History of Science

Four small, newly discovered worlds are less than six light-years away from Earth, and their discovery reinforces a cautionary tale from planet hunting’s prehistory

Memes about repeated evolution of crabs have been co-opted to joke about technology and “ultimate forms.” They’re hilarious, but they oversimplify natural variation, giving bad arguments a scientific veneer

Asteroid 2024 YR4’s risk of hitting Earth is shifting with new data, astronomers say

Three forensic examiners at the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory last year mistakenly concluded that cartridge cases from a crime scene matched a specific firearm. The error exposes systemic flaws that risk wrongful convictions

Elon Musk’s Fork in the Road isn’t just a sculpture—it’s a monument to the tech world’s obsession with civilizational survival, which has its roots in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

The number of planets that orbit the sun depends on what you mean by “planet,” and that’s not so easy to define

A century after the Scopes trial, hopeful prospects beckon for teaching the unifying principle of the biological sciences in the U.S.’s classrooms

This year, from Earth’s perspective, Saturn’s rings will appear nearly edge on, making them almost invisible

The familiar zodiac constellations are defined by Earth’s motion around the sun, but they don’t define your fate

The centennial of the discovery of brain waves in humans exposes a chilling tale involving Nazis, war between Russia and Ukraine, suicide and the vicissitudes of history

With billions of stars in the Milky Way, some nomenclature standardization is necessary

The celestial equivalent to latitude and longitude lets astronomers find their way across the heavens