Hard Science
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Davemaoite: New mineral found preserved within a diamond
Until now, researchers believed davemaoite could never be found on Earth's surface.
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Why do frozen turkeys explode when deep-fried?
A chemist explains the real reason your family dinner is such a risky ordeal.
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How astronomers piece together surfaces of invisible alien worlds
From hellishly hot planets to water worlds, some distant planets are like nothing in our Solar System.
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What the famous Miller-Urey experiment got wrong
The Miller-Urey experiment showed that the building blocks of life could form in the primordial soup. But it overlooked one key variable.
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Russian anti-satellite weapon test: What happened and what are the risks?
On Nov. 15, 2021, U.S. officials announced that they had detected a dangerous new debris field in orbit near Earth. Later in the day, it was confirmed that Russia had […]
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How to protect Earth from incoming asteroids, according to experts
“Should they strike, each of them has an energy at impact equal to all of the nuclear weapons on Earth combined."
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A supervolcano can act like a silent, ticking time bomb
Surface deformation or other signs of an impending explosion may not occur. Instead, supervolcanic eruptions can be much more insidious.
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Rover images confirm Jezero crater is an ancient Martian lake
The findings include signs of flash flooding that carried huge boulders downstream into the lakebed.
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Asymmetric organocatalysis: The simple chemistry discovery that won the 2021 Nobel Prize
Asymmetric organocatalysis is an environmentally friendly way of accelerating chemical reactions and creating specific types of molecules.
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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is shrinking and speeding up
Much like computing technology, the Great Red Spot has been getting smaller and faster over the last few years.
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2021 Nobel Prize in chemistry rewards game-changing work on molecular manipulation
Without Benjamin List and David MacMillan, chemists would still be using metals and enzymes to catalyze chemical reactions.
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A megacomet is heading toward our solar system
A new study shows that the Bernardinelli-Bernstein Comet is much larger than previously thought — potentially the largest ever spotted.
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Beyond pain and pressure: 2021 Nobel Prize for medicine awards work on sensory perception
David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were awarded the highest honor in medicine for their research into how human bodies make sense of and respond to the outside world.
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The incredible origin story of CRISPR
The development of the revolutionary gene-engineering tool CRISPR is a tale fit for the big screen.
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The paradoxical reasons for science’s success
Why should we rely on scientific conclusions even though they cannot be proven? A new essay offers compelling reasons.
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How many stars are in the universe?
Try this: It’s about 10 times the number of cups of water in all the oceans of Earth.
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Meteorite’s fall to Earth retraced with dashcam footage
The unconventional method could help astronomers better track meteorites that fall during the daytime.
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An icy space rock flattened an ancient city and everyone in it, perhaps inspiring the Biblical story of Sodom
Shocked city dwellers who stared at it were blinded instantly, then the entire city caught fire.
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Just how many satellites are orbiting our planet?
With the huge growth in satellites, fears of a crowded sky are coming true.
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Ancient Mars was once home to thousands of supervolcanoes
Research from NASA reveals Mars’ spectacular volcanic past.
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New graphic shows just how razor thin Earth’s atmosphere is
The atmosphere’s habitable zone is so small, several mountain ranges extend beyond it.
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NASA updates the odds of asteroid Bennu hitting Earth
Asteroid Bennu is still far more likely to fly right by us than to make impact.
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Six places to find water in the solar system
Water is vital for life. Luckily for spacefaring humans, the solar system is full of it.
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Cracking a mystery about Vesta, our solar system’s second largest asteroid
How did the troughs form?
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Hycean worlds: a new class of habitable exoplanet
Researchers hypothesize that these exoplanets could support the development of alien life.
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Earth’s first puff of oxygen may be thanks to volcanoes
Scientists track down a puzzling early burst of oxygen on Earth.
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Quasars: how to feed a supermassive black hole
A new model addresses a longstanding problem: where do quasars get the fuel they need to outshine entire galaxies?
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Explaining a billion-year gap in the fossil record
A puzzling — and huge — break in the geological record finally might be explained.
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Pharaoh’s groupies: why are we obsessed with ancient Egypt?
We should not romanticize ancient Egyptian culture.
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What NIF’s fusion energy breakthrough really means
Let's celebrate the progress, but put the cork back in the champagne bottle.