Science

The Astronaut Wives Know Exactly What to Expect

These days, the women married to NASA’s space travelers are astronauts themselves.

• Marina Koren
• May 25, 2020

We Don’t Even Have a COVID-19 Vaccine, and Yet the Conspiracies Are Here

Even as vaccines for the disease are being held up as the last hope for a return to normalcy, misinformation about them is spreading.

• Sarah Zhang
• May 24, 2020

How Loners Are an Evolutionary Insurance Policy

Organisms that don’t follow the herd may not be stragglers, but nature’s way of hedging its bets.

• Jordana Cepelewicz and Quanta
• May 23, 2020

The Cult of Elon Is Cracking

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is starting to alienate his fans.

• Marina Koren
• May 20, 2020

The Last Place on Earth We’d Ever Expect to Find Life

Microbes are turning up deep beneath the ocean floor, a sign that life might have fewer limits than scientists once thought.

• Jordana Cepelewicz and Quanta
• May 17, 2020

Why the Coronavirus Hits Kids and Adults So Differently

COVID-19 is much less severe in children, and it could have to do with a child’s still-developing immune system.

• Sarah Zhang
• May 15, 2020

The Countries Taking Advantage of Antarctica During the Pandemic

While the West has scaled back operations in the Antarctic, Russia and China have pushed ahead.

• Leah Feiger and Mara Wilson
• May 15, 2020

Jupiter Looks, Um, Different

New images of the planet allow astronomers to peer deeper into its stormy atmosphere.

• Marina Koren
• May 14, 2020

How Bats Might Have Tamed the Coronavirus

The animals have a remarkable resilience to all sorts of diseases that afflict humans.

• Katherine J. Wu and Undark
• May 10, 2020

What Happens If a ‘Big One’ Strikes During the Pandemic?

Hundreds of preexisting plans deal with individual natural-disaster scenarios. But these plans haven’t accounted for COVID-19 happening at the same time.

• Robin George Andrews
• May 9, 2020

There’s One Big Reason the U.S. Economy Can’t Reopen

The country faces the same problem today that it did two months ago: There are not enough tests to contain the virus.

• Robinson Meyer
• May 8, 2020

A Much-Hyped COVID-19 Drug Is Almost Identical to a Black-Market Cat Cure

Cat owners are resorting to China’s underground marketplace to buy antivirals for a feline coronavirus.

• Sarah Zhang
• May 8, 2020

You’ll Probably Never Know If You Had the Coronavirus in January

So far, all available evidence suggests that few Americans were infected in the first weeks of the year. It would be next to impossible to find out who they were.

• Rachel Gutman
• May 8, 2020

The Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus Mutations

There’s no clear evidence that the pandemic virus has evolved into significantly different forms—and there probably won’t be for months.

• Ed Yong
• May 6, 2020

A Black Hole Is ‘Almost on Our Doorstep’

The invisible point of darkness resides in a double-star system just 1,000 light-years away.

• Marina Koren
• May 6, 2020

‘ICU Delirium’ Is Leaving COVID-19 Patients Scared and Confused

The mental toll of intensive care can be more severe than the physical one.

• Marion Renault
• May 5, 2020

The Thorniest Subject at NASA Right Now

The space agency is carefully following pandemic measures. Elon Musk thinks they’re overblown. But they’re going to the moon together.

• Marina Koren
• May 1, 2020

The Before Times of a Solar System

New observations of young stars capture the cosmic forces that can transform tiny particles into colossal worlds.

• Marina Koren
• May 1, 2020

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing

A guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend

• Ed Yong
• April 29, 2020

The False Hope of Antibody Tests

The immunity tests were supposed to be a “game changer,” but they are instead revealing that the majority of Americans are still vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.

• Sarah Zhang
• April 28, 2020