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…
Tech
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…
The Shaker woman who reinvented the circular saw
In the 2025 musical film The Testament of Ann Lee, a radical 18th-century prophetess who claims to speak with God leads her followers from England to America. Remarkably, this story…
Newly discovered PamStealer isn’t your typical macOS malware
Researchers have found a never-before-seen piece of macOS malware that combines a series of clever tradecraft to infect Macs with stealthy, custom-developed credential-stealing code. The malware is delivered in two…
From real nails to kangaroo leather: Soccer cleats went on a wild journey
Viewers tuning into the 2026 World Cup may not realize it, but they are staring at a piece of high-tech equipment hundreds of years in the making with every single…
Artificial cell manages a few rounds of cell division
Understanding the origin of life requires addressing a collection of overlapping scientific questions. We’ve made a lot of progress toward explaining how simple chemicals present on an early Earth built…
Man converts canoe into a sailboat, takes it for a spin
Canoeing and sailing are two very different experiences, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. They’re also suited for specific boating environments, with canoeing most frequently seen in rivers, lakes,…