Science

From NASA to SpaceX, rocket launches expected to surge in next decade

August 17, 2026 Updated August 18, 2026 at 5:47 am ET The FAA predicts that commercial rocket launches will increase dramatically over the next decade. NASA’s Artemis lunar missions and commercial satellite deployments are driving the increase in launches. Florida and California, the top launching states, have already experienced record years in rocket activity. The … Read more

Psychology says people who carry one mug to the kitchen instead of waiting to carry four aren’t tidy or impatient — they’re spending real physical effort to stop holding the task in their head, and researchers have a word for it: precrastination

Psychology says people who carry one mug to the kitchen instead of waiting to carry four aren't tidy or impatient — they're spending real physical effort to stop holding the task in their head, and researchers have a word for it: precrastination

It seems like the least efficient way to clean a table. One cup, one trip, round trip, when waiting five more minutes would allow the same person to carry all four at once and reduce the total number of trips by three quarters. Efficiency experts would wince. And yet, almost everyone has done exactly this, … Read more

On 2 July 2026, NASA’s Perseverance rover captured Earth disappearing behind Phobos from the surface of Mars — the first time in history a camera on another planet has watched our world vanish behind another object.

On 2 July 2026, NASA's Perseverance rover captured Earth disappearing behind Phobos from the surface of Mars — the first time in history a camera on another planet has watched our world vanish behind another object.

From the western edge of Jezero Crater, Earth was not a blue world on July 2, 2026. It was a single bright pixel, 314 million kilometers away, moving across the night sky of Mars. A thin crescent of Phobos approached from the other direction. Then, for a few moments in a sequence of images taken … Read more

Around eight per cent of your DNA was left behind by ancient viruses, and one of those stolen viral genes is what builds the placenta — meaning every mammal alive, including you, was born because a virus infected an ancestor and never left.

Around eight per cent of your DNA was left behind by ancient viruses, and one of those stolen viral genes is what builds the placenta — meaning every mammal alive, including you, was born because a virus infected an ancestor and never left.

“Are you sure they’re not twins?” The question came from a woman I’d never spoken to before, both of us standing on our pedals in the middle of class in a dark spin studio that smelled like clove deodorant and someone else’s protein shake. I had been pregnant with my second daughter for six months … Read more

Blue Origin adding second pad to Cape Canaveral launch complex amid rocket explosion repairs

Blue Origin adding second pad to Cape Canaveral launch complex amid rocket explosion repairs

Blue Origin plans to return its Florida launch site to a dual-deck facility to support its larger, more powerful New Glenn “9×4” rocket, which is still in development. As facility repairs continue following the explosion of one of Blue Origin’s “7×2” New Glenn rockets during testing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex-36 in … Read more

RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours, yet researchers have now read it from a mammoth frozen in Siberian permafrost 39,000 years ago — and the transcripts caught his muscle tissue in the middle of a stress response

RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours, yet researchers have now read it from a mammoth frozen in Siberian permafrost 39,000 years ago — and the transcripts caught his muscle tissue in the middle of a stress response

RNA is the molecule that biologists generally consider disposable. Unlike DNA, which is designed to be a long-term stable file, RNA is made, used and broken down by a cell in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, as part of an ordinary task: converting genetic instructions into proteins and then discarding the messenger after the … Read more

A pop-up tag on a pregnant porbeagle shark kept reporting for four days after it stopped moving like a shark — rising and falling through the water at a constant 22°C, five degrees warmer than the sea, from inside whatever had swallowed it

A pop-up tag on a pregnant porbeagle shark kept reporting for four days after it stopped moving like a shark — rising and falling through the water at a constant 22°C, five degrees warmer than the sea, from inside whatever had swallowed it

For months, the data looked like that of an ordinary shark. A pop-up satellite archive tag attached to a pregnant porbeagle shark off Cape Cod followed the animal in its usual pattern: diving deeply during the day, sometimes more than two thousand feet, and then rising back to shallower waters, roughly three hundred to two … Read more