How Did Humans Boil Water Before the Invention of Pots?
Roasting would have been easy. But re-creating the paleo way of boiling water requires a bit more imagination.
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Projects
Life Up Close
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Martin Saavedra The Price of Protecting Rhinos
Conservation has become a war, and park rangers and poachers are the soldiers.
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Mario Tama / Getty This Is Your Life on Climate Change
2019 was the hottest year on record, with one exception.
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Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty The U.S. Space Force Is Not a Joke
It’s not all President Trump promised, but it exists now.
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Saeed Khan / AFP via Getty The Bleak Future of Australian Wildlife
The bushfires were a disaster waiting to happen for animals already fighting for survival.
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William Vandivert / The LIFE Picture Collection / ... Texas Can’t Quit the Aoudad
Some Texans are calling for the extermination of this exotic African transplant. But others depend on it.
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Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine Giant, Mysterious Blobs Are Lurking at the Edge of Earth’s Core
Some seismologists think two massive anomalies under Africa and the Pacific are made of ancient, smoldering rock.
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Courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science An Influential Female Astronomer Is Getting Her Due
A new observatory has been renamed in honor of Vera Rubin, whose work led astronomers to the mysteries of dark matter.
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The Virus Buried in a 100-Year-Old Lung
Scientists have managed to sequence the genome of a measles virus that infected a 2-year-old girl who died in 1912.
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Courtesy of R. Feord What Scientists Learned by Putting 3-D Glasses on Cuttlefish
They perceive depth in a very different way than we do.
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Anadolu Agency / Getty How Long Will Australia Be Livable?
Facing a future of fire, drought, and rising oceans, Australians will have to weigh the choice between getting out early or staying to fight.
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Jeremie Vaubaillon / Caltech / NASA The Curious Case of the Evaporating Exoplanet
Astronomers are getting better at detecting smaller, weirder worlds.
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Jim Urquhart / Reuters America’s Coal Consumption Entered Free Fall in 2019
Coal fell 18 percent last year, the largest drop ever recorded. But carbon emissions across the rest of the economy barely budged.
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The Atlantic The Concession to Climate Change I Will Not Make
I’ve never thought we should stop having children. But I will have to teach our son to wonder at the world before he learns to fear for it.
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David Gray / Getty Australia Will Lose to Climate Change
Even as the country fights bushfires, it can’t stop dumping planet-warming pollution into the atmosphere.
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An Unexpected Gold Rush in Small-Town Maine
Increasing demand for baby eels has created a black market—and a tragedy of the commons.
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Bruce E. Lyon The Survival Advantage of Being a Fancy Baby Coot
Unlike many other gaudy animal ornaments, the red-and-orange heads of coot chicks are honest indicators of weakness and vulnerability.
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Mariana Bazo / Reuters A Field Guide for the Entire 21st Century
A new project reveals not just where birds live now—but where they’ll live decades from now.
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Universal History Archive / Getty Images What Happens to Meat When You Freeze It for 35,000 Years
A gastronomic investigation of mammoth feasts
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Arsh Raziuddin / The Atlantic Sleuths Are Haunted by the Cold Case of Julie Doe
A group of self-taught investigators is confronting the limits of using DNA and genetic genealogy to identify victims.
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Aleksandar Mijatovic / shutterstock How the Kiwi Queen Transformed America’s Supermarkets
Seventy years ago, most Americans had never heard of sugar snap peas or spaghetti squash or passion fruit. What changed?
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Terry Renna / AP A Dramatic Error in American Spaceflight
Boeing was set to pass a meaningful milestone in spaceflight, but a glitch cut the mission short.
