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The Mystery of Water on the Moon

Where it is, and how it got there

The Costs of Feeling Lonely in a Crowd

An interview with a loneliness researcher about the varieties of social isolation

A Poet of Science Who Shook Faith in God

Biographer Richard Holmes reveals how Tennyson predated Darwin and speaks to us today

Time Brings Order to the Universe

These scientists are proposing a new law of nature

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Saving the Girl with Dementia

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

When Scientists Are Dinosaurs 

At the paleontology conference, her new theory was shouted down

Did This 17th-Century Novel Presage the Coming Artemis II Observations?

When a father of astronomy wrote the first science-fiction book about the dark side of the moon

The Best Photos of the Artemis II Mission (So Far)

Humans haven’t taken photos of Earth from this distance in half a century

A Very Unscientific History of Scientific Hoaxes

The past, present, and future of academic deception

The Martyrs, Hunters, and Nature Lovers Who Came Together to Save Birds

An interview with James McCommons, author of The Feather Wars, about the past and future of bird conservation

How Three Students Designed an Atomic Bomb

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

Can Plants Count?

It seems as though they can at least track the number of events in their environment

When Fake Supplements Work

A new twist on the placebo effect

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Bumblebees Bounce to the Beat

Suggesting deep evolutionary roots of rhythm in animals

Why Seals Twitch Their Whiskers

And the trade-offs inherent to every twitch

A Light in the Dark: Finding the Good in the Natural World

Is it absurd to think that science can inform our values?

How ‘Tiny Shortcuts’ Are Poisoning Science

Seemingly harmless data tweaks are undermining the integrity of the entire field. We must define the problem to prevent it

Doing Science and Philosophy On Drugs

Justin Smith-Ruiu takes a philosophical and first-person look at psychedelics

What Goes On Inside a Ripening Banana

The transition from green to yellow is more complicated than previously thought

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I Asked Claude Why It Won’t Stop Flattering Me

An interview with Anthropic’s chatbot about sycophantic AI and how to guard against it

Your Biological Clock Can be Measured With a Hair Sample

The new test opens opportunities for circadian medicine

AI Art Is Human Art

An interview with a cognitive scientist about creativity and pleasure

When Dogs First Became Man’s Best Friend

Ancient canid DNA pushes date of dog domestication back millennia

Meet the Arthropod That Originated Fangs

The granddaddy of spiders pushes back the evolutionary clock

How Sleep Cleans the Brain

A fresh look at your nightly brainwashing

Making AI More Human

An interview with Berkeley researcher and author Nina Begus about her new book and proposal to fuse science and the humanities