a billion miles away, above the sky, a set of robotic eyes is looking right back .

Neptune s New Moon May Be Named after One of Sea God s Monstrous Children

This past Monday, the planet Neptune officially got a new moon, a relatively tiny chunk of rock and ice about as wide as Manhattan is long. The object is currently dubbed S/2004 N 1, and it’s the fourteenth now known to circle that distant icy world...

Uncommon Measure: Acoustic Result Could Change Definition of Temperature

A new measurement of a fundamental physical constant marks a turning point in the quest to craft a perfect temperature scale

A Brilliant Flash, Then Nothing: New “Fast Radio Bursts” Mystify Astronomers

Ultrafast, ultrabright radio pulses from sources unknown could help map intergalactic matter, but only if astronomers can figure out their origin

Do 3 Habitable Super-Earths Really Orbit a Nearby Star?

News of possible multiple habitable worlds around the red dwarf star Gliese 667 C may be exciting, but researchers caution that certainty about these exoplanets remains elusive