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…
2026
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…
31 alien-like marine species discovered off the coast of Brazil
After a two week expedition off the coast of Brazil, an international team of researchers discovered 31 new marine species, including a fast-moving gossamer worm, a creepy fish, and other…
The American revolutionaries who popularized science in the early United States
Today, we celebrate the United States’ semiquincentennial, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. During reflective national moments like these, we tend to focus on the…
When the ability to smell goes away
About 14 years ago, Chrissi Kelly lost her sense of smell. She had traveled to the Czech Republic to visit family and caught some virus. Months later, when she still…
A martian rock has lots of carbon on it, and it’s not clear why
NASA’s Perseverance rover has spent five years traversing Jezero Crater looking for the chemical leftovers of whatever processes were at work on Mars billions of years ago. The rover has…
George Washington’s famous ‘golden suit’ was actually purple
With the United States’ 250th birthday coming up on July Fourth, it may seem like George Washington is everywhere, from a live PBS broadcast featuring Ken Burns at Colonial Williamsburg…
America’s Time Capsule will be buried for 250 years. Here’s how to watch.
America’s Time Capsule is about to go underground until 2276. In honor of the United States’ 250th birthday, America250 will bury the zombie-proof historical repository this Fourth of July at…
Rocket Report: Indian startup nears first launch; SpaceX’s millenary milestone
Welcome to Edition 9.01 of the Rocket Report! Back in January, I wrote about the 20 launches and landings we were most excited about in 2026. The list included things…