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Laughing Off Your Mistakes Makes You Seem More Competent

“People often overestimate how harshly others judge their minor social mistakes”

Is a Strictly Enforced Fishing Ban Saving the Yangtze?

Ecologists detect promising, early signs of river recovery

The Long, Dirty History of Our Capitol’s Waters

The recent Potomac River disaster follows centuries of pollution—but things are looking up

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How Three Students Designed an Atomic Bomb

A top-secret 1960s project tasked physics postdocs with building The Bomb

The Thrill of Science in 2042

A science historian explains how science got its groove back. A fictional dispatch from the future.

How Energy Politics Played Out on the White House Roof

The quick removal of Jimmy Carter’s futuristic solar panels echoes more recent feuds over renewables

Can We Protect Science?

It was a burning question at the World Economic Forum last week

What Would Richard Feynman Make of AI Today?

The scientific sage was always suspicious of grand promises delivered before details were understood

The Vibes Have Been Off in the US for Decades

New survey analysis reveals a sense of national deterioration

Does Belief in God, not Political Party, Drive Conservatism?

Religious “nones” may be less socially liberal than they used to be

Parachute Science Continues to Prevail in Global South Biodiversity Studies

The privilege of describing new species is skewed to Global Northerners

Restoring Panama to When Prehistoric Beasts Roamed the Jungle

The Central American nation never fully recovered from the loss of its megafauna

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Saving the Girl with Dementia

It takes a family to drive research for a rare disease forward

Your Biological Clock is More Complex Than You Think

Prepare for Daylight Saving Time by taking a tour of your internal timekeeping machinery

The Dainty Dinosaur That’s Rewriting Evolutionary History

New alvarezsaur fossil offers a Cretaceous missing link

These Bacteria Beat Cancer By Eating Cancer

They’re being engineered to devour tumors from the inside out

Koalas Recover Genetic Diversity as Populations Expand

Their rebound shows resilience after a severe genetic bottleneck

Watch How Planet-Hopping Microbes Can Survive Asteroid Strikes

This polyextremophile bacterium could survive an interplanetary trip

When Scientists Are Dinosaurs 

At the paleontology conference, her new theory was shouted down

World’s Largest Acid Geyser Erupts, Right in Our Backyard

Yellowstone National Park is home to the world’s most impressive geysers