The second law of thermodynamics underlies nearly everything. But is it inviolable?
In real life, laws are broken all the time. Besides your everyday criminals, there are scammers and fraudsters, politicians and […]
California droughts may help valley fever spread
Long dry spells can give a lethal fungal disease a lift. While California droughts can temporarily keep cases of valley
Ancient DNA unveils a previously unknown line of Neandertals
Neandertals traveled at least two evolutionary paths on their way to extinction around 40,000 years ago, a new study suggests.
Mega El Niños triggered the world’s worst mass extinction
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do
A quantum computer corrected its own errors, improving its calculations
For the first time, a quantum computer has improved its results by repeatedly fixing its own mistakes midcalculation with a
Scientists find a long-sought electric field in Earth’s atmosphere
For the first time, scientists have measured a long-sought global electric field in the Earth’s atmosphere. This field, called the
How a dying star is similar to a lava lamp
For the first time, astronomers have watched gas boil and bubble on the surface of a distant star. Scientists observed
Meet Porphyrion, the largest pair of black hole jets ever seen
Opposing fountains of plasma and particles spanning 23 million light-years are the longest pair of black hole jets ever seen.
A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations
As the youthful universe congealed under the pull of gravity, matter knotted itself into galaxies, galaxy clusters and filaments, weaving
Climate change could double U.S. temperature-linked deaths by mid-century
Heat-related deaths in the United States are on the rise. But how bad will it be 20, 30 or 40