Science

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A New Species of Tiny Octopus Was Discovered in the Galápagos Islands

An octopus about the size of a golf ball was first spotted in 2015 near Darwin Island. A new study gives it both a formal description and a name.

Marta Musso

Polar Express

NASA Details Its Plan to Build a Lunar Base at the Moon’s South Pole

Jorge Garay

Sticky Situation

The Cookware Industry Has a Major Fight Brewing Over PFAS Claims

Molly Taft

Health

Supercharging Immune Cells May Help Control HIV Long-Term

CAR-T cell therapy is already a potent treatment for certain cancers. Now, a small study is showing early promise for managing HIV.

Emily Mullin

A Danish Couple’s Maverick African Research Finds Its Moment in RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Policy

The work of Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn has long been controversial. Until Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became US health policy chief, most vaccine scientists tended to ignore it. Now they can’t.

Arthur Allen, KFF Health News

We Now Know How Many People the CDC Is Monitoring for Hantavirus

There are no confirmed cases in the US, but 41 people who were potentially exposed to the Andes virus are in quarantine or being monitored for symptoms.

Emily Mullin

Inside the Race to Develop a Test for the Rare Andes Hantavirus

A University of Nebraska lab has developed a test that can detect the virus before symptoms become severe. Now, it's ready to start testing those returning to the US after a cruise outbreak.

Emily Mullin

Environment

The First Atomic Bomb Test in 1945 Created an Entirely New Material

The discovery from the Trinity nuclear test site shows how extreme conditions can result in materials never before seen in nature or in the lab.

Marta Musso

xAI Adds 19 New Gas Turbines Despite Ongoing Lawsuit

Emails show that Elon Musk’s company is expanding its use of portable gas-fired power at its Colossus 2 site as a fight over air quality continues.

Molly Taft

Mexico City Is Sinking. A Powerful NASA Satellite Just Revealed How Fast

A new NASA map shows how the sinking of Mexico City is uneven, with areas registering up to 2 centimeters per month.

Fernanda González

The Iran War Is Impacting the Environment in Unseen Ways

From toxic smoke and oil spills to rising emissions, poisoned soil, and damaged ecosystems, war can reshape the environment long after the fighting stops.

Chris Hamill-Stewart and Ruchi Kumar

Climate

Why the 2026 Hurricane Season Might Not Be That Bad

The impending arrival of El Niño will help keep the number of storms low. But it only takes one landfall to create a catastrophe.

Brian Kahn

How Wet Weather in Argentina Helped Fuel the Cruise Ship Hantavirus Outbreak

Climate change is helping create conditions that are driving the rodent boom—dubbed a ratada—in Argentina.

María de los Ángeles Orfila

California’s Wildfire Season Is Already Overactive

Major fires are threatening homes and ecologically sensitive areas following a hot, dry winter.

Brian Kahn

Old Oil and Gas Wells Could Find Second Life Producing Clean Energy

States across the US are looking to take major sources of pollution and use them to generate much-needed power.

Maria Gallucci

Energy

SpaceX Is Spending $2.8 Billion to Buy Gas Turbines for Its AI Data Centers

The investment comes as Elon Musk’s AI unit faces complaints about the carbon-emitting units and looks to become a big player in cloud computing.

Paresh Dave

After Struggling With EVs, US Automakers Pivot to Energy

Ford and GM are backing away from electric vehicles and moving into the battery storage business. And it all comes back to AI.

Aarian Marshall

Why a Federal Gas Tax Holiday Is a Terrible Idea

Reducing the fee will have only a marginal impact on prices while depriving the government of revenue to maintain roads.

Molly Taft

What It Will Take to Make AI Sustainable

Researcher Sasha Luccioni argues we need better emissions data and a better sense of how people are using AI in the first place.

Molly Taft

Space

A Probe Took Incredible Pictures of Mars on Its Way to a Far-Off Asteroid

NASA took advantage of the recent close approach of the Psyche probe to Mars to calibrate its observation instruments.

Jorge Garay

The Universe Is Full of ‘Impossible’ Black Holes. Scientists Now Know Why

There are black holes that are too big to be born from the death of a star but aren’t quite supermassive either. There’s finally evidence for where those came from.

Jorge Garay

The Emptiest Places in the Universe Might Contain Its Best Secrets

Once dismissed as empty expanses between galaxies, cosmic voids are becoming one of the most promising tools for probing the universe’s biggest mysteries.

Becky Ferreira

Asteroid 2026 JH2 Is About to Fly Right Past Earth—Relatively Speaking

On May 18, an asteroid about the size of Chicago’s Cloud Gate will fly four times closer to Earth than the moon.

Anna Lisa Bonfranceschi

Physics and Math

A Fundamental Principle of Aeronautical Engineering Has Been Overturned

It’s long been accepted that the smoother the surface, the lower the aerodynamic drag. That turns out not always to be the case.

Ritsuko Kawai

All the Fancy Measuring Devices Used in Science Rely on Two Stone-Age Techniques

The many methods we use to gather data ultimately boil down to either counting or comparing.

Rhett Allain

Build a Radio Wave Detector With Balls of Aluminum Foil!

Here’s how you can hack together a radio transmitter and receiver out of stuff you have at home—and explore the weirdness of wireless.

Rhett Allain

Do Lightsaber Blades Have Mass?

On Star Wars Day, we put to rest a question that has bedeviled sci-fi nerds for years.

Rhett Allain

Biotech

A New Hantavirus Vaccine Is in the Works

Since 2023, Moderna and Korea University have been developing a new mRNA vaccine for hantavirus. The work has been promising so far, but a finished product isn't likely coming any time soon.

Javier Carbajal

Venom and Hot Peppers Offer a Key to Killing Resistant Bacteria

Researchers have developed three new antibiotics from scorpion venom and habanero peppers to combat tuberculosis and other drug-resistant pathogens.

Fernanda González

Designer Baby Companies Are in Turmoil

Bootstrap Bio and Manhattan Genomics, which were pursuing human embryo editing to prevent serious disease, have shut down.

Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe

A Startup Says It Grew Human Sperm in a Lab—and Used It to Make Embryos

Paterna Biosciences says it has determined the set of instructions needed to turn sperm-making stem cells into "normal, mature" sperm.

Emily Mullin

Psychology and Neuroscience

Study of Buddhist Monks Finds Meditation Alters Brain Activity

Meditation isn’t thinking about nothing. New research reinforces that it’s a mind-altering, dynamic state that promotes focus, learning, and well-being.

Javier Carbajal