AI labels a lot of stuff as alien life
Don’t expect a dramatic, AI-assisted sci-fi encounter if humanity ever definitively detects evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Scouring the stars for signs of aliens is less about waiting for giant…
July 2026
Mystery of Hannibal’s infamous Alps crossing gets a major clue
It’s one of military history’s most exciting chapters. In 218 BCE, Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with a squadron of 37 war elephants to invade Italy. While we can’t…
Wild ’90s video shows wooden rollercoaster track shaking with each ride
There is a certain historical charm to wooden rollercoasters, even if many prefer to admire them from a distance these days. Although the thrill ride’s origins technically trace back to…
NRC is (sort of) getting rid of “as low as reasonably achievable” standard
Last week, just before the US started its break for the July Fourth holiday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proposed a new rule that would change how it regulated exposure…
Katalyst’s satellite rescue mission is now in pursuit of NASA’s Swift
High above the remote Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the northernmost part of Australia, an air-launched rocket fired into space on Independence Day weekend to kick off a…
NASA’s CAPSTONE Completes Extended Mission Testing Lunar Technologies
5 Min Read NASA’s CAPSTONE Completes Extended Mission Testing Lunar Technologies The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) has achieved all primary and extended mission objectives.…
Researchers in Switzerland invent a new type of pixel
Every single day, we’re constantly looking at pixels. The tiny elements make up the displays on our phone screens and televisions, and allow us to capture images on digital cameras.…
Farewell, atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider
It’s difficult to overstate just how much the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has helped advance our understanding of the universe. Since its debut in 2008, the 16.7-mile-wide subatomic smasher buried…
Chemical accidents rise as Trump administration proposes weakening safety rules
Physicist Ronald Koopman appeared at a Southern California Air District meeting in 2018 to talk about what seemed like an arcane scientific topic: hydrofluoric acid dispersion and water mitigation testing.…
The missing 500 million: Cosmic bombardment melted Earth’s first crust
Earth is the only planet we know of with buoyant, silica-rich continents. But, despite decades of research, geologists still don’t agree on how they formed. “The continents started appearing around…