Popular Science

Tony Ware

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However, LightGrid isn’t the only approach under consideration. Astrobotic, an aerospace startup based in Pittsburgh, has spent years developing its own moon power solution, called LunaGrid. In this case, the company has built several solar-power generating stations connected by transmission cables stretching for several miles across the surface. A fleet of small mobile robots with retractable solar panels would then drive from these stations to recharge larger vehicles. Astrobotic likens these mini rovers to an extraterrestrial extension cord.

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There’s also renewed interest from NASA in putting a nuclear reactor on the moon. The idea dates back decades, but was reprioritized earlier this year after NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy issued a directive urgently calling for the development of a 100‑kilowatt fission reactor at the moon’s South Pole by the end of the decade. Energy experts speaking with Wired earlier this year said that the accelerated timeline is ambitious, but not necessarily out of reach. China and Russia, meanwhile, are also racing to build their own lunar nuclear reactors.

Tony Ware

A future fully-functioning lunar habitat will likely require some combination of all these approaches in order to create a dependable power grid capable of withstanding the harsh environment. By hitching a ride on Firefly’s lander, Volta gets an early head start. But that advantage may not last long.

Willing to spend a few hundred more? While not on sale, the Px8 S2 (above) crowns Bowers & Wilkins’ 2025 lineup by fusing the company’s loudspeaker credibility into a travel-friendly chassis. We were already in love with the fun-focused tuning of the Px7 S3, but this even more plush, precise edition quickly landed on our 2025 Audio Awards.

The maturation of several private aerospace companies, like Firefly, Intuitive Machines and ispace, means landers are beginning to reach the moon at a staggering clip. NASA alone has 15 commercial lunar delivery contracts expected to touch down by 2030. These deliveries focus not only on supporting exploration and testing power grids, but also on less obvious efforts, such as establishing lunar cell networks and spectrum rollout.

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In other words, Earth’s nearest alien neighbor is about to get a lot more crowded. And, possibly, a little shinier.

The post Wireless power grids head to the moon appeared first on Popular Science.

Roman generals gifted kittens and piglets to their pet monkeys

Andrew Paul — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:55:00 -0500

Elites in Ancient Rome went to great lengths to advertise their status and wealth. Based on recent archaeological excavations in Egypt, at least some high-ranking military officials even showed off with their choice of pets. In the Journal of Roman Archaeology, researchers at Poland’s University of Warsaw described a nearly 2,000-year-old animal cemetery in the Egyptian port city of Berenike that includes the remains of multiple macaque monkeys. What’s more, the monkeys themselves may have their own animal companions.

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Since its discovery in 2011, archaeologists have been excavating the cemetery near Berenike’s urban center. Experts have documented nearly 800 animal graves, but many of them aren’t typical pets like cats and dogs. In at least 36 cases, the bones belong to Indian rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). While archaeologists have previously documented a few similar examples of ancient Roman pet monkeys elsewhere, they genetically traced back to the Barbary macaques of Africa.

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Selected monkey burials from the Berenike pet cemetery. Credit: P. Osypiński, M. Osypińska / Journal of Roman Archaeology

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“The Berenike burials of monkeys of this species are the first unequivocal indication of organized importation of non-human primates from beyond the ocean,” the study’s authors explained.

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A closer examination indicated at least some of the pet primates weren’t necessarily in the best of health when they died. Two rhesus macaque skulls had signs of malnutrition, possibly due to a diet lacking proper amounts of vegetables and fruit. However, this doesn’t mean the pets were intentionally mistreated. Given Berenike’s comparative remoteness at the time—the port is about 480 miles southeast of Cairo-–it’s more likely that the monkeys’ owners simply lacked reliable access to proper food.

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Aside from the dietary issues, Romans tried caring for their pets in other ways. While only around three percent of the cemetery’s cat and dog graves contained accessory goods, 40 percent of monkeys were interred with items like snacks, collars, and iridescent shells. In some cases, the macaques even lay next to kittens and piglets, possibly the monkeys’ own pets gifted by the owners.

The post Roman generals gifted kittens and piglets to their pet monkeys appeared first on Popular Science.

Asexual parasitic plants break biology’s rules

Tony Ware — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:03:00 -0500

Photosynthesis. Learning how plants use the sun and water to make their own food is a staple of biology class and makes life on Earth possible. Still, not all of the over 300,000 known plant species are food-producing powerhouses that reproduce sexually. Instead, plants like those in the genus Balanophora are asexual parasites. These alien-esque plants challenge the very foundations of plant biology.

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“My long-standing aim is to rethink what it truly means to be a plant,” Kenji Suetsugu, a botanist at Kobe University in Japan, said in a statement. “For many years I have been fascinated by plants that have abandoned photosynthesis, and I want to uncover the changes that occur in the process.”

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Suetsugu is the co-author of a study recently published in the journal New Phytologist that dives into the world of these asexual parasites. Balanophora species are considered an extreme example of non-green plants that feed off the roots of others. They mostly live underground and are found in tropical regions across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. In the mountains of Taiwan and Japan, they grow at the base of mossy trees, often looking more like a mushroom. The plants have the smallest flowers and seeds in the world and only come up during the flowering season from July through October.

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A macro photograph of a cluster of mushroom-like plants on the forest floor against a mossy backdrop. These are Balanophora fungosa ssp. fungosa from southern Okinawa Island. Image: Filip Husnik.

Some Balanophora species do reproduce sexually, while others are exclusively asexual. However, it is still unclear how changes in the plants’ genomes affect their ecology and reproduction. For this new study, Suetsugu and his partners at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology analyzed three main components of Balanophora evolution. They needed to understand how the plants of that group whose genes have changed for asexual behavior relate to each other. Then, they looked to see how these genes modified the part of a plant’s cell that works like a solar panel and absorbs sunlight in green plants called plastids. Finally, they need a better picture of how reproduction fits into their ecology.

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According to Suetsugu, the biggest challenges were simply finding the plants. “These plants are rare, patchy and often restricted to steep, humid forests. But years of experience with studying Balanophora both in the lab and in field studies, as well as long-standing relationships with local naturalists made this project possible,” he said.

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They found that Balanophora plants have an extremely limited plastid genome, where green plants absorb sunlight. This reduction in genetic material likely happened in their common ancestor, before the plants diversified into several different species. Most parasitic plants tend to lose genes in theirr plastids as they become more reliant on their host plants. However, even though Balanophora are completely dependent on their host trees for food, they still have some plastids.

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“It is exciting to see how far a plant can reduce its plastid genome, which at first glance looks as though the plastid is on the verge of disappearing,” said Suetsugu. “But looking more closely we found that many proteins are still transported to the plastid, showing that even though the plant has abandoned photosynthesis, the plastid is still a vital part of the plant’s metabolism.”

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A selection of the sampled Balanophora plants. (a) B. japonica (left and center: Kyushu, Japan; right: Taiwan), (b) B. mutinoides (Taiwan), (c) B. tobiracola (from left: Okinawa, Japan; Taiwan), (d) B. subcupularis (Kyushu, Japan), (e) B. fungosa ssp. fungosa (from left: Okinawa, Japan; Taiwan), (f) B. yakushimensis (from left: Kyushu, Japan; Taiwan), (g) B. nipponica (Honshu, Japan). Image: Svetlikova et al. New Phytologist (2025).

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As far as their asexual reproduction, that likely evolved multiple times in the group. The plants possibly evolved the additional ability to create seeds without fertilization early on in their evolution and it was an advantage as they colonized the archipelago spanning from mainland Japan via the island of Okinawa further south to to Taiwan.

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The practical gift guide: 34 boring-but-useful presents anyone would love

Laura Baisas — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 09:15:50 -0500

We wish every gift could be a blockbuster. Everyone wants an iPad or a dirt bike under the tree. But, that’s not realistic. Here in the real world, practical devices often make the best gifts. These are the unsung gifts that make life better without all the fanfare. And, even though it’s late in the gift-buying process, you can still get most of these in time to go under the tree.

“Over the past decade I have studied Balanophora pollination and seed dispersal where camel crickets and cockroaches play an unexpected role, but I also noticed that asexual seed production often ensured reproduction when mates or pollinators are scarce,” explained Suetsugu.

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Eventually, asexual reproduction might have become permanent in some Balanophora species.

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In future work, the team hopes to connect these results with more biochemical data to see what the Balanophora plastids actually produce that creates food and how they help sustain these parasitic plants as they grow within their host’s roots.

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“For someone who has spent many hours observing these plants in dark, humid forests, seeing their story unfold at the genomic level is deeply satisfying,” Suetsugu concluded.

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“Biscotti made up approximately 75% of crews’ caloric intake during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance,” says maritime historian Lawrence V. Mott, author of a study on the diet of the Catalan-Aragonese fleet in the late 13th century. For his research, Mott examined ancient maritime archives and archeological remains to understand how a medieval maritime power like the Barcelona-based Crown of Aragon, which controlled parts of Spain, southern France, Sicily, and Sardinia, could sustain crews of 3000 rowers that needed approximately 4,000 calories per day and were out at sea for up to five months.

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“The answer was biscotti,” he says. “All evidence indicates that long-lasting biscotti were sailors’ main source of carbohydrates.” Cheese, cured meat, and vegetable soup made up the rest of sailors’ caloric intake, Mott explains.

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Of course, maritime biscotti were a far cry from the delicious treats that we munch on today. “After a few weeks at sea, biscotti would become hard as a rock,” Mott explains. Sailors typically crushed their daily ratio of the baked “superfood” and soaked it in soup or wine—a maritime version of biscotti’s current dessert combo.

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“What really struck me as I went through the archives is the sheer amount of biscotti needed to power a navy fleet of that size,” Mott says. A fleet of 20 ships, each carrying 150 men, out at sea for a period of three months required a whopping 230 metric tons of biscotti, the equivalent of two adult blue whales. This colossal supply of biscotti was produced thanks to carefully coordinated biscotti-production on land.

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“We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a period of low technological development,” Mott says, “but making enough biscotti for a fleet was a massive technological undertaking requiring coordination between galley managers, grain producers, watermill operators, and bakers.” Ensuring that biscotti could keep for as long as possible was also key. The Catalan-Aragonese fleet dedicated approximately 1.8 miles of fabric to make water-proof sacks that kept biscotti fresh while out at sea.

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Renaissance: biscotti evolve from hardy sailor food to a refined sweet treat

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During the 16th century biscotti started to evolve from a “maritime superfood” into a more domesticated treat. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact date, but at some point during the 1500s, when sugar started to become more available in Europe thanks to sugar cane imports from the Americas, biscotti, at least those baked for land-based consumption, started to take a sweet turn, featuring ingredients like almonds and sugar.

Bartolomeo Scappi, who worked as a chef for kings and popes, including Pope Pius IV and Pius V, featured a biscotti recipe in his famous 1570 cookbook, Opera dell’Arte del Cucinare, that called for flour, eggs, and sugar.

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The Accademia della Crusca, a research entity for Italian linguistic studies, documented one of the first written instances of “cantucci,” the Tuscan name for biscotti, in a 1691 document featuring sugar as part of the recipe.

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In the 19th century, Tuscan pastry chef Antonio Mattei enriched the biscotti recipe, adding almond flakes and anis. German writer Herman Hesse praised this recipe, which won awards for innovation in agriculture and industry at the 1867 World Expo in Paris, in his Italian travelogue.

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During the 20th century, Mattei’s crunchy almond cookies became popular in Italy and around the world. Mattei’s biscotti’s rise as a global dessert staple coincided with the decline of the maritime biscotti.

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As Mott explained, most navy fleets relied on biscotti, the salty version, as the key source of nutrition until the 19th century. Eventually, the development of the canning industry and advances in food refrigeration made it easier for fleets to take food out at sea, ending the centuries-old custom of stocking up on bags of biscotti before a sea voyage.

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But for centuries before that, the biscotti powered generations of sailors, tradesmen, and explorers. “Biscotti were such the perfect food for sailors that fleets did not change their diets until they could take canned food on board,” Mott says. “After all, when you have something that’s working, why change it?”

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In The History of Every Thing, Popular Science uncovers the hidden stories and surprising origins behind the things we use (or eat) every day.

The post Biscotti once fed Roman navies and Christopher Columbus’s expeditions appeared first on Popular Science.

Wolfbox dropped the prices on its auto accessories by up to 30%: Save on dash cams, jump starters, and more

Stan Horaczek — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:50:26 -0500

You don’t want to wait until you have an accident or an emergency to buy the right gear for your car. Wolfbox makes a wide variety auto accessories, including dash cam mirrors, tire inflators, and even air blowers to clean the surfaces in your interior. Right now, just about everything Wolfbox offers is on-sale up to 30 percent off through the company’s site. They all make amazing gifts. Imagine you give someone a present that saves them in an emergency. Even Santa can’t provide that kind of magic.

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These reusable silicone earplugs are designed to reduce noise by roughly 24 decibels rather than blocking it entirely. They are useful for dampening background noise for focus or sleep and come with multiple tip sizes for a secure fit.

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This 4-in-1 unit combines a portable jump starter, tire inflator, and power bank into one glovebox-friendly package. Pairing it with a dash cam gives you both incident footage and a way to get rolling again if a dead battery or low tire tries to derail your trip.

This mechanical bidet attachment installs on most standard toilets in about ten minutes. It uses water pressure from your existing line to provide a cleaner experience and significantly reduces reliance on toilet paper.

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This mirror-style dash cam adds a wide touchscreen over your existing rearview mirror and gives you high-resolution front and rear coverage in a single, OEM-style package. It is the most broadly appealing option here for everyday drivers who want a clean install, easy controls, and app-friendly sharing.

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The TriPro Bumper Version takes things further with three-channel recording, adding a dedicated bumper-mounted camera to the usual front and rear views. It is ideal for drivers who park on crowded streets or spend a lot of time in busy traffic and want more complete coverage around the vehicle.

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This high-glycerin cream creates a barrier on the skin to retain moisture. It is particularly effective for preventing cracked skin during cold weather or for those who frequently wash their hands.

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The post Wolfbox dropped the prices on its auto accessories by up to 30%: Save on dash cams, jump starters, and more appeared first on Popular Science.

19 hilarious and delightful Comedy Wildlife Photography Award winners

Popular Science Team — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:38:49 -0500

Nature can be captivating, awe-inspiring, and downright metal. It can also be hilarious. Case in point: The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, a delightful dive into the silliness of the animal kingdom.

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The preeminent wildlife photography competition for wacky and whimsical animals announced its winners and the results don’t disappoint. UK-based photographer Mark Meth-Cohn earned top honors for his photograph “High Five” (seen below) that documents the silly escapades of a young male gorilla in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda.

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“High Five”
Overall Winner
Credit: Mark Meth-Cohn / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

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“We spent four unforgettable days trekking through the misty Virunga Mountains in search of the gorilla families that call them home,” Meth-Cohn recalls. “On this particular day, we came across a large family group known as the Amahoro family, they were gathered in a forest clearing where the adults were calmly foraging while the youngsters were enthusiastically playing. One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high kicking. Watching his performance was pure joy, and I’m thrilled to have captured his playful spirit in this image.”

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The image topped more than 10,000 other entries from 109 countries, a record-setting amount of submissions for the contest. Other winners include wrestling frogs, annoyed birds, and a chimpanzee snacking on boogers. If you’d like to vote in the People’s Choice category, pick your favorite by March 1, 2026.

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“Baptism of the Unwilling Convert”
Reptile, Amphibian & Insect Category Winner
This photo was taken in early spring of 2023. The male frogs all come out to start establishing territory in the pond. I took my camera and lay on my belly, watching them and taking shots. It wasn’t until I got back to the house and looked at the pictures that I saw this one and realized how much I liked it. I showed it to my parents and they loved it too and it became one of my favorites. We all thought it looked like one frog was trying to baptize the other! I started getting interested in photography about 3 years ago at the age of 10. My favorite subjects are chipmunks becuase they are so curious and cute. Winning these category awards has been awesome. It’s great to be considered along side so many amazing entries and photographers. As a young photographer, it is affirming and inspiring to continue shooting! I really appreciated the opportunity to be a part of this!
Credit: Grayson Bell / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

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“Fonzies Advertising”
Highly Commended
This moment happened after the tourists had left Nosy Komba (Madagascar). I stopped, letting the silence fall around me, and turned my attention to a group of crowned sifakas (Propithecus deckenii). It was then that he appeared, staring at me with wide, curious eyes, as if questioning my presence… or perhaps my clothing choices.
Then, with the grace of a stage actor and the timing of a comedian, he raised his hand, licked it thoughtfully, and then paused mid-gesture, as if he knew exactly what he was doing.
The photo immediately reminded me of that old snack commercial:
“If you don’t lick your fingers… you’re only half enjoying it!”
Ultimately, this is why I love nature photography so much: sometimes nature’s sense of humor is better than our own; you just have to be ready to catch it..
Credit: Liliana Luca / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

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“Headlock”
Bird Category Winner
These guillemots were nesting on a small rocky cliff ledge where space was at a premium. The nests all crammed in close together which isn’t a good recipe for being good neighbours, as guillemots are fiercely territorial. Aggression and battles are frequent over nesting space and I captured this image of this bemused looking bridled guillemot, its head firmly clamped in his/her neighbours beak. I liked the way the guillemot was looking directly into my lens, its white eye-liner eyes highlighting its predicament! Sometimes you just want to bite your neighbours head off..literally !
Credit: Warren Price / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

“Bad Hair Day”
Highly Commended
For my image “Bad Hair Day” I was in a local park in downtown Victoria when I saw a grey blur run by. When I looked closer I saw a mother grey squirrel was relocating her babies to a new nest. The grass was dewy that morning so she was getting a wet tail as she ran through the grass. As she entered her new nest her tail was sticking out so when she turned around to leave, for a short second her head was covered by her wet tail. When I saw her it made me smile thinking I know that moment where you have just washed your hair and the doorbell goes! I also loved the textures and colours of the bark of the arbutus tree surrounding her and her “bad hair”
Credit: Christy Grinton / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

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“Aaaaawww Mum”
Highly Commended
This photograph was taken during a trip to Rwanda earlier this year, where we spent four unforgettable days trekking through the misty Virunga Mountains in search of the gorilla families that call them home. On this particular day, we came across a large family group gathered in a forest clearing, the adults were calmly foraging while the youngsters were enthusiastically playing. Doing well in any competition shows that the images you are producing are working. The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards are one of the major competitions of the year, easy to enter and fun but with a seriously committed underlying ethos and, after reaching the finals last year, I’m absolutely delighted to have gone one step further and win the competition this year
Credit: Mark Meth Cohn / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

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“Monkey Circus”
Highly Commended
My wife, Nellie and I were on our honeymoon in the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, known for its vast landscapes and its huge elephant herds. We were there right in the beginning of the rainy season and witnessed how nature wakes up after the first rains in many months. Although animals had dispersed and were harder to see, we could feel the excitement brought by the rains everywhere. One evening on our way to the camp we bumped into a troop of baboons playing in a huge tree. One of the baboons was sitting on a big brunch and the others were running up and down the tree in circles. Every time they passed by the sitting baboon it was trying to catch them in a funny way. This play continued for more than 15 minutes and the baboons seemed to really enjoy it.
Credit: Kalin Botev / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025 KALIN BOTEV

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“Go Away”
Highly Commended
In February 2025 I flew from my home in South Australia where the summer temperatures ranged from mid 20’s to mid-40 degrees Celsius to the island of Hokkadia in Japan, where temperatures were minus degrees, the coldest day being minus 18 Celsius.
I experienced a winter wonderland so vastly different from my arid hot home environment. A highlight was visiting Rausa on the Shirenhoka Peninsula and Nemuro Straits, where the Steller’s Sea Eagle gather in the winter to fish from drift ice. With fewer than 5000 left in the world they are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species. The female can weigh up to 9.5kg, making it the heaviest eagle in the world. Their wingspan, up to 2.5 metres is of the largest of any living eagle. In Japan they are protected and classified as a national treasure.
They indeed are a national treasure and so entertaining to watch and photograph as they fight to protect their catch. A favourite place for them to perch is on the sea wall protecting the fishing fleet at Rausa. They wait watching the boats come into the harbour hoping for a free feed of fish. I captured this photo of the Steller’s Sea Eagle as it sat in a deep hole in the snow. It had a fish and had flown on the sea wall and found a hole in the deep fresh snow. Other birds were flying above and as they came closer, I captured the look it gave them. There was no way it was parting with its catch. As it had made its intentions clear to other competitors, it stayed alert but managed to enjoy its catch.
Credit: Annette Kirby / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

The post 19 hilarious and delightful Comedy Wildlife Photography Award winners appeared first on Popular Science.

NASA astronaut comes home after circling Earth 3,920 times

Andrew Paul — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 15:31:22 -0500

After 245 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS), one NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts have safely returned to Earth. NASA’s Jonny Kim along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky landed near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on December 9, and are now undergoing the standard post-mission health screenings.

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Kim officially became an astronaut in 2017. Expedition 72 and Expedition 73 marked Kim’s first visit to the ISS, where he served as a flight engineer and flight surgeon for eight months while helping to conduct a number of scientific and technological research projects. By the time he undocked from the ISS on December 8, the U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander had completed 3,920 orbits of Earth, totalling a distance of nearly 104 million miles.

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During Kim’s two-years of NASA astronaut candidate training, he learned the ISS systems’ technical and operational instructions, received flight training, wilderness survival training–all while studying robotics, field geology, as well as Russian. Prior to his NASA tenure, Kim completed over 100 combat operations as a Navy SEAL, and earned a doctorate of medicine from Harvard Medical School.

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NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is carried to a medical tent shortly after he, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky, landed in their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. The trio returned to Earth after logging 245 days in space as a members of Expeditions 72 and 73 aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

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NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is seen outside the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft, with a gifted Matryoshka Doll, after he landed with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. The trio returned to Earth after logging 245 days in space as a members of Expeditions 72 and 73 aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls
(NASA/Bill Ingalls)

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In a video posted to social media shortly before his departure from the ISS, Kim said, “When I think about what was most important during the mission, I don’t think about the science.It kind of goes back to that old saying, ‘It’s the people you’re with that’s really important.’”

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Tumbleweeds inspire this rolling, resilient robot

Andrew Paul — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:27:40 -0500

A robot inspired by desert tumbleweeds may be the first of a new generation of energy-efficient explorers rolling into future disaster zones. While the Hybrid Energy-efficient Rover Mechanism for Exploration Systems (HERMES) described in the journal Nature Communications recalls the desert ramblers, its creator initially envisioned the idea while watching humans enjoy wind simply for the thrill of it.

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“The inspiration struck on a windy winter afternoon along the shores of Lake Neuchâtel [in western Switzerland],” said Sanjay Manoharan, a study co-author and researcher at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). “I was watching kite surfers harness the wind to carve sweeping arcs and achieve effortless lifts…Yet, I realized nature had already perfected this art long before us.”How do tumbleweeds work?

The tumbleweed is as iconic as they are efficient. Despite appearing like a seemingly random mass of twigs, the nomadic plant husks harness ambient wind to travel large distances. However, these desert staples aren’t pointless plant byproducts. Tumbleweeds often disperse seeds as they mosey along on their journeys. In fact, they’re so good at what they do that ecologists are trying to rein them in due to their propensity to turn into wildfire hazards.

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Intrigued by these aerodynamics, Manoharan and his research group investigated how the twiggy formations were so maneuverable, despite generating more drag than a solid sphere. From there, they conducted wind tunnel experiments based on computational fluid dynamics to analyze these dynamics.

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The results revealed an unexpected, previously undocumented structural facet to tumbleweeds. Simply put, the plant remnants are more porous on the “top” than they are on their “bottom.” This asymmetry changes the wake dynamics, while also enhancing the pressure drag on a tumbleweed. Once tipped over, the denser section of the tumbleweed directs air across its exterior. This works similarly to how a solid sphere rolls, but the porosity in the tumbleweed still produces two wakes.

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“In the upright position, the upper half, being more porous, allowed airflow to pass through freely. In contrast, the lower half was denser and thus offered greater resistance,” the study’s authors explained.

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HERMES on a roll

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Engineers incorporated these findings into a robotic design printed using 3D laser molding. The final product involves a lightweight shell that features an asymmetrical porosity. In the end, the final iteration of their creation dubbed HERMES was far more efficient than either natural tumbleweeds or artificial spheres. Even with a higher drag force, HERMES easily rolled along with only a 3.28 mile per hour breeze.

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In field testing, the robot successfully navigated steep inclines and mapped GPS networks. HERMES moved around this terrain, while simultaneously transmitting geotag data at long range.

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Wind isn’t a guaranteed fuel source, however. There are plenty of times when breezes dissipate to leave tumbleweeds—and their robotic imitators—at a standstill. To address this inevitability, Manoharan’s team installed a lightweight quadcopter inside the sphere designed to run in four modes: reorientation tumbling, directional spinning, gliding, and even a hopping aerial.

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The end result is a robot that builds from one of nature’s most elegant designs. During maze tests, HERMES not only used 48 percent less energy than a robot requiring constant control,it finished the maze 37 faster than its counterpart. Even when it required quick, motorized course corrections, the robot still saved 90 to 95 percent of the energy used in the continually powered control machine.

“If the wind is blowing and the robot is rolling, it remains perfectly passive, spending zero energy. If motion stops for a set period, it attempts a low-energy nudge—a quick motor pulse to reposition. Flight is always the last resort,” said Manoharan.

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With additional advancements and fine tuning, robots like HERMES could one day be deployed in hazardous disaster zones, deadline minefields, and even on windy neighboring planets like Mars.

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“The guiding philosophy is beautifully simple and energy-aware,” Manoharan explained.

The post Tumbleweeds inspire this rolling, resilient robot appeared first on Popular Science.

Who built Scandinavia’s oldest wooden plank boat? An ancient fingerprint offers clues.

Laura Baisas — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:00:00 -0500

Archaeologists examining an ancient boat discovered in Denmark over a century ago are getting some help from a clue usually associated with crime scenes. A human fingerprint left on the Hjortspring Boat brings archeologists closer to figuring out which ancient European group sailed on this 2,400-year-old boat. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal PLOS One, and are helping scientists understand where shipbuilders of the oldest plank-built vessel in northern Europe may have come from.

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“Finding a fingerprint on the tar fragments from the boat was a big surprise for us. Fingerprints like this one are extremely unusual for this time period,” the study’s authors wrote in a statement.

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Comparison of Hjortspring boat (Above, 3D model by Richard Potter) with securely dated Bronze Age art (Rørby sword and Sagaholm rock art) as well as an example of early Iron Age art from Brastad. Thousands of other examples of Bronze Age boat depictions exist. Note the continuity in form and design evident in these different boat depictions. Image:
Fauvelle et al., 2025, PLOS One.

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What is the Hjortspring Boat?

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The Hjortspring Boat is considered northern Europe’s oldest known plank-built vessel. At about 65-feet-long and over 1,000 pounds, it could carry 24 people along with their weapons and other gear. Builders used lime wood to add flexibility to the boat and made the paddles from maple trees. According to the National Museum of Denmark, the Hjortspring Boat is evidence of shipbuilding with roots dating back to at least the Bronze Age (roughly 3300 BCE to 1200 BCE).

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“The boat was used by a small army of invaders who attacked the island of Als in southern Denmark over 2,000 years ago,” the team wrote. “The invaders were defeated and the local defenders sunk the boat into a bog as an offering to give thanks for their victory.”

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The boat was first excavated in a bog on the Danish island Als in the early 1920s and has remained a mystery ever since. Archaeologists have not previously determined where these warriors came from and when.

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“The boat was excavated before modern dating methods were available and most of the material from the boat was immediately conserved using chemicals that make radiocarbon dating impossible,” said the team. “Going through the archives, however, we were able to find some original cordage that had not been conserved. We obtained a radiocarbon date from the cordage that returned a date range of between.”

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CREDIT: Lund University.

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Pine pitch and prints

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In this new study, a team from Lund University in Sweden, searched for more clues about the boat’s origins. Over the past 100 years, several boat origin theories have been proposed, namely that the invaders came from northern Germany or a different part of present-day Denmark.

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“The weapons they used, which were found in the boat, were quite common for the time and were used throughout Northern Europe, giving us few instructions as to their origins,” the authors said.

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The team carbon-dated and analyzed some previously unstudied caulking and cord materials found with the boat. The caulk used to seal the boat was likely made up of a mixture of pine pitch and animal fat.

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According to the team, that pine pitch is the first major new clue in over a century. When the boat was built, Denmark itself had few pine forests. While it is possible that the pine pitch made its way to Denmark via trade, other coastal areas east of Denmark along the Baltic Sea did have pine forests.

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Photo of caulking fragment showing fingerprint on the left and high-resolution x-ray tomography scan of fingerprint region on the right. Image: Fauvelle et al., 2025, PLOS One/Photography by Erik Johansson, 3D model by Sahel Ganji.

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The team believes that it is possible that the boat may have been built here and its warriors came to Als from the east. If true, the boat sailed over the open ocean to reach southern Denmark. Traveling such a long distance potentially indicates that the attack was well organized and premeditated.

Based on carbon dating the cords and caulk, the boat was likely built somewhere 381 and 161 BCE, confirming that the boat was built in the pre-Roman Iron Age. This timeline also lines up with earlier estimates of the wood from the Hjortspring site.

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However, there was one other clue of note: the partial human fingerprint in the caulking material used to waterproof the boat. While they could not determine exactly who left it the way that modern fingerprint analysis can, it likely was left by one of the crew members of the vessel, “providing a direct link to the seafarers of the ancient vessel.”

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With pine pitch clues and now some fingerprints, we are inching closer to solving this Iron Age boat mystery.

The post Who built Scandinavia’s oldest wooden plank boat? An ancient fingerprint offers clues. appeared first on Popular Science.

Neanderthals harnessed fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought

Stan Horaczek — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

Evidence uncovered in a field in Suffolk, England indicates that ancient humans intentionally harnessed fire more than 350,000 years earlier than previously believed. According to a British Museum-led study published on December 10 in the journal Nature, our Paleolithic Neanderthal ancestors utilized technology like hearths and campfires as much as 400,000 years ago.

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“The implications are enormous,” British Museum project curator and study coauthor Rob Davis said in a statement. “The ability to create and control fire is one of the most important turning points in human history, with practical and social benefits that changed human evolution.”

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Excavation of the ancient campfire, removing diagonally opposed quadrants. The reddened sediment between band B’ is heated clay. Credit: Jordan Mansfield / Pathways to Ancient Britain Project

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The evolution of intentional fire use

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Early hominins first started utilizing fire over one million years ago, but the instances were sporadic and subject to the environment around them. Without knowing how to create sparks using flint and stone materials, our forebearers likely relied on leveraging wildfires and other small flames created by natural events like lightning strikes. This has made it difficult to find evidence of early fires and determine when early humans made the leap from opportunistic to intentional flame wielders.

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“Archaeological evidence for early fire use is limited and often ambiguous, typically consisting of associations between heated materials and stone tools,” the study’s authors wrote.

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Nevertheless, understanding when and where this transition first occurred around the world is vital to seeing the bigger picture of human evolution. Producing fire at will would have necessitated social coordination and more complex divisions of labor within hominin communities. Sustained warmth would have improved survival rates, while also providing a way to craft stronger, more resilient tools. Meanwhile, cooked food was easier to digest and more nutritious, freeing crucial calories from the gut to fuel brain power. Simply put, the first humans to figure out fire flourished while their evolutionary competitors fell by the wayside.

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In 2018, paleoanthropologists presented the first evidence of intentional firemaking by Neanderthals around 40,000 years ago uncovered at sites in northern France. But after decades of intermittent excavation work at a location known as the Barnham site in southern England, British Museum researchers say they are confident the timeline can be pushed back much, much further.

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Iron pyrite’s potential

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The team on this new study used geochemical analysis to confirm the location’s heated clay remnants weren’t the results of wildfires. Instead, the artifacts were created after exposure to temperatures over 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Celsius) through repeated fire-use at the same location. This suggests that local early humans worked at a campfire or hearth on multiple occasions to manufacture their flint axes.

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The post The practical gift guide: 34 boring-but-useful presents anyone would love appeared first on Popular Science.

During WWII, a dress-wearing squirrel sold war bonds alongside FDR

Andrew Paul — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

A few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War II, a little girl was walking to school in northwest Washington, D.C. when she found a baby squirrel that had apparently fallen out of a hickory tree. She took the tiny rodent home, fed him warm milk, and made him a cozy bed in a red woolen hat. Not long afterward, the girl’s family had to move away, and she gave her pet to a neighbor, a middle-aged housewife named Zaidee Bullis.

Further evidence comes from the iron pyrite uncovered at the site. The naturally occurring mineral creates sparks when struck against flint to make tinder. However, iron pyrite is not common to southern England. The team believes that the area’s hominins who understood pyrite’s utility sourced it elsewhere before bringing it to the Barnham site.

It was Bullis who, through creativity, patriotism, and a flare for the zany, would make Tommy Tucker a home front war hero and, for a time, the most famous rodent in America after Mickey Mouse.

Although archaeologists have not recovered any hominin remains at Barnham, researchers believe the residents were probably early Neanderthals based on similarly aged fossil morphology taken from Swanscombe in Kent (about 100 miles south of the Barnham site) and at the Atapuerca site in northern Spain.

“It’s incredible that some of the oldest groups of Neanderthals had the knowledge of the properties of flint, pyrite, and tinder at such an early date,” said British Museum paleolithic collections curator and study coauthor Nick Ashton. “This is the most remarkable discovery of my career, and I’m very proud of the teamwork that it has taken to reach this groundbreaking conclusion.”

The post Neanderthals harnessed fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought appeared first on Popular Science.

The space billboard that nearly happened

Amy Crawford — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

In 1993, Mike Lawson, an aerospace entrepreneur based in Roswell, Georgia, unveiled his vision for a brave new future of advertising: space billboards.

+An ensemble featuring a matching coat and bonnet. +A nurse's uniform complete with a hat marked with a cross. +A plaid dress while standing next to a small ceramic dog figurine." class="wp-image-729081" />

Tommy Tucker poses in several of his handmade outfits. Image: Public Domain

This wasn’t a half-baked scheme: Lawson had meticulous plans for a proposed 1996 launch: His team of engineers would shoot a package of tightly-wound mylar into orbit about 180 miles above the Earth. Once there, the material would unfurl into a thin, reflective sheet up to a mile long and a quarter mile tall, bordered by a series of mylar tubes which would inflate to create a rigid frame holding the mega-banner taut. The sheet would catch the sun’s rays, amplified by a series of small mirrors attached to the platform, and reflect them into the atmosphere. This would create a roughly moon-sized image in the sky of whatever single design the team printed on the banner. It would probably just be a big company logo, Lawson admitted, as the visual would be a little too low-res to read any ad copy without the aid of a telescope. But as it orbited the Earth, the image would reach every corner of the globe, about 10 minutes a day per location.

Tommy Tucker’s early life

When the Associated Press, the first outlet to report on the proposal, ran Lawson’s plan past NASA, the agency said it didn’t see any technical flaws. “It’s very feasible,” Lawson told San Francisco Examiner science reporter Keay Davidson a couple days later. “We could fly [McDonald’s] Golden Arches in space.”

Eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are ubiquitous across the parks and backyards of our nation’s capital, and in some ways Tommy Tucker did not stand out from his wild brethren. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he was an opportunistic omnivore who enjoyed “nuts, grains, fruits, bread, sweet cookies, vegetables, with avocado pear as a delicacy,” reported LIFE Magazine, in a 1944 photo essay that also showed him getting a free sample of deli meat from his neighborhood butcher. His claws were “as sharp as needles,” his teeth were “golden brown,” he enjoyed gnawing on things and administered the occasional bite to his human handler (although “Mrs. Bullis never complains about being bitten,” the magazine noted).

The history of space advertising

The general concept of advertising in space was already well established by 1993. Sci-fi authors like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke sketched out visions of extraterrestrial ad campaigns in the 1950s. The entrepreneur Robert Lorsch pitched Congress on using corporate sponsorships on rockets and crew uniforms to facilitate NASA’s work in 1980. And in 1990, the Tokyo Broadcasting System launched a reporter into space on a Soviet rocket, festooned with ads from nine corporations, to promote the Japanese station’s service through nightly transmissions from the Soviet Mir Space Station.

Even before Lawson’s space billboard idea came about, his company, Space Marketing Inc. (SMI), founded in 1989, was already working on advertising campaigns with NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency—including one for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Last Action Hero, slated to launch (literally) in 1993. Arnie’s flick outbid Jurassic Park, paying SMI and NASA an estimated $500,000 (about $1.12 million in 2025 dollars) for the right to plaster ads on a Conestoga, the first privately-funded launch rocket model, and its boosters, and do a press event at the launch.

On the other hand, Tommy never got the chance to climb a tree or forage for nuts. His social schedule didn’t permit it—and neither did his wardrobe, which consisted of as many as 100 handmade costumes, including “a coat and hat for going to market, a silk-pleated dress for company,” and “a Red Cross dress for visiting the hospital.” (“Though Tommy is a male squirrel, he has to wear feminine clothes because his tail interferes with his wearing pants,” the magazine’s editors deadpanned.)

The Conestoga, shown here in a photo taken in Matagorda Island in Texas, was the first-ever privately-funded launch rocket model. Image: Eric Grabow – Space Vector Corporation/ CC BY-SA 3.0

Tommy first gained fans around Washington, as Bullis took him on errands, carrying him on her arm as she visited the grocery store, the bakery, and the florist. Soon, he was cheering up patients at the local children’s hospital and appearing at elementary school assemblies. He enjoyed the attention—at least according to a type-written “autobiography,” The True Story of Tommy Tucker, which was allegedly dictated to his “mistress,” Bullis.

Some folks weren’t wild about the idea of commercializing the noble endeavor of space exploration. But in the twilight of the “greed is good” era of Reaganite privatization, the world seemed to accept a degree of space-based PR.

Tommy Tucker visits a young patinet, Jimmy Claggett, at Children’s Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. on January 9, 1944. Image: The Washington Post / Contributor / Getty Images The Washington Post

The public’s reaction to a space billboard

How Tommy the squirrel helped sell war bonds

Still, Lawson’s idea of putting a moon-sized advert into the sky seemingly crossed a line, as the proposal sparked a substantial wave of backlash against him and the eleven firms he claimed had expressed interest in advertising on his rig. Much of the pushback flowed from a gut-level distaste for the idea of spoiling the night sky with something so commercially crass—and in the process creating a world where ads are so large and pervasive they become unavoidable.

It wasn’t long before Tommy—who by the mid-1940s boasted 30,000 members of his official fan club—stepped up to help with the war effort. Some wag at the U.S. Department of the Treasury made him a custom booth, behind which—dressed in red, white, and blue satin—he stood to stump for war bonds. Once merely a squirrel-about-town, he was now crisscrossing the country by train and making radio appearances alongside President Roosevelt himself.

“A lot of people want to look at the night sky and not see an ad for soda,” explains Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz, an expert on space law who’s written about issues with space advertising.

“You have become a very famous squirrel, indeed,” a Treasury official wrote to him, “with bomber crews carrying your picture over the fighting fronts, letters from notables everywhere, your picture in LIFE magazine, a coast-to-coast radio hookup, in which you asked in good ‘squirrel language’ for people to buy bonds.”

Astronomers like Carl Sagan, who called the billboard “an abomination,” took particular issue with the light pollution it would create. Sagan and other researchers and environmentalists argued the billboard would render ground-based optical research functionally impossible.

A squirrel in a dress is admittedly silly, but his nation’s gratitude was quite serious. Tommy’s archives include not only letters from children but also from troops on the front lines.

As a coalition of activists formed, proposing boycotts and picketing Lawson’s Space Marketing Inc., company reps tried to push back on this outrage, stressing that their plan was actually, above all else, an environmental venture. The rigid mylar tube platform, conceptualized alongside a team of academics, would contain instruments designed to monitor atmospheric ozone levels; the ads were just a means of defraying costs. (As the platform would cost $15 to $30 million, they reportedly planned to charge $1 million per day for an ad—a bargain for a brand to rival the moon.) The billboard would only stay in orbit for 30 days, they added, before detaching from the frame. It would burn away as it fell back to Earth, while the ozone-monitoring component would circle the planet, unobtrusively gathering data, for another 11 months.

“We carry your picture with us when we fly,” wrote Army Air Force Sgt. Morris A. Goodrich. “And when we look at your picture, we realize the wonderful work you are doing for us and it gives us much more confidence, so we can do the job we have to do.”

Reps also seemed to walk back Lawson’s earlier ballyhoo, floating the idea of projecting only conservation messages rather than symbols of corporate greed and ambition. “We will not allow it to be giant beer cans or golden arches,” one spokesperson promised. “Our hope is it will be some sort of environmental symbol,” like a pale green dot reflecting a tree-hugging message to Earth.

Tommy Tucker’s extensive wardrobe is now housed at the Smithsonian Archives. Image: The Washington Post / Contributor / Getty Images The Washington Post

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Tommy the squirrel’s pink satin legacy

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After the war, Tommy’s schedule eased up, and he was able to accompany Bullis and her husband on sight-seeing ventures. The Bullises hauled his now substantial wardrobe and other baggage in a trailer behind their Packard Touring Car. It was on one of these trips that Tommy died, at the Grand Canyon, in 1949.

The Bullises enlisted the services of an Arizona taxidermist, who posed Tommy with his arms out so even post-mortem his outfit could be changed. After the Bullises themselves died a few years later, Tommy’s remains, along with some of his dresses and a collection of correspondence and press clippings, passed to a relative, Elaine Le Martine, who kept him on top of her china cabinet. When she died, in 2005, she willed the collection to the Smithsonian, which—thanks to the facilitation of a dogged Washington Post columnist—ultimately accepted the gift in 2012.

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Today, Tommy Tucker himself can be viewed by appointment at the Smithsonian Archives. He’s a little worse for wear—apparently the moths found him up on that china cabinet—but he’s as well-attired as ever, in a pink satin dress with a tiny strand of pearls.

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In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation.

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The radioactive ‘miracle water’ that killed its believers

During WWII, the U.S. government censored the weather

The U.S. tried permanent daylight saving time—and hated it

The 21 grams experiment that tried to weigh a human soul

Andrew Jackson’s White House once hosted a cheese feeding frenzy

The space billboard that nearly happened

The radioactive ‘miracle water’ that killed its believers

During WWII, the U.S. government censored the weather

The U.S. tried permanent daylight saving time—and hated it

The 21 grams experiment that tried to weigh a human soul

The end of Lawson’s space billboard

The post During WWII, a dress-wearing squirrel sold war bonds alongside FDR appeared first on Popular Science.

Brie, cheddar, and other high-fat cheeses linked to lower dementia risk

Laura Baisas — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 16:00:00 -0500

It’s been found in ancient human feces. The U.S. government stored 6.4 metric tons of it in mountains. And a big hunk of it played a major role in a presidential farewell party. We’re talking about cheese.

But despite SMI’s best efforts at spin, the project fell apart within a year. Technical issues likely contributed to this failure. “We didn’t have access to the low-cost launch platforms that exist now,” explains John C. Barentine, an astronomer and prominent anti-light pollution activist. Barentine stresses that he’s not an engineer and never saw any concrete plans for the billboard. But he’s also pretty sure that “even at the time, the amount of space debris in orbit around the planet would have shredded the reflective material [it used] in short order.”

While too much of the popular dairy product can spell tummy troubles and high cholesterol for some, new research suggests that eating more high-fat cheese and cream could be linked to a lower risk of developing dementia. While the findings published today in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, do not prove that it lowers the total risk of the disease, it shows an association.

However, retrospective assessments suggest that public backlash forced potential advertisers to rethink the balance of brand exposure versus reputational risk inherent in the project. The loss of potential funding made it functionally impossible for Lawson to take even a wild stab at the project.

The high-fat debate

How lawmakers protected space from ads

High-fat cheeses include cheddar, Brie, and Gouda, and contain more than 20 percent fat. High-fat creams such as whipping cream, double cream, and clotted cream typically contain 30 to 40 percent fat. These items are usually labeled as “full-fat” or “regular” versions in grocery stores.

Determined to make sure no one would ever try to deface the stars with ads again, America’s legislators slowly crafted a law banning “obtrusive space advertising.”

“For decades, the debate over high-fat versus low-fat diets has shaped health advice, sometimes even categorizing cheese as an unhealthy food to limit,” said Emily Sonestedt, PhD, a study co-author and nutritional epidemiologist at Lund University in Sweden, said in a statement. “Our study found that some high-fat dairy products may actually lower the risk of dementia, challenging some long-held assumptions about fat and brain health.”

“What should we say to the parents of this nation when they have to explain to their children why the hemorrhoid ointment advertisement is next to the moon or the sun?” Susan Molinari, a member of the House of Representatives and a proponent of a space advertising ban, quipped during a 1993 hearing. “There will be no more romantic moonlit strolls or breath-taking sunrises…And no longer could we look to the heavens for unadulterated inspiration and comfort.”

In this new study, the team analyzed data from 27,670 people in Sweden with an average age of 58 at the beginning of the study. The participants were followed for an average of 25 years. Over the course of the study, 3,208 people developed dementia.

Lawmakers settled on a rule banning launch licenses to anyone who planned to send an ad platform into space. Bill Clinton signed the proposal into law in 2000, and a United Nations resolution echoing similar sentiments, albeit with fewer enforcement mechanisms, passed in 2001.

For one week, the participants kept track of what they ate and answered questions about how often they ate certain foods. They also spoke with the researchers about how they prepared their food.

However, the furor around Lawson’s space billboard didn’t stop his extraterrestrial advertising career. He later worked with companies like Pizza Hut on a series of stunts and commercials, most created in collaboration with Russian space missions. Most (in)famously, he helped the Hut film the first-ever pizza delivery (of “a six-inch salami pie”) to the International Space Station in 2001. He also worked on space education exhibits and outreach programs well into the late 1990s, before pivoting into blimp tech.

The researchers then compared people who ate 50 grams (about 1.7 ounces) or more of high-fat cheese every day with people who ate less than 15 grams (about half an ounce) daily. Fifty grams of cheese is about two slices of cheddar and a half a cup of shredded cheese and is roughly 15 grams. A serving of cheese is typically one ounce or 28 grams..

Of those who ate more high-fat cheese, 10 percent developed dementia by the end of the study. Of those who ate less, 13 percent developed dementia.

In 2001, Mike Lawson helped Pizza Hut deliver a six-inch salami pie to astronauts at the International Space Station. Video: Pizza delivered to International Space Station/ AP Archive

Risk factors

Dreams of a space billboard live on

After adjusting for age, sex, education, and overall diet quality, the team found that people who ate more high-fat cheese had a 13 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared to those who ate less.

But Lawson’s failure didn’t kill the wider dream of a space billboard. Notably, in 2019, StartRocket, a small Russian space firm, claimed it was working on a new version of the concept, with plans to project an ad for a gamer-targeted Pepsi energy drink into the sky. Rather than use a giant mylar sheet, the firm explained, they’d deploy a constellation of tiny “CubeSats”— hopefully by 2021. Each would act like a 30-foot sunlight-reflecting pixel, and maneuver into formations as they orbited Earth to create a series of simple visual displays, similar to those you might see at a drone light show.

There are over 100 known forms of dementia, but the four main types are Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, and fronto-temporal dementia. When looking at specific types of dementia, the team found people who ate more high-fat cheese had a 29 percent lower risk of vascular dementia.

Pepsi quickly claimed this was all a big misunderstanding, and they never had any such plans—and then the Ukraine war disrupted StartRocket’s operations for a time. But in 2022, the startup touted a feasibility study suggesting they could offer ad space for less than the cost of a Super Bowl spot. Their ads will only be visible at dawn and dusk in areas that already have high levels of light pollution, the firm swears, and will only stay in orbit for a few months for minimal impact. As of 2025, StartRocket is still looking for investors—but claims it’s actively assembling its satellite array at a site in Malaysia, and hopes to launch in the near future.

There was also a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease among those who ate more high-fat cheese. However, that risk was only lower for those who do not have the APOE e4 gene variant—a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.

“Given the comparatively low cost of launches and the amount of venture capital circulating in the space economy, I think something like a billboard project akin to the Space Marketing design is certainly more feasible now than it was 30 years ago,” acknowledges Barentine.

Additionally, the team compared people who consumed 20 grams (roughly 0.7 ounces) or more of high-fat cream per day to people who consumed none. For example, 20 grams of high-fat cream is about 1.4 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream and a recommended serving is about 1 to 2 tablespoons. After similar adjustments, the researchers found that those who consumed high-fat cream daily had a 16 percent lower risk of dementia, compared to those who did not consume any.

And Gabrynowicz, the space law expert, points out that America’s anti-space advertising law left space for new attempts—by failing to fully define the term “obtrusive.” International law’s restrictions on space ventures, she adds, leave it to each individual nation to actually implement those rules.

They did not find any association between dementia risk and eating low-fat cheese, low-fat cream, high- or low-fat milk, butter, or fermented milk (yogurt, kefir, and buttermilk).

Over the last year, astronomers have again mobilized to try to quash StartRocket’s new space billboard project—and put even more stringent space ad restrictions in place. They argue the risks of generating space debris and interfering with astronomical observations and instruments have only grown more dire with time.

‘When it comes to brain health not all dairy is equal’

“Because of the consequences of the increase in space traffic,” argues Piero Benvenuti, an astronomer and steadfast critic of space advertising proposals, “the only rational decision should be to use space only for applications that offer a unique benefit to humanity.”

One important limitation of this study is that all of the participants were from Sweden, so results may not be the same for other populations. Sonestedt notes that in Sweden, cheese is often eaten uncooked, whereas in the United States it is often heated or eaten with meat. Sweden also has universal health coverage, which the U.S. lacks. Universal coverage typically leads to better health outcomes. Despite spending significantly more money than peer nations, Americans live shorter lives and face more barriers to basic care, so socioeconomics, pollution exposure, and other lifestyle factors can skew nutrition studies like this one.

“We—or at least those of us who still have a sense of responsibility—know that space is a precious resource for the benefit of society,” he adds. “And as such, it must be protected.”

“These findings suggest that when it comes to brain health not all dairy is equal,” said Sonestedt. “While eating more high-fat cheese and cream was linked to a reduced risk of dementia, other dairy products and low-fat alternatives did not show the same effect. More research is needed to confirm our study results and further explore whether consuming certain high-fat dairy truly offers some level of protection for the brain.”

The post Brie, cheddar, and other high-fat cheeses linked to lower dementia risk appeared first on Popular Science.

Two neutron stars may have formed the first known ‘superkilonova’

Mark Hay — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:22:52 -0500

A double blast of dying stars may be the first observed case of a long-hypothesized, never proven “superkilonova.” Although astronomers are still searching for concrete answers, a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters may detail the historic explosion about 1.3 billion light-years from Earth.

Unfortunately, Barentine admits, “some believe there is a high return-on-investment to be realized” in a space billboard, potentially beyond Lawson’s wildest dreams circa 1993.

Most of the universe’s massive stars end their lives in a blaze of glory as supernovae, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the end of the road is a more spectacular event known as a kilonova. These explosions are believed to generally occur after two dense neutron stars collide with one another and produce an exponentially bigger blast. While supernovae help spread heavy elements like carbon and iron across the cosmos, kilonovae create even denser remains including uranium and gold.

“The lure of that money is so great that, certainly, someone will eventually try it.”

Astronomy’s most definitive kilonova example, GW170817, was only discovered in 2017. At the time, observational arrays like National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo gravitational-wave detector in Europe detected gravitational and light waves traceable back to a collision of two neutron stars. Both professional and amateur astronomers have flagged numerous possible kilonovae since then, but our understanding of these occurrences remains comparatively thin.

In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation.

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The 50 greatest innovations of 2025

Andrew Paul — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 07:00:00 -0500

At Popular Science, we’ve published our prestigious Best of What’s New list since 1988. Our enthusiasm for ground-breaking innovations dates back even further than that—all the way to May 1872. For 153 years, we’ve celebrated the science and technology that shapes our everyday lives and launches humanity forward.

A team at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory think they may have another kilonova candidate, but the situation is a bit more complex. On August 18, 2025, both LIGO and Virgo detected gravitational wave signals, setting off an alert system for the global astronomical community. Researchers at the Palomar Observatory’s Zwicky Transient Facility soon identified a quickly fading red body about 1.3 billion light-years away. Later classified AT2025ulz, the object displayed similar, fading red wavelengths as GW170817.

A collection of Best of What’s New winners from 1989-1991. Images: Popular Science

“At first, for about three days, the eruption looked just like the first kilonova in 2017,” Palomar Observatory director and study co-author Mansi Kasliwal said in a statement.

Innovation doesn’t follow a straight path, and the detours, stumbles, and dead ends force great minds to pioneer change. Looking back at the early days of our Best of What’s New lists, we see technologies that now seem quaint or have been completely forgotten, but we also see the roots of future greatness.

However, AT2025ulz began to brighten again a few days later, this time turning blue to indicate the presence of hydrogen. For many, this proved the blast wasn’t another rumored kilonova, but a regular supernova.

Our list this year is the culmination of countless hours of debate, hands-on testing, and expert conversations. This is the Best of What’s New 2025.

Kasliwal suspected something else was at play. The cumulative data on AT2025ulz admittedly did not resemble the kilonova GW170817, but it also didn’t align with a classic supernova. Furthermore, the gravitational waves suggested at least one of the two neutron stars was less massive than the sun. Neutron stars are inherently small—only about 15 miles wide—and range in mass from 1.2 to three times our sun.

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How could a neutron star be even smaller? Kasliwal’s team offered two possible explanations. In the first scenario, a quickly spinning star goes supernova before fissioning into two, sub-solar neutron stars. A second theory involves the same beginning as a supernova, but instead of fission a disk of debris starts forming around the collapsing star. This material eventually combines into a small neutron star, much like the formation process of early planets.

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Given the possible sub-solar neutron star implied by the gravitational wave data, researchers hypothesize that a supernova’s two newborn neutron stars orbited into one another to generate a separate kilonova. This could explain the early red wavelengths, since kilonovas generate red spectrum heavy metals. As the supernova expanded, its blue spectrum waves eventually obscured the kilonova.

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“The only way theorists have come up with to birth sub-solar neutron stars is during the collapse of a very rapidly spinning star,” added Columbia University astronomer and study co-author Brian Metzger. “If these ‘forbidden’ stars pair up and merge by emitting gravitational waves, it is possible that such an event would be accompanied by a supernova rather than be seen as a bare kilonova.”

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Metzger, Kasliwal, and their colleagues stress that their theory remains just that—a theory. Still, the possibility is intriguing enough to continue the search for additional candidates in the hopes of unequivocally identifying a superkilonova. Until then, Kasliwal explained the importance of continuing to study possible suspects, even if they start to look like a regular supernova.

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“Everybody was intensely trying to observe and analyze it, but then it started to look more like a supernova, and some astronomers lost interest,” she said. “Not us.”

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2,500 ‘high-risk’ U.S. dams are sinking into the ground

Andrew Paul — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 13:04:00 -0500

Dams across the United States are in dire need of repairs, and the critical infrastructure may be even worse off than engineers anticipated. According to geoscientists, over 2,500 of the more than 16,700 structures in the country are classified as high hazard potentials and in “poor condition.” This classification means that the dams that would cause significant death and destruction if compromised. What’s more, radar analysis indicates many of these facilities may still be deteriorating out-of-sight from inspection crews.

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The U.S. is home to over 92,000 dams dedicated to hydroelectric power, drinking water, and environmental protection for surrounding communities. However, the majority of these aren’t new or updated projects. Most active dams were constructed during the 1950’s and 1960’s, and the average age of a facility is 61 years old. Today, an estimated seven out of 10 dams in the country are at least 50-years-old. Despite their criticality, maintenance and monitoring remains vastly underfunded. Although the Association for State Dam Safety Officials calculates over $165 billion is needed for repairs, federal funding currently allocates a fraction of that amount towards upkeep.

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“Without a more significant commitment to dam safety…the cost to bring the nation’s dams into a state of good repair will continue to rise and downstream communities will face a greater risk of danger from potential dam failure,” the American Society of Civil Engineers concluded in its 2025 annual assessment.

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Unfortunately, this risk is likely more severe than anticipated. Mohammad Khorrami, a geoscientist at Virginia Tech, recently organized a team to conduct a nationwide analysis of dam structural integrity without needing to leave their campus. Using a satellite tool called the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, Khorrami and his colleagues examined the level that many high-risks dams have sunk into the earth over the past decade. They particularly focused on hydroelectric structures because of both their downstream communities as well as the amount of infrastructure that relies on them. The results stunned them. In many cases, dams believed to have been already stabilized were continuing to sink.

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“I want to emphasize that this is a preliminary result. We need to do further analysis to have a concrete answer,” explained Virginia Tech geoscientist Manoochehr Shirzaei. “But some of the observations may suggest that some of these infrastructures are undergoing internal degradation.”

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It’s been decades since the U.S. has experienced a catastrophic dam breakage, but Khorrami warns such an event would be “a disaster” today. They cited the Roanoke Rapids dam in North Carolina as an example. Khorrami and his team’s findings confirmed previous inspections of the site—the dam’s northern face is sinking slowly. Without vital repairs, the structural concrete could eventually crack and threaten the nearby town of over 15,000 residents. But the consequences of such a disaster go beyond their nearby communities.

“Some of the dams actually serve as a sub-buffer for water that’s used for agriculture and for electricity production,” said Shirzaei. “Those dams can create a ripple effect if they fail that can impact the national economy.”

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The researchers urged that there are still ways to mitigate the worst outcomes. Citing a complimentary paper published earlier this year, Khorrami explained that a large amount of dam compromise owes to poor local management and maintenance.

2025 was full of efficiency innovations and bold initiatives in the world of aerospace. From the most detailed movie of the night sky ever made to the first commercial soft landing on the moon, this year has been an inflection point for exploring and understanding the vast expanse above our heads. We also saw breakthroughs in small changes to commercial airliners that improve efficiency, as well as a new type of rocket engine that might be the future of extremely high speed air travel, plus the closest view of Mercury we’ve ever seen!

“Almost 40-50 percent [of risk] is something that is in our hands,” he said. “It’s difficult to address all of these dams. If you cannot financially take care of all of them at the same time, we can provide the priority dams.”

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Rare polar bear adoption could save cub’s life

Laura Baisas — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:14:55 -0500

Scientists in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada (aka the polar bear capital of the world) have confirmed that a wild female polar bear has adopted a cub that is not her own. This rare behavior was captured on cameras during the polar bear’s annual migration along Western Hudson Bay.

Innovation of the Year

Researchers from Environment and Climate Change Canada and Polar Bears International spotted the mother bear (designated as bear X33991) during spring 2025, when she came out of her maternity den. At the time, she only had one tagged cub. When she was spotted again in the fall, the bear had two cubs. One had a tag and one did not, indicating that the cub was not hers.

Vera C. Rubin Observatory by U.S. National Science Foundation & Department of Energy: World’s largest digital camera to conduct 10-year survey of the night sky

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The cubs are about 10- to 11-months-old and are known as Cubs of the Year (COYS). According to Polar Bears International, both cubs appear to be healthy. They will generally stay with their mother for another year and a half and will be weaned when they are around 2.5 years old.

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The survival rate for a polar bear cub into adulthood is about 50 percent. However, having a mother provides a better chance at survival for the adopted cub. Researchers also do not believe that cub adoption is related to climate change. Instead, it is more likely a strong maternal behavior that causes female polar bears to take care of other offspring.

Prepare to see space like never before. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a groundbreaking US-funded project that will capture the most detailed, dynamic map of the night sky ever made. Using the world’s largest digital camera, it will capture a time-lapse of the entire sky every few nights to reveal billions of objects and catch fast-changing events like supernovae and near-Earth asteroids. Its massive dataset will help scientists better understand dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe while also improving planetary defense.

The cubs are about 10 to 11 months old and will stay with their mother for more than two years. Image: Dave Sandford / Discover Churchill (Wildlife Photographer, Guide, and Polar Bears International Photo Ambassador).

The 3,200-megapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera is the size of a small car and twice as heavy, tipping the scales at 6,000 pounds. The sensor’s huge number of megapixels is equivalent to 260 modern cell phone sensors. The camera is so powerful, it could snap a clear image of a golf ball from 15 miles away.

Adoptions like these in a celebration—or group of polar bears—is considered rare. The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation has been studied for over 45 years and has tracked over 4,600 individual bears. This latest incidence is only the 13th known case of polar bear cub adoption.

By making its data widely available, the observatory will also open new doors for discovery for researchers, students, and citizen scientists around the world.

The team is now analyzing genetic samples taken from the cub to identify the cub’s biological mother. They are looking to see if the mother is in their multi-generational pedigree. In some of the previous adoption cases, the biological mothers were still alive, suggesting that a “switching of litters” is at play rather than the cub being orphaned.

Riblet-shaped coating on 787 by Japan Airlines: Stabilizing airflow, reducing turbulence, and increasing fuel efficiency

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Bear X33991 is wearing a GPS tracking collar as part of a research program by the University of Alberta and Environment and Climate Change Canada, to monitor the bears’ mileston moments, habitat use, denning areas, feeding. The data is being used to better protect this species in the face of climate change.

Deployed on Boeing 787-9 aircraft starting in January, the coating uses tiny, sharkskin-like grooves called riblets to guide airflow smoothly along the aircraft’s surface. By keeping the air more organized and reducing small pockets of turbulence, the riblets cut aerodynamic drag, which normally wastes energy. That reduction in drag translates directly into better fuel efficiency, lowering operating costs and reducing the plane’s carbon emissions. Overall, this smart surface technology gives the 787 a quieter, cleaner, and more efficient ride without changing the aircraft’s shape or engines.

Scientists expect that bear X33991 and her cubs will stay out on sea ice, where the mother will hunt seals, while teaching the cubs how to be polar bears. You can follow her journey with the polar bear tracker.

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Chicago’s rat hole wasn’t made by a rat

Popular Science Team — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 10:12:08 -0500

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. +The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

Blue Ghost lunar lander by Firefly Aerospace: First commercial company to soft land on the moon

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FACT: There’s a retirement home for penguins

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By Rachel Feltman

The Blue Ghost lander was the first commercial vehicle to soft-land on the Moon, marking a major milestone in the shift from government-only lunar missions to public–private exploration with its March 2 touchdown. Over the summer, Firefly Aerospace was awarded a NASA contract to deliver science and technology instruments to the Moon’s south polar region, an area crucial for studying water ice and future human exploration. Successful delivery will help NASA gather data needed for future Artemis missions while proving that commercial companies can reliably operate on the lunar surface, demonstrating the Blue Ghost lander to be a major step toward a more sustainable, commercially driven lunar economy.

Geriatric penguins deserve love too. That’s why the New England Aquarium in Boston recently opened a home for its aging African penguin colony. This sort of assisted living facility cares for penguins well into their thirties–far beyond the age they’d reach in the wild. In this penguin paradise, older birds can live comfortably away from the hustle and bustle of younger, more rambunctious penguins.

Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine by Venus Aerospace: Powering future flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo in under two hours

The senior penguins even get hydration treatments, acupuncture, and custom shoes for those with foot ailments. Notably, one resident, affectionately named Beach Donkey, received treatment for foot dermatitis and trained to wear her custom shoes during fun field trips around the aquarium.

Tune in to this week’s episode to hear all of the heart-warming details about this old folks’ home for penguins.

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FACT: Rats are eating… bats?

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By Kendra Pierre-Louis

Venus Aerospace’s Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) is a new type of rocket propulsion that creates continuous spinning shockwaves to burn fuel far more efficiently than traditional rocket engines. This technology is targeted to enable aircraft to travel at speeds of Mach 4 to Mach 6 (3,069 to 4,603 mph), making routes like Los Angeles to Tokyo possible in under two hours. Because the engine produces more thrust with less fuel, it opens the door to faster, lighter, and potentially more affordable high-speed travel. In short, the RDRE is a key step toward turning ultra-fast, global point-to-point flight from science fiction into realistic transportation.

In this episode, I explore a shocking discovery about the dietary habits of rats over in Germany. Researchers studying the carcasses of bats in a cave system were astonished to find evidence that common rats have developed a method of catching and eating bats mid-flight—something previously unknown to science. Captured on wildlife cameras, this unsettling footage shows rats leaping to snatch bats from the air, raising concerns about new pathways for disease transmission.

BepiColombo by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) & European Space Agency (ESA): Exploring Mercury closer than ever

FACT: Chicago’s rat hole wasn’t made by a rat

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By Jess Boddy

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A week before we recorded this episode, Rachel emailed me a link to a study about the Chicago rat hole. Of course, the fact alone that there was a single study about one of the most peculiar cultural occurrences in my home city was enough to take it on as a Weirdest Thing–so this week, I do just that.

BepiColombo is the most ambitious mission ever sent to study Mercury, a planet that’s hard to reach because of the sun’s intense gravity. The spacecraft carries two orbiters—one built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and one by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)—that will map Mercury’s surface, study its thin atmosphere, investigate its magnetic field, and analyze its interior structure. These measurements will help scientists understand how rocky planets form and evolve, including Earth-like worlds in other star systems. By working together, JAXA and ESA are tackling one of the toughest destinations in the solar system and filling in major gaps in our understanding of the innermost planet.

For those unaware, Chicago’s “rat hole” was an iconic piece of sidewalk in which a rat (or so we thought) plunked into the concrete when it was wet. It left a perfect rat-shaped imprint, in which local Chicagoans would come to toss coins, holy water, Pokemon cards, bottles of Malort, and much more. We were making pilgrimages, so to speak.

One scientist was doing some post-grad research in the city when this all went down in January 2024, and he decided to run a study on the measurements of the creature that left the iconic imprint. The true identity of the rat hole’s “rat” will probably surprise you. Listen to this week’s episode to hear the whole tale!

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The post Chicago’s rat hole wasn’t made by a rat appeared first on Popular Science.

A history of mistletoe: The parasitic ‘dung on a twig’

Matt Kasson — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

It’s hard to imagine a holiday season without Bing Crosby’s Christmas standard I’ll Be Home for Christmas. Originally written from the perspective of a soldier stationed overseas during World War II, his longing for the simple comforts of home and reconnecting with his loved ones at Christmas is almost palpable: “Please have snow and mistletoe and presents by the tree…”

The smartphone era has brought about an era of convergence when it comes to consumer electronics. Tons of devices we used to rely on—small cameras, calculators, flashlights, music players, etc.—have rolled up into our phones. Entertainment has experienced a similar move toward a small-screen singularity. In 2024, users collectively watched more than 4 billion minutes of TikTok content on their phones every single day. Still, big screens persist. This year’s list includes a pair of new TV technologies built to be enjoyed from feet away, not inches from your face. A pair of clever earbuds use magnetic fluid to let you hear familiar music with a fresh sound. And, while it’s already perhaps too easy to start a podcast, the industry standard microphone has gotten a very useful upgrade that makes high-quality content creation even more accessible.

Mistletoe just inexplicably feels familiar. Every December, the evergreen sprigs that spent the offseason hidden in our subconscious are suddenly all around us. Mistletoe is the long-lost acquaintance that we instantly recognize and embrace, yet whose backstory has been lost to us.

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“When I talk to people about parasitic plants, I know mistletoe is the one that they’ll immediately recognize even if they don’t really know it’s a parasite,” Virginia Tech plant biologist Jim Westwood tells Popular Science.

Micro RGB TV by Samsung: A TV that creates color in a totally different way

A brief history of mistletoe

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Author Washington Irving, best known for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle is often credited with helping popularize the parasitic evergreen shrub in the United States. He wrote about the plant in an 1820 collection of short stories, but the roots of mistletoe go much deeper elsewhere in the world.

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Dating back to Ancient Greece and Rome, leafy mistletoe has long excited the imagination. Mistletoe served as a centerpiece of Celtic Rituals and Norse myths, where it bestowed life and fertility and served as an aphrodisiac, a plant of parley, an antidote for poisons, and a means of safe passage to and from Hades. According to The Living Lore, since the plant can thrive in the high branches of its host without soil, “many cultures saw mistletoe as a sacred plant, existing in liminal spaces between life and death, earth and sky, and human and divine.”

Pictures of Samsung’s Micro RGB TV don’t do it justice. When I saw it in person earlier this year, I was shocked by the vibrant colors and brightness it offers. Even compared to typical OLEDs (which are renowned for their color reproduction), it created a tangibly more vivid viewing experience. Each sub-100-micron RGB emitter sits directly behind the panel and is driven on its own, which lets the set hit unusually wide color gamuts while maintaining extremely high brightness and contrast at a 115-inch, 4K size. True Micro LED tech remains exclusive to commercial installations, but Micro RGB provides an extremely similar experience without the need for complex professional installation. A screen this large that can still show deep blacks and highly saturated color in a bright room reshapes what home theater looks like—if you can afford it—and sets expectations for what premium displays should do over the next decade.

In Old Norse mythology, Baldr, the son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, was slain with a mistletoe spear. Some interpretations suggest that, “kissing under the mistletoe symbolizes forgiveness, echoing Frigg’s grief and eventual reconciliation with the plant.”

Magnetic Fluid Driver by Technics: Earbuds that tune the driver with liquid, not just magnets

Druid Cutting the Mistletoe on the Sixth Day of the Moon by Henri-Paul Motte (1900). The painting depicts the ritual of oak and mistletoe. Image: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons CC By 4.0.

Many early physicians and scientists saw mistletoe as a cure-all for the woes of the world. It was used to treat various diseases and conditions including epilepsy, infertility, and ulcers.

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In Pliny’s Natural History, the writer and physician describes the Celtic ritual of oak and mistletoe. High priests dressed in white harvested mistletoe with golden sickles from the branches of sacred oak trees to make an elixir that could counteract any poison and render any barren animal fertile.

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“It’s easy to imagine how people become fixated on mistletoe plants,” says Westwood. “It stays green all winter growing in its host tree. It almost seems to have supernatural powers.”

Technics’ EAH-AZ100 earbuds use a dynamic driver with magnetic fluid—an oil-like liquid loaded with magnetic particles—between the voice coil and the diaphragm. Instead of just cooling the driver, the fluid damps and centers its motion, cutting distortion and stabilizing the stroke, especially at low frequencies. That’s important because most earbud upgrades lately have come from digital signal processing and software tricks. Here the transducer itself gets an upgrade. Extending clean bass response down to a claimed 3 Hz while maintaining detail in the mids and highs shows there’s still headroom in single-driver designs, and it hints that more weird physics materials may show up inside everyday audio gear.

Supernatural or not, mistletoe was so popular throughout the 19^th and the early 20^th century, that its seasonal availability was tracked and reported by many newspapers. There was little wild mistletoe to be plucked from trees in or around a typical city, so it was often imported from down south where it was a welcome interloper on account of its predictable seasonal payout.

Atmos FlexConnect by Dolby: Room-aware surround sound that starts from the TV

“That’s kind of an interesting thing about mistletoe,” Carolee Bull, a plant pathologist at Penn State and president of The American Phytopathological Society, tells Popular Science “People wanted to manage it because it’s parasitic, but they also wanted it as a product to sell.”

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+ Related Holiday Stories

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Mistletoe, the plant parasite

Even the fanciest home audio system won’t sound good if it’s not set up correctly. Dolby Atmos FlexConnect uses the TV as a hub that listens for wireless speakers, figures out where they are in the room, and then assigns channels and levels automatically instead of forcing you to figure out symmetrical layouts and manual calibration. The system identifies each speaker’s capabilities and position, then divides Atmos height, surround, and dialogue information between the TV’s own drivers and any paired satellites. TCL’s 2025 QD-Mini LED TV sets and matching Z100 speakers are the first to ship with it, which makes Atmos-style setups closer to “plug it in and listen” than “learn to be your own installer.” It’s still a closed ecosystem for now, but it points toward surround systems that adapt to cluttered apartments and real furniture instead of demanding a perfect demo room.

Common or leafy mistletoes (Viscum species in Europe and Phoradendron species in the United States) are evergreen parasitic shrubs. They have small leathery green leaves and white, translucent or red berries depending on the species. Without a perennial woody host plant to support them, mistletoe would quickly die.

MV7i two-channel mic by Shure: A podcast mic with an audio interface built in

However, not all parasitic plants are created equal. Leafy mistletoes are considered hemiparasites. “It’s taking primarily water and nutrients from the tree it’s growing on, but it can make some of its own food because its leaves still contain chlorophyll,” says Westwood. “Because they are green, you wouldn’t necessarily recognize them as parasites.”

A woman buys mistletoe at a stall at the Christmas market in the main pedestrian street in Hamburg, Germany. Image: Philipp Guelland/Getty Images.

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Mistletoe plants are poisonous as well. They contain one or more peptide toxins— particularly concentrated in the leaves and stems—capable of causing heart and gastrointestinal issues in various animals including humans. They also have been reported to cause dermatitis. European Viscum species are considered more toxic due to the presence of viscumin, a toxin similar to ricin from castor bean that is not present in their American Phoradendron counterparts. Despite their deadly reputation, most reported accidental ingestions (e.g. a few leaves or berries), with the exception of excessive, concentrated herbal use, such as brewing mistletoe in tea, have not been fatal.

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In the 13^th century, German Dominican friar and scientist Albertus Magnus, was among the first to formally recognize and document European leafy mistletoe (Viscum album) as a plant parasite. Magnus even went as far to recommend pruning infected branches as a form of control, helping lay the foundation for the field of plant pathology.

If you watch podcast content, streamers, or pretty much any kind of interview content online, you’ve seen the Shure MV7 microphone. It’s the industry standard, and now it works as its own stand-alone podcast studio. Plug it into a computer via USB-C and you get the mic plus a combo XLR/ ¼-inch input on the back for a second microphone or instrument, with both channels appearing separately in Shure’s MOTIV Mix software or your digital audio workstation. That lets a solo creator record a host and guest, or voice and guitar, without hauling around an extra interface box, power supply, and cabling. Dual-channel recording directly from a single desktop mic lowers the barrier to making more polished shows and music from small spaces, and it shows how much traditional studio hardware can collapse into a single device.

“So much of the work we do as plant pathologists is microscopic,” says Bull. “We often use techniques that can tell us whether or not an organism is there. And mistletoe is one of the few organisms that we don’t have to do that for. It’s a really charismatic plant pathogen.”

G5 Evo by LG: An OLED TV that belongs in bright rooms

Parasitism may seem like a strange lifestyle for a plant, but around 4,000 plants (roughly 1 percent of all known plants) live as parasites. Some like mistletoe are partially dependent on their host, while others (called holoparasites) rely on their hosts for everything.

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“It’s a good lifestyle to steal your food rather than make it yourself,” says Westwood.

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Mistletoe branches can have white or red berries. Image: Mariia Demchenko via Getty Images.

LG’s G5 Evo OLED overcomes one of the biggest limitations of this particular type of digital display: overall brightness. A new tandem RGB OLED stack, revised light-emitting structure, and brightness booster drive peak HDR highlights above 2,000 nits while still keeping the near-perfect black levels that made OLED appealing in the first place. Paired with the α11 AI Gen2 processor and support for 4K at up to 165 Hz, the panel can handle both bright daytime viewing and high-frame-rate gaming without falling back to washed-out LCD tricks. It’s a reminder that OLED is still evolving as a technology—and that the next few years of TV design will be less about inventing new acronyms and more about making self-emissive panels viable in real, sunlit living rooms.

Parasitic evergreens and where to find them

Outside of your local holiday market, finding real leafy mistletoe is easier than you might think.

Personal Care

“It’s the perfect plant for roadside botany,” says Bull, referring to the practice of identifying plants without leaving your car. Their conspicuous position high up in the branches of their tree hosts following leaf fall makes them almost impossible to ignore.

In a market saturated with wellness products that promise to fix your whole life but rarely deliver much of anything, this year’s personal care winners stand out for actually solving real problems. The 2025 class represents genuine inclusivity and thoughtful design—from a breast pump that goes old school to level up its wearability, to world-class headphones that double as hearing aids and workout coaches. These products aren’t just chasing trends or throwing around pseudoscientific buzzwords. Instead, they address overlooked challenges with smart engineering: making fragrance bottles easier to grip, transforming sleep routines for exhausted parents, and rethinking recovery gear so athletes can soothe strained muscles while on the move. Each winner proves that meaningful innovation happens when companies consider users’ actual needs—and use that knowledge to make good products great.

In the U.S. alone, more than a dozen species of Phorodendron are found in over 35 states, and live abundantly across the entire southeast, southwest, and Pacific Northwest. Even if you find yourself geographically removed from the places where leafy mistletoe thrives, you can still find another less conspicuous type of mistletoe called dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium species), which parasitizes the branches of conifer trees.

Grand Award Winner, Personal Care

Mistletoe (Viscum album) growing on a tree in woodland. Image: Sandra Standbridge via Getty Images.

Willow Wave Manual Breast Pump by Willow: Modern mobility meets manual pumping

There are even leafy mistletoe “hot spots” since their sticky berries are spread primarily by the birds that eat them. Clearly, the health risks associated with mistletoe ingestion don’t apply to birds. In fact, the word mistletoe literally translates to “dung on a twig,” an accurate reference to how it spreads. Birds eat mistletoe berries in winter, spreading the seeds in their fruit-rich droppings. Their seeds adhere to random tree branches due to a sticky viscin on the seed coat that even survives its journey through a bird’s digestive system. It will remain there until the following spring when it germinates and enters its host to begin its life as a parasite.

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So the next time you’re driving and The Jackson 5’s I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus or Justin Bieber’s Mistletoe begins to play, remember that mistletoe isn’t just some generic seasonal evergreen or Victorian era kissing contraption. It’s an ecologically important parasitic plant with both ancient and contemporary roots that’s here to stay.

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In The History of Every Thing, Popular Science uncovers the hidden stories and surprising origins behind the things we use (or eat) every day.

The post A history of mistletoe: The parasitic ‘dung on a twig’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Ancient bees laid eggs inside bones

Andrew Paul — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 19:05:00 -0500

Bees are frequently associated with large queen-serving colonies featuring hundreds if not thousands of insects. In actuality, that’s usually not the case.

“Most bees are solitary. They lay their eggs in small cavities, and they leave pollen for the larvae to eat,” explained paleontologist Lazasro Viñola López. “Some bee species burrow holes in wood or in the ground, or use empty structures for nests.”

The wearable breast pump market has exploded in recent years, allowing parents to pump without tethering to a plugged-in device or getting tangled in tubing. Some options now fit the whole pumping mechanism into a form that can slip into your bra, promising a level of discretion that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. But most come with a significant caveat: They’re loud. Motor noise can make pumping that might be otherwise undetected during a video call or in a quiet office practically impossible. The Willow Wave solves this problem by replacing a humming motor with an old-school, manual pump mechanism—but without sacrificing the mobility that makes wearable pumps so appealing in the first place. Building on the company’s experience creating the first fully in-bra wearable electric pump, Willow has reimagined what a manual pump can be. The Wave fits completely inside a standard nursing bra. Its ergonomic handle prevents hand fatigue while pumping and connects via 34 inches of adjustable tubing, giving users genuine freedom of movement and total control over their device’s hospital-strength suction. The result is a wearable pump that’s finally quiet enough to use anywhere—even during that morning video meeting.

Viñola López, a researcher at Chicago’s Field Museum, added that some European and African species even construct nests inside vacant snail shells. That said, a beehive inside a bone is a new one even for seasoned researchers. Estimated to be around 20,000 years old, this newly discovered specimen is also the first known example of such a home, past or present. The findings are detailed in a study published on December 16 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Hyperboot by Nike × Hyperice: Recovery that keeps up with you

Researchers located the unique find while exploring the many limestone caves that dot the southern Dominican Republic. Sinkholes are common across the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, and are often so well sheltered from the elements that they function like underground time capsules.

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Generations of owls likely lived inside the caves, leaving their prey’s bones behind. Credit: Lazaro Viñola López.

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These windows into the past are largely thanks to the work of the island’s owls. The predatory birds often make their nests inside these caves, where they regularly cough up owl pellets filled with the undigested bones of their prey. Over thousands of years, these layers of bones fossilize atop one another across carbonate layers created from rainy periods. Getting a firsthand look at these remnants isn’t for the faint of heart, however.

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“The initial descent into the cave isn’t too deep–we would tie a rope to the side and then rappel down,” Viñola López said. “If you go in at night, you see the eyes of the tarantulas that live inside.”

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After proceeding past the large spiders through about 33 feet of underground tunnel, the paleontologists began finding various fossils. Many belonged to rodents, but there were also bones from birds, reptiles, and even sloths for a total of over 50 different animal species.

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“We think that this was a cave where owls lived for many generations, maybe for hundreds or thousands of years,” said Viñola López. “The owls would go out and hunt, and then come back to the cave and throw up pellets. We [found] fossils of the animals that they ate, fossils from the owls themselves, and even some turtles and crocodiles who might have fallen into the cave.”

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While cleaning his finds, Viñola López noticed smooth, almost concave sediment within one of the tooth sockets of a mammal jaw fossil. Dirt doesn’t normally accumulate that way in fossils, but then Viñola López started finding additional examples.

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“I was like, ‘Okay, there’s something weird here,’” he remembered.

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An illustration showing the bones and bee nests in the cave. Credit: Jorge Mario Macho / Machuky Paleoart

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The mystery fillings reminded Viñola López of certain fossilized wasp cocoons he examined while on an undergraduate dig in Montana. After CT scanning the specimens, his team noticed that the sediment structures looked nearly identical to the fossils from his college days. Some even still featured pollen grains mother bees likely encased in the individual nests as food for their larvae.

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Although the nests didn’t contain any fossilized insects, that was to be expected. The caves, while protected from the outside world, are still extremely humid and warm—conditions not suitable for preserving delicate exoskeletons.

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“Since we didn’t find any of the bees’ bodies, it’s possible that they belonged to a species that’s still alive today— there’s very little known about the ecology of many of the bees on these islands,” Viñola López said.

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The fossilized bone nests are the first of their kind ever discovered, even across today’s ecosystems. More examples may be out there, but it’s also possible that the caves offered a unique environment for the bees. Without much soil on top of the region’s limestone, the insects may have resorted to caves for nesting. There, the owls’ discarded bones provided a convenient alternative home for the bee larvae.

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“This discovery shows how weird bees can be—they can surprise you,” said Viñola López. “But it also shows that when you’re looking at fossils, you have to be very careful.”

The post Ancient bees laid eggs inside bones appeared first on Popular Science.

Last-minute holiday gift guide: 30 editor-approved gadgets for everyone on your list

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:44:38 -0500

NanoKnife by AngioDynamics: A minimally invasive intervention for prostate cancer

These are wall lights that sit somewhere between ambient lighting and programmable art. Set a subtle glow for work, go full color chaos for game night, or make it react to music if you want your living room to feel like it’s trying out for a music video. It’s the kind of gift that changes a space without requiring new furniture or a weekend of home improvement projects

Roomba 105 Vac Robot + AutoEmpty Dock

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+ + Nobody loves vacuuming. Let a robot do it. + +

iRobot

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One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetimes, according to the American Cancer Society. Treatment can include surgery or radiation, but these interventions can damage the nerves surrounding the tumor, leading to complications like erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence.

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Developed by AngioDynamics and cleared by the FDA in December 2024, NanoKnife sends localized electrical pulses directly to the cancerous tissue with a precision that avoids damage to neighboring tissues. Just like some breast cancer patients are given the option of a more targeted lumpectomy instead of treating the entire breast, eligible prostate cancer patients now have a more focused, radiation-free alternative that doesn’t require treating the entire gland.

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The NanoKnife System offers men with prostate cancer that hasn’t yet spread a minimally invasive solution with limited quality-of-life side effects before doctors turn to other, more aggressive treatments. It is now being used in hospitals around the country.

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Gadgets

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Deep down, we want to be cyborgs. We spend huge chunks of time interacting with technology every day, but the friction created by devices and interfaces persists. This year, we got closer than we have been to tech that truly augments reality. Meta took its smart glasses beyond its beginning as a simple content creation tool. The rest of the innovations run the gamut from a drone that captures aerial images in a new way to a grand platform designed to help AI systems navigate the physical world. Ultimately, all of these devices are designed to help humans do more of the things humans already like to do. That’s the way it should be.

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Grand Award Winner, Gadgets

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Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses and Neural Band by Meta: The first true face computer

Give someone the gift of time. Because time not spent cleaning carpets can be used for pretty much anything else. This vacuum-only bot navigates with LiDAR so it cleans in tidy, deliberate paths even at night. It pairs with iRobot’s app for scheduling, room targeting, and spot-cleaning when you just want it to hit the crumb zone under the table. The best part is the AutoEmpty dock: instead of you dumping a dusty bin every run, it offloads debris into a bag in the base.

iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit

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iRobot

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Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses and Neural Band represent the first successful attempt to make “face computing” feel like a feasible tool rather than a demo. A tiny display in the right lens overlays simple interfaces, captions, directions, and AI answers into your field of view, as the built-in microphones, speakers, and camera handle audio and capture in the background. The paired wristband reads small electrical signals from your forearm muscles so subtle finger movements act as clicks and scrolls, instead of relying on loud voice commands or big mid-air gestures. The near-eye display, on-body sensing, and assistant-like software fit into familiar-looking frames in a way that feels like it could exist in the real world. It makes routine tasks—translation, navigation, quick queries—possible without pulling out a phone, while forcing new conversations about what it means to have nearly invisible cameras and always-on AI in social spaces.

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Cosmos by Nvidia: A “world model” stack for physical AI

If you want to crack open and fix a gadget, your typical tool kit won’t cut it. The tools are made for modern gadgets—tiny screws, delicate clips, annoying adhesive—so you can swap a battery, tame a drifting controller, or at least open something without looking like a raccoon got into it. It’s a gift that says, “I believe in your competence,” which is oddly powerful.

CanaKit Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit

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Celestron

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The Power X2 Ambulance Cot and Power F2 Fastening System by Ferno Norden greatly improve safety, efficiency, and ergonomics in emergency medical transport. The Power X2 is a powered, lift-assist ambulance cot that reduces the heavy lifting normally required of EMTs, helping prevent back injuries and speeding up patient loading. Paired with it, the Power F2 Fastening System automatically locks and secures the cot inside the ambulance, ensuring stable, crash-tested transport without extra manual steps. Together, these systems make patient handling smoother, safer, and faster for both caregivers and patients—an important upgrade for modern EMS operations.

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Auto

+ + Capture every aspect of your scene, then choose the frame later. + +

Insta360

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Finland-based technology company Donut Lab’s claim to fame is that its Donut Motor is the world’s most efficient in-wheel electric motor. Who cares? For starters, the power-to-weight ratio is comparable—even better, on paper—than Koenigsegg’s “Dark Matter” motor. Ultimately, the bakery-treat-shaped motor is integrated directly with the tire, which results in lighter, more economical, and easier to manufacture vehicles. Verge Motorcycles (of which Donut Labs is a subsidiary) is using Donut Motors in its all-electric motorcycles. Donut plans to scale up and down from there, using its motors in machines as small as a drone or as large as a semi-truck.

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This is a very modern approach to filming: don’t worry about framing in the moment, just capture the scene and reframe afterward. It’s excellent for biking, skiing, travel, and any activity where “aiming a camera” is not your top priority. Also, the creative shots are genuinely fun without requiring film-school energy.

Home

When you live with small annoyances, frustration can build over time. You can only catch your belt loop on a drawer handle so many times before you hit your limit. Several of this year’s home innovations address those seemingly small hurdles that can make a big difference in your home life. The monthly chore of replacing an air filter and the seemingly simple task of finding a place to store the lawn mower when not in use get clever solutions. Our grand award winner adds an unprecedented level of accessibility to dishwashers without requiring an entirely new appliance. Living life as usual in your home is a privilege and these innovations help ensure that’s possible.

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FLIR ONE Edge Pro

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+ + It’s fun to use, but can also help make essential home repairs. + +

Flir

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Grand Award Winner, Home

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Spin&Load rack by Whirlpool: A dishwasher lower rack that actually comes to you

Thermal imaging is useful for real troubleshooting. Find drafty windows, overheating electronics, and mystery leaks. But it’s also just deeply satisfying to watch heat move through the world. Make art. Fix your home. Pretend you’re the Predator. It’s all good.

Vortex Diamondback HD 10×42 binoculars

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Vortex

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Whirlpool’s Spin&Load rack replaces the typical fixed lower dishwasher rack with a platform that rotates a full 360 degrees, so every plate and pot remains reachable from any side. The accessory drops into standard 24-inch built-in dishwashers across Whirlpool’s brands and spins on a central hub, which means users no longer have to lean deep into the machine or shuffle around the open door just to grab the pan in the back. The rack was developed with the United Spinal Association as well as Whirlpool’s internal advocacy group. The final product was tested with wheelchair users, aiming to make loading and unloading realistic for people with limited reach or balance, not just idealized demo kitchens. It’s also compatible with most of the brand’s standard dishwasher models manufactured after 2018, which makes a much more affordable and environmentally friendly alternative to replacing an entire appliance.

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RMA 448 V lawn mower by Stihl: A one-sided handle that simplifies bagging and storage

Good binoculars are quietly addictive. Birding, hiking, sports, wildlife spotting, casual astronomy all benefit from a solid set of optics. This is the kind of gift that gets used more than people expect because it’s useful in more situations than people plan for. They’re also small enough to easily fit in just about any bag so you’ll actually have them when you want them.

Garmin inReach Mini 2

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+ + If you care about someone who loves going off-grid, this is a gift for both of you. + +

Garmin

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Stihl’s RMA 448 V battery mower uses a unique-looking handle: instead of the usual two bars, it has a single offset post that leaves the back of the deck completely open. That small change makes it easier to lift out the 13.7-gallon grass bag, flip the integrated mulch flap, or adjust the cutting height without threading your arms around metal tubing. More importantly, the handle folds flat for storing the mower against a wall in tight storage spaces. Despite its foldable stature, It’s still a full-size, self-propelled 19-inch mower with weather-resistant construction and ECO mode to stretch runtime. But the real advantage comes in its streamlined ease of use, because accessories and features aren’t worth having if they’re too annoying to use.

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Dyson HushJet Purifier Compact: Jet-style airflow without the jet-engine noise

This is a small satellite communicator that’s basically an emergency plan you can clip to a pack. It’s a meaningful gift for hikers, skiers, overlanders, and anyone who ends up beyond cell coverage—sometimes intentionally. Honestly, it’s also a gift for the people who worry about them.

Valerion VisionMaster Max Home Projector

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Valerion

The HushJet Purifier Compact shrinks Dyson’s bladeless air-multiplier idea into a purifier small enough for a bedroom or home office, then reworks the nozzle to keep things extremely quiet. The uniquely shaped port pulls in room air and pushes it through an electrostatic HEPA filter plus activated carbon, capturing 99.97% of particles down to 0.3 microns and common gases. It’s strong suction, but, in night mode, noise drops to around 24 dBA. That’s about as loud as a typical whisper. It’s sized for roughly 200 square feet, runs off about 7 pounds of hardware, and uses a sealed filter rated for up to five years, which cuts down on replacement waste and recurring cost. It’s quiet enough and requires so little maintenance that you don’t have to think about it and that’s the way we like it.

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Solar Roof Tiles by Jackery: Curved crystalline panels that behave like actual roofing

Perch the Valerion VisionMaster Max on the back of the bed, plop yourself on the mattress … instant immersion. We come to this place for magic, and this 4K DLP triple-laser cannon delivers, pumping out 3,500 ISO lumens with real night-scene swagger. A six-step iris plus Enhanced Black Level technology means the dark scenes don’t turn into grey haze, even with some ambient light. You can get up to 300 inches of picture that stays punchy, with Dolby Vision/HDR10+/IMAX Enhanced support plus optical zoom, lens shift, and auto-keystone. Flagship a bit indulgent? The VisionMaster Pro 2 packs in many of the features with slightly lower lumens/contrast.

AeroPress Original XL

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+ + You don’t need a pretentious setup to make great coffee. + +

Aeropress

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Jackery’s Solar Roof replaces bolt-on panels with curved tiles that function as both roofing and photovoltaics. Each XBC tile uses a 0.13 mm-thick crystalline silicon cell bent into a 150-degree “smile” shape, delivering over 25% efficiency and around 38 watts per tile—about 170 watts per square meter—while matching the profile of clay or concrete tiles in black or terracotta. The system is rated for hail, high winds, and temperatures from –40°F to 185°F, with a 30-year warranty and integration into Jackery’s home storage gear for whole-house backup. By treating solar as part of the building envelope instead of a separate rack, it aims to make the system acceptable to homeowners’ associations and aesthetics-conscious owners who would otherwise skip rooftop solar—an important barrier if residential rooftops are going to contribute meaningfully to decarbonizing the grid.

The AeroPress is beloved because it makes genuinely good coffee without being precious about it. It’s fast, easy to clean, and travel-friendly. It it works at home, at work, or in a cabin that claims it has “kitchen supplies” but definitely does not. The XL version is nice for people who want more than a tiny cup without making a whole pot.

Refillable Air Filter Kit by Filtrete: A reusable HVAC frame with collapsible refills

ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE

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+ + If you cook meat of any kind, this is the thermometer you want. + +

ThermoWorks

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Filtrete’s Refillable Air Filter Kit replaces the usual one-piece furnace filter with a rigid frame designed to live in your HVAC system for up to 20 years and thin “refill” elements that slide in and out. Each MPR 1550 refill lasts up to 12 months, comes folded to take up 75 percent less space, and captures substantially more fine particles than basic filters while generating about 20% less waste over the frame’s life. The kit ships in curbside-recyclable packaging, and Filtrete’s app can nudge you when it’s time to swap the media, which addresses the very human tendency to forget about filters until airflow drops. Given how many homes now rely on forced-air systems for both heating and cooling, a design that cuts bulk trash and encourages longer, more consistent filtration is a small but concrete improvement in how we manage indoor air and HVAC waste.

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Sports & Outdoors

This is one of those gifts that upgrades almost every meal without changing a recipe. It takes the mystery out of steak, chicken, fish, bread, and frying. Cooking with vibes can’t protect you from food poisoning. If you want to give someone more confidence in the kitchen (and fewer overcooked “learning experiences”), this is an affordable and accessible way to do it.

The post Last-minute holiday gift guide: 30 editor-approved gadgets for everyone on your list appeared first on Popular Science.

Amazon has Cricut machines, accessories, and supplies for their lowest prices of the year for a limited time

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:34:12 -0500

If you’re shopping for a crafty person or gearing up for your own last-minute project binge, Amazon has solid discounts on Cricut cutting machines, heat presses, and the supplies that ship in time for the holidays. I organized the best deals below so you can quickly grab a core machine, then stock up on the essential accessories and consumable stuff like mats, blades, and materials.

It’s no big secret that spending time in the great outdoors is good for our bodies and minds. For 2025, our Sports & Outdoors innovations make getting outside more accessible and safer. Our top prize winner Mimikai insect repellant is a safe and effective way to keep dangerous insects like ticks and mosquitoes from biting you while on that hike, without the harmful chemicals. Other exciting developments this year include a compostable sneaker, a screen that makes working on a computer outside during the day much easier, a highly versatile kit for mountain climbing, and a new bike helmet that can help prevent dangerous concussions.

What is a Cricut machine anyway?

Grand Award Winner, Sports & Outdoors

A Cricut machine is basically a small, computer-controlled cutting tool for craft projects. You feed it a design from the Cricut app, load up materials like vinyl, iron-on (HTV), cardstock, or sticker paper, and it cuts clean shapes and lettering that would be a pain to do by hand.

Mimikai Insect Repellent by Mimikai: The first biomimicry insect repellent

Editor’s Picks

Cricut Explore 4 Engagement Bundle $199 (33% off)

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+ + Get started right away with this kit. + +

Cricut

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Most spray-on bug repellents are a sticky cocktail of nasty chemicals. Mimikai is different. The first new EPA-registered insect repellent in 25 years, the biomimicry-based Mimikai mosquito and tick-repelling spray and mist is free of harsh chemicals. But it’s as effective as DEET. After seven years of testing, not only does it meet the highest safety standards, but it’s effective for hours, and it doesn’t feel sticky on your skin. Mimikai blends methyl nonyl ketone, aka 2-undecanone, a naturally occurring compound found in wild tomatoes, bananas, cloves, ginger, and guava, with oil of lemon eucalyptus, soybean oil, and other skin-friendly ingredients. We’ve been testing it against biting bugs and insects in Vermont all summer, and we’re impressed with this non-toxic, effective alternative to traditional pesticides.

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Fade 101 by Solk: A sneaker that’s beautiful, holds up, and won’t poison the planet

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Footwear is notoriously toxic, both when it’s made and when its useful life is over. Foams and leathers don’t break down once shoes and boots are discarded. Eco-friendly alternatives lack structure and durability, and most don’t look stylish or feel comfortable. Veteran footwear designers David Solk and Irmi Kreuzer started Solk to make shoes that wouldn’t cause harm to the environment. Designed and built with a combo of traditional crafting and AI, every fiber, stitch, material choice, and end-of-life consideration has one goal: to be harmless to our environment. There is no rigorous zero-impact certification, so Solk created its own stringent standard that tests for 200 toxins. Materials include a 100% compostable foam midsole—other shoes use EVA, which won’t decompose for millennia—and leathers tanned without toxic forever chemicals that can decompose in a landfill. The shoes are beautiful, durable, and compostable.

If your goal is stickers, labels, cards, and iron-on projects, this is the kind of setup that gets you to finished results fast without requiring a full craft-room commitment. It also makes a strong gift because the learning curve is more about picking a project than mastering complicated hardware.

Advanced Mountain Kit by The North Face: The most versatile high alpine clothing

Cricut Maker 4 Engagement Plus Bundle $499 (14% off)

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Cricu

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High-altitude mountaineers have historically dressed in cumbersome, Gumby-like down suits for summiting 8000-meter peaks. They were sweaty on the approach, expensive, and task-specific. The North Face’s new 24-piece Advanced Mountain Apparel Collection, which is part of a 31-piece Advanced Mountain Kit–provides elite athletes with the same extreme weather protection for climbing the world’s highest peaks, in a kit that can be used comfortably for mountain missions, including 8000-meter peaks, in a variety of weather in a range of altitudes. The kit is comprised of layers purpose-built for technical alpine climbing and mountaineering in all weather, including high-altitude environments. It’s a modular system. Each layer enhances the performance of others to help elite athletes succeed, whatever their objective. Lightweight, compressible to take up minimal packed space, and tough, the kit is built with cutting-edge fabrics, construction, and design, including Spectra yarns that are stronger than steel yet lightweight, and continuous baffle Cloud Down that eliminates cold spots and optimizes packability. DotKnit fabric marries the thermal and odor benefits of wool with active moisture transfer. The shell jacket and pants use an electrospun breathable membrane, and the down layers are infused with titanium and aluminum that reflects body heat.

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Daylight DC-1 by Daylight Computer: The first computer designed to be used outdoors

If you’ve got ambitions beyond basic vinyl and cardstock, paying for the more capable tier can save frustration down the line. The addition of the heat press allows for T-shirt making, tote bag adornment, and more.

Cricut Mug Press + 4 Blank Mugs $99 (34% off)

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Staring into our phones, tablets, and computers produces a lot of stress on our eyes and brains, whereas e-readers like the Kindle offer a gentler option for screentime. However, these e-readers generally don’t have the processing power necessary to make them as useful as a regular tablet or computer. The Daylight Computer splits the difference. Its monochrome tablet uses transflective LCDs in a patented fastest e-paper display ever that unlocks full computer functionality with the glare-free reflective display, which makes it ideal for working outdoors. The tablet is low-stimulation because there are no bright and saturated colors, fast-paced flashing, or brain-agitating blue light, so it’s not addictive like other phones, tablets, and computers. It won’t disrupt your sleep or put you in a negative feedback dopamine desensitization loop. The display stack feels paper-like, and it’s fast enough to be used for anything on the internet. That makes this a great tablet for kids, who are especially susceptible to the addictive properties of other devices.

Custom mugs are one of those projects that feel wildly personal for the recipient, but they’re straightforward to produce once you’ve got the workflow down. If you want “handmade” results without committing to a giant press setup, this is a tidy way to get started.

Deflectr RLS Bike Helmet by Canyon: The most effective brain-protective helmet system is on the outside

Machines

Full-size cutting machines

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Cricut Explore 4 Smart Cutting Machine (Seashell) + Digital Content Bundle $199 (20% off)

Cricut Maker 4 Smart Cutting Machine (Seashell) + Digital Content Bundle $349 (13% off)

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Most bike helmets use expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam to absorb blunt impacts, but EPS is bad at dispersing the rotational forces that cause traumatic brain injury in a crash. RLS is a pioneering safety breakthrough that diffuses the rotational forces that can cause traumatic brain injury through exterior panels that slide on ball bearings, then release in a crash, taking stress off a cyclist’s brain. The outer shell panels rotate on 1500 tiny polycarbonate bearings on a vinyl sticker shell base. In a crash, mechanical fasteners release, allowing the bearings to roll freely and the outer shell to slide away, dissipating energy with concussion-level force applied to the shell. Then the bearings can roll freely, and the outer shell can slide away. That allows the brain time to decelerate inside the skull, minimizing internal damage when the helmet contacts the ground. Eventually, the RLS technology will be available for motorcycle, industrial, equestrian, snow, American football, and other sports and activities in entry-level to advanced helmets. According to Virginia Tech testing, the gold standard for cycling helmets, the tech works. This helmet is currently rated #1 safest cycling helmet you can buy.

Bundles for bigger projects

Cricut Maker 4 Engagement Plus Bundle $499 (14% off)

Engineering

Cricut Explore 4 Engagement Bundle $199 (33% off)

Grand Award Winner, Engineering

Compact cutters (easy gifts)

Superwood by InventWood: Stronger than steel and 6 times lighter, no blast furnace required

Cricut Joy Xtra Smart Cutting Machine $149 (17% off)

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Cricut Joy Machine + Digital Content Bundle $99 (23% off)

Steel is responsible for roughly 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but is so reliable that builders don’t want to go without.

Heat presses

Researcher Liangbing Hu found a new approach to this problem through serendipity. As a young researcher at UCLA and then Stanford, Hu was trying to figure out how to assemble batteries out of carbon nanotubes—but finding that constructing at the nanoscale was challenging and expensive. He had an “aha!” moment looking at wood fibers, realizing that the nanofibers within wood cells are about 100 times as strong as regular wood. And in terms of scaling up efficiently and in a way that sequesters carbon? Just grow a tree.

EasyPress and mini presses

Hu devised a chemical bath to remove the lignin that holds the cellulose in wood together. By then heating the resulting fibers, he was able to compress the wood by roughly 80 percent of its original thickness, using his knowledge of the nanoscale. He collapsed the internal structure in a way that eliminated weaknesses and strengthened bonds. (You can think of it as getting rid of all of the space inside the wood fiber.) His process also darkens the wood, and renders the material stronger than steel, not to mention six times lighter. The result is Superwood.

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Experts question whether the famously risk-averse construction industry will embrace such a radical replacement for steel, and not without reason. If you’re building a $2 billion skyscraper, would you want to tell your lender that you’re rolling the dice on treated wood without a decades-long safety record?

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But Alex Lau, CEO of InventWood, the company that licensed Hu’s discovery, says that once the company scales up, he aims to sell Superwood at half the price of steel. But for now, he will win hearts and minds in the construction industry by first targeting the wood-friendly markets for decking and roof materials, before moving in on structural elements and Superwood-optimized buildings. And then there are the environmental benefits. Superwood can be made out of many different kinds of tree—you can even make the stuff out of the roughly 10 to 20 percent of forestry products that are discarded as the wrong species, or the 40 percent of sawmill wood deemed non-premium that would otherwise be chipped or burnt. Lau says he can displace half of US steel demand, or 50 millions tons, with just 12.5 million tons of Superwood. That sounds like a lot, but he points out we send that much waste wood to the landfill each year—and there are 14 million tons of excess capacity wood in Southern lumber mills.

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Sand Battery by Polar Night Energy: An industrial-scale thermal battery out of sand to avoid fires and mining pollution

Cricut EasyPress 3 + Heat Press Mat Bundle $89 (10% off)

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Cricut Mug Press + 4 Blank Mugs $99 (34% off)

Industrial-scale batteries provide one way to keep renewable power going when the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining. But manufacturing batteries from lithium, cobalt, or iron has a significant greenhouse gas footprint and can also lead to metal and water pollution.

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A Finnish company called Polar Night Energy is tackling the intermittency problem by upcycling crushed soapstone, a byproduct from a local fireplace factory, to create the largest sand battery in the world. Instead of storing electricity, this thermal battery stores heat in a roughly 43-by-49-foot insulated steel cylinder. The system takes excess electricity from the grid to heat up the sand. Then, pipes built into the battery direct cold air in, allow heat to transfer from the sand, and then send hot air out, at temperatures between 140 and 752 degrees F. The hot air can then be used to make steam for industrial processes, or to warm up buildings or water. Unlike conventional batteries that become less efficient over time, the sand does not degrade, and the battery has an expected useful life of 30 years. And unlike lithium-ion batteries (or oil refineries), the sand will never catch on fire.

Materials

Though using hot sand as a battery is an ancient idea, the tool is modern and industrially rated, storing up to 100 MWh of energy for months at a time. This is enough for a month of heat demand in the battery’s small hometown of Pornainen, and a week during the icy Finnish winter.

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And this is just the first industrial-scale project from Polar Night Energy; the company plans to compete with lithium-ion batteries for certain industrial applications at smaller sizes—between 2 MW and 10 MW—across Europe. The cost per stored kilowatt hour is lower too, though high upfront costs and builders who don’t like unfamiliar tech are obstacles. Nearly 40 percent of industrial applications for heat are in the sand battery’s temperature range.

Cricut Smart Iron-On (Joy Xtra) $7.50–$10.14 (up to 32% off)

Willow Quantum by Google: A chip that actually makes fewer errors as the number of physical qubits increases

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Cricut Smart Permanent Vinyl (Joy Xtra) $6.99 (30% off)

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Error correction is a crucial feature in any computer chip, and it’s even more important in quantum computers. That’s because minor material glitches, changes in temperature, and even cosmic rays can alter the way the computing entities known as qubits store or transmit information.

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Google logged a major milestone in the road to an actually practical quantum computer with a new approach to quantum-error correction. With a new machine called Willow, Google has created a 105-qubit machine with the unprecedented ability to reduce errors even as the number of qubits in operation increases. Because qubits are inherently error-prone, traditionally, the more qubits in a chip, the greater the likelihood of a glitch. By placing qubits assigned to store data in a grid with error-correcting qubits, the Google research team was able to actually make the number of errors go down even as the number of qubits increased. That means that the 7-by-7 array had better error correction than the 3-by-3—an unprecedented achievement. Google reports that Willow completed a benchmark number test in five minutes that would have taken a conventional “classical” supercomputer 10 septillion years—that’s older than the age of the universe. And that points to the power of unleashing quantum effects on problems.

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It’s not all puppies and rainbows in quantum land, however, where research computers typically start at a million dollars yet can’t solve any real problems. But they won’t be able to without robust error correction, and so Willow is a dramatic step forward.

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Populus Hotel by Urban Villages/Studio Gang: an Eco-Hotel That Takes Sustainability Seriously and Looks Like an Aspen Tree

Tools and blades

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Cricut Brayer & Mat Remover Tool Set $11.99 (50% off)

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Cricut Basic Tool Set (Gray) $13.50 (18% off)

With windows inspired by the black “eyes” in white Aspen trees made when branches fall off, Populus is more than just a curvilinear visual feast: The shading also helps reduce the amount of heat the building takes in the summer.

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The ample use of timber in construction reduces (but doesn’t eliminate) the need for carbon-intensive concrete in construction. The builder used a special lower-carbon concrete containing the coal waste product known as fly ash, which resulted in 30 percent less emitted carbon than conventional concrete. There is an on-site digester that converts food waste into compost. Plus, there is no on-site parking, both to reduce the need for cement and reinforced steel, and to incentivize the use of transit and ride-sharing.

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The hotel has sponsored the planting of 70,000 thousand trees in Colorado to offset the carbon footprint of materials, and then purchased other carbon offset. (In part, because most of the tree seedlings died due to drought and a beetle infestation). They also buy wind energy credits from their electric company. In an online dashboard, the hotel says it has already sequestered 116 percent of the carbon that was released during construction and ongoing operations.

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University of Colorado environmental studies professor Joel Hartter is not sure all of the claims pencil out. For example, he points out that offsets are like paying someone else to eat vegetables so that you can keep eating fast food. After all, the lowest-footprint solution would be to not build a beautiful wintry destination heated with methane to have people fly in to visit. But he doesn’t want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. He says the Populus Hotel helps show the tourism industry, which is badly in need of improvement, of what a commitment to sustainability requires. In comparison with a typical luxury hotel, it’s like looking at apples and oranges.

Pens & markers

Delivery Zip by Zipline: An autonomous drone system safely winching burritos down into the front of Dallas homes

Cricut Extra Fine Point Pens Ultimate Set (30 ct) $28.59 (35% off)

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Cricut Glitter Gel Basics Pen Set (5 ct) $6.99 (50% off)

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Cricut Glitter Gel Pen Set Brights $10.99 (21% off)=

The post Amazon has Cricut machines, accessories, and supplies for their lowest prices of the year for a limited time appeared first on Popular Science.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snaps 100,000th image

Popular Science Team — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:33:00 -0500

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) officially went into service above the Red Planet in November 2006. The spacecraft has since spent nearly 20 years circling Earth’s closest neighbor, studying its geology and identifying icy evidence of a once watery world. After already sending back more than 450 terabits of data over the course of its ongoing mission, the orbiter recently passed a major milestone: its 100,000th image of the Martian surface.

Drone-based delivery in a crowded urban area has long seemed too complicated and dangerous to undertake—but now it’s real, and starting to feel, well, normal. Beginning in April, Zipline began a service in which a 5-propeller drone copter collects a burrito or a smartwatch from retailers like Chipotle or Walmart by reeling up a robotic rectangular cargo vehicle called a “Delivery Zip.” The copter then flies autonomously to the customer location and winches down the Delivery Zip for delivery. Sounds like sci-fi, but Dallas-area senior citizens and single parents in particular love the new service. (The company reports serving “tens of thousands” of DFW customers). Around the world, Zipline has made over 1.85 million drone deliveries, and flown more than 120 million miles without a single serious injury. Those delivery numbers leave deep-pocketed competitors funded by Google and Amazon in the dust.

Taken on October 7 by the spacecraft’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), the portrait includes sandscapes, steep dunes, and even a few ancient impact craters inside Syrtis Major. The region on display is located only about 50 miles southeast of Jezero Crater, where NASA’s Perseverance rover continues its own on-the-ground exploration of Mars.

Zipline began delivering blood transfusions and then other medication in Rwanda in 2016, from the capital of Kigali to far-flung rural regions where roads were inaccessible. Among the results was 51 percent fewer deaths from postpartum hemorrhaging in facilities served by Zipline. Today, after expanding service to the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, and with medical trials in the UK and the US, the company has delivered more than 25 million doses of vaccines. Zipline is rolling out retail and food delivery to various sub-regions of the Dallas-Fort Worth area—there are 20 and counting as of press time. The first-generation Zipline platform used a fixed wing drone that dropped medical supplies by parachute; the team invented the second-generation P2 platform with the Delivery Zip given the more precise landing requirements of a crowded city.

Syrtis Major is a region located about 50 miles southeast from the area being explored by the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona

BOWN 2025 Credits:

Photographs from HiRISE don’t only illustrate the Red Planet’s grandeur. The details in each image help researchers learn more about conditions on Mars ahead of the first human visitors.

Package Leads and Judges: Annie Colbert and Stan Horaczek

“HiRISE hasn’t just discovered how different the Martian surface is from Earth, it’s also shown us how that surface changes over time,” MRO project scientist Leslie Tamppari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. “We’ve seen dune fields marching along with the wind and avalanches careening down steep slopes.”

Editors, writers, and researchers: Laura Baisas, Berne Broudy, Annie Colbert, Julia Daye, Rachel Feltman, Alan Haburchak, Stan Horaczek, Jenni Miller, Andrew Rosenblum, Kristin Shaw

The 100,000th image’s subject matter wasn’t chosen after deliberation at mission control. Instead, the region was nominated by a high school student through HiWish, NASA’s website portugal for suggesting regions of Mars to study.

Fact checker: Alex Schwartz

“Rapid data releases, as well as imaging targets suggested by the broader science community and public, have been a hallmark of HiRISE,” explained Shane Byrne, HiRISE’s principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “100,000 images just like this one have made Mars more familiar and accessible for everyone.”

Art Director: Tag Hartman-Simkins

The post The 50 greatest innovations of 2025 appeared first on Popular Science.

Save hundreds on EF ECOFLOW solar generators and portable power stations with this limited Amazon deal

Andrew Paul — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:10:22 -0500

Black Friday may be over, but the next black out is on its way (great pun, right?) Right now, Amazon has EF EcoFlow portable power stations and solar generators on sale at or below Cyber Week prices. These are powerful units, some of which can store enough juice to fuel an entire home when the grid goes down. Go grab one now and stick it in your emergency kit so you’ll have access to your devices when you need them.

For even more immersive looks at Mars, Bryne and colleagues have also constructed 3D models that allow anyone to experience virtual flyovers of the planet.

The post NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snaps 100,000th image appeared first on Popular Science.

Dancing robot is the size of a grain of salt

Andrew Paul — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:59:00 -0500

Designing a swarm of fully autonomous, submillimeter-sized robots sounds like an expensive, if not impossible task. However, a team at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan not only built a new generation of recordbreaking, solar powered machines. Each robot costs only a single penny to manufacture. The robots could help advance everything from nanotechnology manufacturing to medical research. And according to University of Pennsylvania engineer Marc Miskin, their team’s breakthrough also ends a decades’ long robotics conundrum.

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“Building robots that operate independently at sizes below one millimeter is incredibly difficult,” he said in a university profile. “The field has essentially been stuck on this problem for 40 years.”

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A complete robot next to the year on a penny for scale. Credit: Kyle Skelil / University of Pennsylvania

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As Miskin and colleagues recently detailed in the journals Science Robotics and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the principal problem with making a fully autonomous robot of this size is a matter of physics. Sizable objects—humans included—move through a world largely dictated by the forces of inertia and gravity. The smaller something gets, the more it becomes influenced by surface area factors like viscosity and drag.

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“If you’re small enough, pushing on water is like pushing through tar,” Miskin explained.

This model packs a 1024Wh LiFePO4 battery and up to 1800W of AC output, which is plenty for essentials like a fridge, router, lights, and laptop during a short outage. It also supports fast charging and solar input, making it a compact, flexible option for both home backup and weekend camping.

This means that while locomotive designs like arms and legs function well for gravity and inertia, limblike appendages become far too delicate at microscale. Solving for this issue required researchers to approach movement from any entirely different perspective, one that works on an electrical level.

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Each robot measures around 200 by 300 by 50 micrometers, or smaller than a grain of salt. Even at that size, the machines are capable of converting energy from tiny solar panels into an electrical field when placed in a solution. The electricity pushes nearby ions, which then shove surrounding water molecules to propel the robot. The machines also don’t only move forwards and backwards. By adjusting the electrical field, each robot can move alone or in complex patterns together like a school of fish.

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EF ECOFLOW

“It’s as if the robot is in a moving river, but the robot is also causing the river to move,” Miskin said.

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The machines also don’t feature any moving components, and instead rely entirely on electronic signals. This makes them far more durable than their larger, more complex robotic relatives. With recharges supplied by an LED, the robots can swim for months at a time. But even affordability and ingenuity only go so far if a machine is useless. The microscale robots need to accomplish tasks, and that requires programming. Once again, Miskin’s team had to address the issue of size.

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75 nanowatts of power

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Computer miniaturization is all about space. The smaller the computer, the less available area for power sources, memory, and circuitry. Unsurprisingly, this posed a problem for designers.

With 25,000mAh of capacity and up to 170W total output (including high-watt USB-C), it can fast-charge laptops, tablets, phones, and more from one hub—ideal for flights, commuting, or working remotely without hunting for a wall outlet.

“The key challenge for the electronics is that the solar panels are tiny and produce only 75 nanowatts of power,” added University of Michigan engineer David Blaauw. “That is over 100,000 times less power than what a smart watch consumes.”

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The workaround required entirely new circuit designs that operate at low voltages, thereby reducing the robot’s power needs by over 1,000 times its original requirement. With solar panels taking up the majority of available robot real estate, Miskin and Blaauw next needed to figure out how to fit in a processor and memory.

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“We had to totally rethink the computer program instructions, condensing what conventionally would require many instructions for propulsion control into a single, special [programming] instruction,” Blaauw said.

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The microbots are produced in a sheet (top left) roughly the area of a fingertip (bottom left). Each bot contains solar cells for harvesting energy, some of which also double as optical receivers, a temperature sensor on each side of the microbot for detecting differences, a processor for taking in information and making decisions, four actuator panels that drive its motion. Four of the receivers allow the robot to identify whether an incoming program is addressed to it. Credit: Maya Lassiter / University of Pennsylvania

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Robot wiggle dances

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The current iterations of the microscale robots possess sensors allowing them to detect temperature within an accuracy of a third of a degree Celsius. This hypothetically would allow a swarm to travel through a solution towards regions of warmer temperature—often an indicator of cellular activity—hen report on individual cell health. But remember the size problem: to inform its designers of survey results, its method of communication must be simple enough to encode on a grain of sand. Luckily, nature provided its own evolutionary inspiration.

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“It’s very similar to how honey bees communicate with each other,” said Blaauw. “To report out their temperature measurements, we designed a special computer instruction that encodes a value, such as the measured temperature, in the wiggles of a little dance the robot performs. We then look at this dance through a microscope with a camera and decode from the wiggles what the robots are saying to us.”

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As impressive as the mini-bots already are, Miskin and Blaauw hope it’s only the start of an entirely new field of possibilities. Continued improvements and experimentation could result in faster, more complex robots installed with additional sensors that let them maneuver through increasingly difficult environments.

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“We’ve shown that you can put a brain, a sensor and a motor into something almost too small to see, and have it survive and work for months,” said Miskin. “Once you have that foundation, you can layer on all kinds of intelligence and functionality.”

The post Dancing robot is the size of a grain of salt appeared first on Popular Science.

‘Living rocks’ suck up a lot of carbon

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:07:00 -0500

Among the tricky carnivorous plants, great white shark-killing orca whales, and other remarkable flora and fauna that call South Africa home is a remarkable group of “living rocks.” Called microbialites, these communities are similar to coral reefs and are built up by microbes. These tiny living organisms absorb and release dissolved minerals into more solid rock-like forms. Microbialites are also some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth and can be found in layered, self-sustaining communities called microbial mats.

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New research recently published in the journal Nature Communications also finds that these living rocks are not just surviving along South Africa’s coast. They’re thriving. The new study tallies how microbialites take carbon and turn it into fresh layers of calcium carbonate. These structures then use photosynthesis (the same way that plants use the sun to make food) and other chemical processes to absorb that carbon day and night at the same rate as the other microbes living within their microbial community.

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According to the study’s authors, the rate at which they use carbon shows the impressive efficiency of these microbial mats, taking the dissolved carbon out of their environment and moving it off into a stable mineral deposit.

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“These ancient formations that the textbooks say are nearly extinct are alive and, in some cases, thriving in places you would not expect organisms to survive,” Dr. Rachel Sipler, a study co-author and a marine biogeochemist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine, said in a statement. “Instead of finding ancient, slow growing fossils, we’ve found that these structures are made up of robust microbial communities capable of growing quickly under challenging conditions.”

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Scientists have long struggled to understand how microbial communities like these interact with their environment. Part of the difficulty is that the data on these interactions comes from the fossilized remains of microbialites, some of which are billions of years old. Fortunately, living microbialites are still widely distributed in salty marine environments around the world.

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Sipler and the team also looked at the underlying geochemical processes at play. Over several years, they conducted multiple field expeditions, examining four microbialite systems in southeastern South Africa. Here, calcium-rich hard water seeps out of coastal sand dunes.

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“The systems here are growing in some of the harshest and most variable conditions,” Sipler said. “They can dry out one day and grow the next. They have this incredible resiliency that was compelling to understand.”

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A pool of water dominated by microbialites in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Image: Rachel Sipler.

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They found that these systems were rapidly depositing the calcium carbonate, estimating that the structures can grow roughly two inches vertically every year. Surprisingly, they also found that the amount of carbon absorbed during day and night were roughly the same. Since these systems have long been thought to be driven by photosynthesis alone, the team was surprised to find that nighttime uptake rates are as high as during the day. After repeating their experiments several times, the team confirmed that the microbes are using metabolic processes other than photosynthesis to absorb all of that carbon in the absence of sunlight. This is similar to how microbes living in deep-sea vents are able to survive in near total darkness.

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Based on daily rates of carbon uptake, the team estimates that these microbialites can absorb the equivalent of about 20 to 25 pounds (nine to 16 kilograms) of carbon dioxide every year per square meter. That would be like an area the size of a tennis court absorbing as much carbon dioxide as three acres or forest every single year. This carbon-absorbing rate makes these microbial systems one of the most efficient biological mechanisms storing carbon long-term observed in nature.

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The post Save hundreds on EF ECOFLOW solar generators and portable power stations with this limited Amazon deal appeared first on Popular Science.

Female Galápagos birds flaunt their sexual partners. The males don’t seem to mind.

Laura Baisas — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:48:27 -0500

A Galápagos bird species is stunning behaviorists with their “freewheeling” lifestyles. Described in the journal PLOS One, female Nazca boobies (Sula granti) will openly mate with potentially dozens of males before settling on a parenting partner. What’s more, the conspicuous behavior doesn’t appear to bother their final suitors.

“We’re so trained to look for the expected. If we’re not careful, we’ll train ourselves to not see the unique characteristics that lead to true discovery,” Sipler said. “But we kept going out and kept digging into the data to confirm that the finding wasn’t an artifact of the data but an incredible discovery.”

“You don’t expect to see females just running back and forth trying to copulate with so many males. So yeah, that’s a huge surprise,” study coauthor and Wake Forest University biologist David Anderson said in a statement.

Additionally, coastal marshes are similar to these microbialites since they can take in carbon at a similar rate. However, marsh microbes put all of that energy into organic matter, which can be easily broken down compared to the more stable, mineral structures in microbialites. Given those differences, the team is investigating how environmental factors and variations in microbes may influence the fate of carbon in different microbial systems.

Birds like swans, geese, and albatross are famous for their monogamous partnerships, but the behavior is far from the norm. In fact, ornithologists have observed extra-pair fertilizations in most avian species. In these instances, a female clandestinely has sex with an interloper, while her chosen male partner ultimately helps raise the offspring.

“If we had just looked at the metabolisms, we would have had one part of the story. If we had just looked at carbon uptake rates, we would have had a different story. It was through a combination of different approaches and strong scientific curiosity that we were able to build this complete story,” Sipler said. “You never know what you’re going to find when you put people from different backgrounds with different perspectives into a new, interesting environment.”

The post ‘Living rocks’ suck up a lot of carbon appeared first on Popular Science.

Andrew Jackson’s White House once hosted a cheese feeding frenzy

Andrew Paul — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

It’s February 1837, and the White House is about to bear witness to one of the greatest feeding frenzies in this nation’s proud history of competitive consumption. As night falls, the citizens of Washington, D.C., are going to make a 1,400-pound cheese disappear in a matter of minutes. And they’re going to do it at the behest of incumbent President Andrew Jackson.

Despite this, Anderson explained most researchers traditionally view seabirds as “models of monogamy,” and often use them as cornerstone case studies for avian social hierarchies. But over 74 days of observation, biologists documented female Nazca boobies freely selecting multiple sexual partners, with one topping the list at 16 different males.

The battle of the Presidential cheddars

The findings are only the second known example of female birds displaying total reproductive control aside from lek-mating birds. Lek mating refers to when certain animal species’ males congregate and compete for female attention via elaborate courtship displays.

Curiously, the cheese devoured that night was not the first colossal cheddar to grace the White House during the 19th century. In fact, competitive caseiculture unites two presidents who had very little in common otherwise: Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

“That’s just mind-blowing for a seabird,” said Anderson. “Many of these female boobies are really freewheeling it when it comes to sexual behavior.”

The first shots in the Big Cheese Wars of the 1800s were fired by one John Leland, the pastor of Cheshire, Massachusetts. To celebrate Jefferson’s victory in the 1801 Presidential election, Leland organized for Cheshire’s dairy farmers to pool their resources in the creation of an immense wheel of cheddar. The resultant wheel of cheese was named “The Cheshire Mammoth Cheese,” and for good reason. It weighed 1,235 pounds: about as much as an adult brown bear.

The Nazca boobies’ trysts aren’t constant occurrences, however. Interestingly, Anderson’s team confirmed a female booby will eventually have more sex with their chosen breeding mate. The extra-relation encounters also dwindle to almost zero whenever they’re ovulating.

“She’s copulating with other males in the lead up to the breeding season, but genetic data showed that they’re never the father of her children. This reconciles evidence that females are shopping around, but it never results in fertilized eggs in the end,” Anderson said. “These flings are sex, but not reproduction.”

A generation later, in 1829, Jackson was elected president. He and Jefferson are often the subject of comparisons, and Jackson himself often presented himself as Jefferson’s spiritual heir. This view, it must be said, was not shared by Jefferson or members of his Democratic-Republican party: In 1824, one prominent Democratic-Republican reportedly remarked: “I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place.”

So, why the permissiveness among male Nazca boobies? According to the study’s authors, the answer can be phrased as its own question: What choice do the male Nazca boobies have?

Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Image: Public Domain

Males are generally physically larger in most bird species, which often allows them to intimidate or injure females. This doesn’t end the outside sexual meetings, but it does lead to greater concealment. In contrast, male boobies are much smaller and weaker than the females.

It was perhaps because of Jefferson’s disdain for Jackson that on the latter’s re-election in 1833, his supporters decided that “every honor which Jefferson had ever received should [also] be paid [to Jackson].” Amongst other things, that meant getting hold of an immense wheel of cheese—ideally, an even bigger one than Jefferson’s.

This means the females can engage in “whatever sexual behavior is best for them, and there’s nothing the males can do about it,” said Anderson. “The males are afraid of the females, and also won’t risk alienating a female since there are so few of them.”

Jackson’s cheesemongers found the man for the job in Colonel Thomas S. Meecham, a veteran of the War of 1812, who had set up a dairy farm in Sandy Creek, New York, a small village just south of Kingston. Meecham got to work, and in late 1835, he unveiled a wheel of cheddar that was even larger than the Cheshire Mammoth Cheese. Exactly how much Meecham’s cheese weighed depends on which source you believe—some say 1,400 pounds, others 1,600—but either way, it was definitely bigger than Jefferson’s. Which was the point.

As to the benefits of such a free spirited lifestyle, the biologists are still searching for an explanation.

A big cheese, the White House, and a massive farewell party

“Why are these females doing it, if it’s not leading to a fertilized egg?” said Anderson. “We would very much like to know the answer to that.”

The post Female Galápagos birds flaunt their sexual partners. The males don’t seem to mind. appeared first on Popular Science.

2025 holiday gift guide: 40+ editor-approved presents for everyone on your list

Tom Hawking — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:20:22 -0500

Your friends and family deserve the best possible gifts. But shopping can be tricky. You don’t want to give them something impersonal, like a gift card, but you also can’t resort to drawing them a card with a Christmas tree on it again. It’s our job to find the best products and deals, so we’ve spent way too much time digging up a ton of products that pretty much anyone would like. There’s something to fit most budgets and tastes. We’ll be regularly updating this list until the last possible moment, so get your shopping done now and save yourself the last-minute stress. Also, feel free to send us any of these items because they’re all great and we’ve been really, really good this year. Promise.

The Jacksonian colossus traveled south on a barge, stopping at Syracuse, Albany, and New York City before arriving in Washington in early 1836. Perhaps Jackson was too busy trying to deal with the various scandals that plagued his second term, including the economic depression that became known as the Panic of 1837, or perhaps he just didn’t like cheese, but for whatever reason, Jackson seems to have been less enamored of the cheddar than his supporters. Once it arrived at the White House, the cheese just…sat there, slowly stinking up the entire building.

Jackson’s tenure in Washington was characterized by, amongst other things, his fondness for throwing parties. The White House’s East Room was completed in 1829, the year he took office, and hosted many a festive evening over the following decade. So as Jackson’s second term drew to a close in 1837, it seemed only fitting to mark the occasion with one final party—a party that also, as it happened, provided a neat answer to the question of what to do with the immense hunk of cheese that had been hanging around in his lobby for the last year.

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Andrew Jackson held many public receptions, open to everyone from senators to Washington locals. Perhaps his most famous was in February 1837 when crowds devoured a massive 1,400-pound wheel of cheddar. Image: The White House Historical Association / Public Domain

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The final party of Jackson’s presidency was on February 22, 1837, in honor of George Washington’s birthday. As the party approached, the cheese was dragged from the White House lobby into the East Room. On the day of the party, Jackson declared open season on the cheese.

Anyone invited by this digital picture frame’s owner can send photos and videos directly to it from their phone. It’s Instagram for that relative who is perpetually OFFline. Simply connect the frame to Wi-Fi and use the Aura app to set up access and other preferences. For instance, it’s how our managing editor in D.C. and his brother in Japan regularly send pictures to their mother in Alabama. A 1600 x 1200 HD display gives stunning clarity to phone camera photos, and there’s no limit on how many photos you can upload to the frame. There’s also a built-in speaker for video playback, allowing you to watch babies crawl and cats snuggle like you’re there. The frame also includes other smart features like automatic screen brightness and cropping, and auto turn-off at night. The Aura is one of the best digital picture frames and will bring a smile to a (grand)parent’s face. (And there are a bunch of other frame sizes, colors, and vertical orientations—like the Carver, the Aspen, and the Walden.)

The 19th century journalist Benjamin Perley Poore described the carnage that ensued in his book Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis. According to Poore, Washington’s cheese enthusiasts descended on the capitol, and, a matter of hours later, the cheese was no more: “The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day.”

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Perhaps the key takeaway here is that you can apparently just leave an enormous cheese sitting in the open air for two years and then feed it to the masses without causing a mass food poisoning outbreak. So what actually happens to an absurdly large cheese when it’s left to just…mature?

This wireless 98-key mechanical board uses a UniCushion gasket structure to damp vibrations for a softer feel and cleaner sound. Hot-swappable linear switches, durable PBT keycaps, and white backlighting make it easy to tune the typing experience without diving into mods. It pairs with up to three devices via Bluetooth or the included Logi Bolt receiver and can run for months with backlighting off across Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, iPadOS, and more.

Brooklyn-based cheesemaker Caroline Hesse explains that cheese maturation involves a whole lot of chemical processes. “On a scientific level, you have lactose breaking down into lactic acid, [along with] fats and proteins breaking down.”

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These processes play a key role in imparting flavor and richness to the cheese—and the longer a cheese sits, the further these processes are able to progress. This is why aged cheeses are generally stronger and more flavorful than their fresher, younger counterparts. But not all cheeses are equal. While relatively hard cheeses, like Jackson’s cheddar wheel, can be left to mature for months or years, Hesse says that if you left a soft cheese like brie sitting for that long, very bad things would happen. “Soft cheese will just kind of liquify, run everywhere, and create ammonia.”

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Ultimately, she explains, it’s moisture content that determines a cheese’s shelf life: the harder and drier the cheese, the longer it can sit unrefrigerated. In 2012, a Wisconsin cheesemaker discovered some cheddar that had sat forgotten at the back of his refrigerator for 40 years—and promptly offered to sell it to anyone brave enough to try it. One such individual, the proprietor of the market where the cheese was briefly on sale, described it as “barely edible.”

Canned air will clean your car’s dashboard and center console, but it’s terrible for the environment and lacks the power necessary to get every last crumb. This rechargeable blower has a fan inside that spins at 150,000 RPMs to create wind speeds up to 190 MPB. It offers three speeds, so you don’t need to go full hurricane mode all the time. Despite all that power, it operates relatively quietly so it won’t bother your coworkers or roommates. The 6,000 mAh battery provides up to 100 minutes of airflow on a single charge, so it won’t give up when you’re trying to inflate your favorite pool toy or hide the evidence after eating the last of the tortilla chips after everyone else went to bed. You’re literally giving the gift of cleanliness.

If cheddar can remain (barely) edible after 40 years, then it’s probably not surprising that a couple of years in the White House lobby presented no problem at all. But the 19th century fondness for big political cheeses does raise another question: Is there any limit on how big a cheese can be?

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Can the biggest cheese be…bigger?

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Today’s giant cheeses make Jackson’s wheel look like one of those little Laughing Cow wedges you get from the supermarket. The Guinness Book of World Records lists cheeses in several categories, but the largest by weight is a cheddar made in Canada in 1995, which weighed a whopping 57,518.5 pounds, or just over 26 metric tonnes. For comparison, the average family car weighs about 4,000 pounds, or two tons.

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Can we go bigger? Hesse says that while one can theoretically just keep making larger and larger cheeses indefinitely, there are practical difficulties that start to manifest as cheeses get larger. The biggest one is how to squeeze out all the excess whey. “Eventually it gets to a point where there is a draining issue,” she says. “But if you’re making cheese that’s that big, I’m sure you also have a very large industrial press.”

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And while the narrative arcs of the presidency and the humble cheesemaker have rarely intersected since the 19th century, the current incumbent has demonstrated that he’s not averse to receiving gifts. So if there’s a sudden shortage of cheddar at the local shop, you read it here first: a colossal cheese might just be making its way to Washington.

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In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation.

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Update, December 17, 2025, 5:25 p.m. ET: This story incorrectly attributed a statement to Thomas Jefferson.

The post Andrew Jackson’s White House once hosted a cheese feeding frenzy appeared first on Popular Science.

Amazon has Anker’s power banks, chargers, and portable power stations on deep discount during these last minute holiday deals

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The OKAPA is functionally a durable, vacuum-tight water bottle. The OKAPA (shown here in Goldie Samba, one of six high-gloss/glamour colorways) is visually a conversation starter. It’s medical-grade materials, precision-machined and assembled with Swiss-watch obsessiveness. OKAPA poured eight years and 10,000 prototypes into this bottle, which opens with a satisfying thump to reveal its pleasingly moulded mouthpiece. We pour filtered water or steaming tea into the borosilicate glass carafe, cradled in laser-carved anodized aluminum. It’s pro-luxury, as at home sitting on a drafting table or ergonomic computer desk as it is next to a yoga mat or glampfire, giving hygienic hydration with overkill energy.

The F2000 class of stations is built for keeping essentials running—think phones, laptops, lights, and other small electronics during an outage, or powering a campsite setup without relying on a car battery. At this discount level, it’s the rare kind of practical splurge that actually feels worth it.

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There comes a point when the cyclist in a household graduates from neighborhood loops to “let’s drive somewhere with actual elevation,” and that’s when a real hitch rack matters. The Saris SuperClamp G4 steps in as a slim, 45-pound rack that still carries two bikes up to 60 pounds each—ebikes included. Spring-loaded, lockable arms secure the tires (even with fenders), and rear-wheel straps flip out of the way, turning bike loading/unloading into a quick, low-drama operation. The SuperClamp’s real strength is flexibility: it fits wheelbases up to 52 inches, tire diameters from 20 to 29 inches, and widths up to 3 inches. It works with both 1.25-inch and 2-inch hitch receivers using the included adapter. Some ebikes do exceed the 60-pound limit, and fat-tire bikes won’t fit, but for many setups, this rack hits the sweet spot between capacity, convenience, and not totally taking over the back of the car. Pro tip: Saris is offering 20% bike racks and home storage solutions through Dec. 22.

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If you’re like us, you (or someone you plan to gift to) are a weekend warrior who wants to feel pro vibes but may find it hard to establish a rhythm for tempo rides. If someone doesn’t have time to wait for the perfect time, the Castelli Perfetto RoS 3 jacket makes sure crisp, messy days don’t get in the way of (wide) shoulder-season saddle time. Built from Polartec AirCore, a brand-new PFAS-free laminate, this “jacket” is a nano-fiber force field. It’s more like a die-hard race jersey—stretchy, close, with long sleeves, drop tail, and big rear pockets—featuring an electrospun membrane that’s windproof, highly water-resistant, but breathable so it won’t leave you with a boil-in-the-bag feel. Rated for about 39-57 degrees Fahrenheit, you can switch from lightweight base layer to thermal underneath and be covered for fast fall spins or flirting with freezing.

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Meet the modern Mary Poppins bag. The RUX Waterproof Tote is built for anyone whose tote quietly works as a grocery hauler, gym bag, work carryall, and “toss it all in, we’re leaving” bin. It brings expedition-level durability to an everyday silhouette, standing upright instead of collapsing into a sad puddle thanks to a foam base and a fully welded 840D TPU-coated nylon body. Discreetly tucked inside is a 420D TPU-coated roll-top liner that turns the tote into a dry bag, delivering true waterproof protection without leaky zippers. This 30L workhorse hits the sweet spot for daily life: big enough for laptops, kids’ sports gear, or a chaotic market haul, but still manageable on crowded sidewalks and trains. Multiple lash points make it equally at home strapped into trucks, boats, or roof racks when the agenda shifts from errands to adventure. Sustainability is baked into the design, too. Every strap and handle is replaceable, and a lifetime guarantee backs the entire kit.

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The Backbone is the easiest, most seamless way to turn your phone into a legit handheld console. Snap it on, and mobile games from Apple Arcade to Genshin Impact, Fortnite, or Blops gain responsive face buttons with low-latency controls and proper analog sticks. (For a limited time, new Backbone Pro purchases and current Backbone Pro owners can unlock the Clyde Outfit in Fortnite.) It also unlocks the real power of remote play for PlayStation and Xbox, so you can stream your console games to your phone when the TV is held hostage by movie night. Even if you don’t want to attach your phone, you can connect the Backbone Pro via Bluetooth to any iOS, Android, or PC device. Versatile and compact, the Backbone will make touch controls feel like just a bad dream you once had. Go Pro for more features and better buttons, but the One is also fun for a snap-on spine to make mobile gaming stand on its own.

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The Bartesian Duet is like having a bartender who never judges your pour or your playlist. Drop in a pod from one of many flavourful spirit-specific variety packs, pick your strength, and watch your glass fill with something bright and balanced without bar math. This one comes with two glass bottles, but there’s a version with four (as well as one with five) if you like to vary your vibe more. It’s sleek, compact, and dangerously convenient … perfect for pregaming or maybe just having friends over for a party that never has last call. You know you’re spending too much money on TouchTunes, anyway.

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Bushnell’s been helping golfers find flags since before half the foursome on the tee box was born, so appealing to the Bluetooth everything generation is more than a gimmick. It’s the logical next step. The Wingman HD’s GPS brain puts critical data from thousands of courses on the 3.5-inch color HD touchscreen and essential audio accompaniment on the 2x15W speakers with two passive radiators. All the front/center/back yardage, hole layouts, hazard info, and 360-degree sound fits in a rechargeable IP67 brick that clamps conveniently to the cart magnetically. It’s a legacy of reliability upgraded with a volume knob, great for a buddy trip, so you can sing along over the distance and the chorus.

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Know a golfer who has tried “feel,” watched every YouTube tip video, switched grip multiple times, and still complains about putting? Introduce them to L.A.B., or Lie Angle Balance, and let physics take over for a while. These hand-balanced putters may look weird (like asking a CAD file how it would improve its short game), but the zero-torque tech is like an exoskeleton that stops the head from twisting open and closed during your wobbly lil stroke. The mallet just wants to stay square and roll the ball on line. Fitting feels more like a personality test than a club demo, but the payoff is brutal consistency from 10 feet and in. Sure, it’ll start “What is that?!?” conversations, but you’ll have more time to explain because you have less three-putts.

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This handheld gaming PC puts your library in your hands and plays nicely with Xbox services. Dock it to a TV for couch co-op, or keep it portable for Game Pass on the go. You can dock it to a TV for couch co-op or keep it portable for full PC titles on the road. Upgradable storage and broad accessory support make it feel more like a tiny console than a phone.

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This cordless smart lamp doubles as a JBL speaker, so it handles bedtime playlists and ambient lighting from the same spot on your nightstand. It syncs light to music, supports Matter for simple control, and includes preset scenes for study sessions or wind-down time. The rechargeable battery keeps the setup cable-free for desks, dorms, and side tables.

Backup power for outages, road trips, camping, and anywhere you’d rather not be tethered to the wall.

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This multi-tool brings everyday essentials plus backcountry extras like a ferro rod and blade sharpener. It is the kind of “fix almost anything” pocket gear that earns a permanent place in a pack, glovebox, or tackle box. One-handed access and a solid pocket clip make it useful even when you are mid-task.

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You will lose your glasses less often with this rechargeable case that works with Apple Find My for pings and left-behind alerts. It folds flat in a bag, plays a loud chime when you are hunting around the house, and fits most everyday frames and many XR/AR glasses. A built-in battery powers the locator features without relying on disposable cells.

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This palm-size massager adds soothing heat to quick percussive sessions, which helps loosen stiff shoulders and calves after travel or workouts. It is quiet, easy to toss in a carry-on, and turns five minutes on the couch into real relief. Multiple attachments and speed settings let you target different muscle groups without guesswork.

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The spring-loaded arms clamp around your legs to deliver deep pressure to quads, hamstrings, and IT bands without a floor routine. Adjustable tension lets you go gentle for warm-ups or dial it in after long runs and hikes. The portable design fits in a gym bag so you can recover right after a workout.

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The post Amazon has Anker’s power banks, chargers, and portable power stations on deep discount during these last minute holiday deals appeared first on Popular Science.

Pop music has gotten sadder over the last 50 years

Andrew Paul — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:58:00 -0500

Debating the merits of today’s popular music versus the hits of the past is largely a matter of taste. But regardless of your opinion on the subject, one thing is clear: pop music is objectively darker and more stressful than ever.

- - - - See It - - +

The compelling statistics are laid out in a study by University of Vienna psychologists recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. After compiling every weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1973 and 2023, the team used standard preprocessing methods to break down the lyrics of 20,186 songs. They then fed these lyrics into a customized algorithm to assess the songs based on their positive or negative sentiments.

Open-ear bone-conduction headphones keep you aware of traffic while still delivering punchy sound for runs and rides. They are sweat-resistant, stable on sprints, and include a reflective strip for visibility during early-morning or after-work miles. The quick-charge feature adds juice for a workout when you are headed out the door.

As they predicted, the researchers identified a “substantial increase in stress-related and negative language” over the last five decades. Additionally, it appears that hit lyrics in the United States have steadily simplified over the years. According to the study’s authors, these findings correlate to rising rates of reported depression and anxiety, as well as past research into increased negativity in both news media and fiction books.

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Colorful space ‘butterfly’ glimmers with planet-making dust

However, there were some unexpected discoveries in the team’s review. First, they didn’t pinpoint any clear associations between the increasingly dark and stressed songs and shifts in median household income. Secondly, major traumatic societal events including September 11, 2001 and the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t result in even bleaker songs. On the contrary, these crises appear to have produced upticks in more positive, lyrically complex pop songs.

- - Keep your Spaghetti-Os hot all day. - -

Yeti

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“Surprisingly, societal shocks like COVID-19 coincided with attenuations rather than amplifications of these trends, indicating a preference for emotion-incongruent music,” the team wrote, although they stopped short of directly linking the two subjects.

“While the study applies a quasi-experimental, interrupted time-series approach to examine changes surrounding major societal events, the analyses remain observational in nature,” they added. “Thus, any observed differences before and after events such as 9/11 or COVID-19 represent temporal associations, not definitive causal effects.”

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Regardless of subject matter or complexity, the researchers believe that their findings highlight the importance of music in society—especially its ability to help listeners process and navigate an often difficult world.

The post Pop music has gotten sadder over the last 50 years appeared first on Popular Science.

Massive newborn star is firing two plasma jets at once

Andrew Paul — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:55:04 -0500

A newborn star 15,000 light-years from Earth is fascinating astronomers with its dual blasts of superheated plasma jets. The rare sight captured in stunning detail by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) isn’t only a display of cosmic forces. It’s helping solve a decades’ long debate about the origins of massive stellar objects.

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Located at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy inside a nebula known as Sharpless 2-284 (Sh2-284), the young protostar is already upwards of 10 times the mass of our sun. But while researchers have observed hundreds of stellar jets from other young stars, few occur in such a gargantuan example as Sh2-284.

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“We didn’t really know there was a massive star with this kind of super-jet out there before the observation. Such a spectacular outflow of molecular hydrogen from a massive star is rare in other regions of our galaxy,” explained Yu Cheng, an astronomer at Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory and co-author of a study on Sh2-284 published in The Astrophysical Journal.

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By studying the protostar and its jets, researchers can refine their models for early stellar activity. Sh2-284’s location also offers an approximation of a much younger universe. The protostar lives at the edge of our galaxy, and lacks elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The measurement of these elemental proportions in a protostar is known as metallicity. Stars with low metallicity mirror the cosmic bodies that existed during a much earlier era of the universe, including soon after the Big Bang.

“Massive stars, like the one found inside this cluster, have very important influences on the evolution of galaxies,” said Cheng. “Our discovery is shedding light on the formation mechanism of massive stars in low metallicity environments, so we can use this massive star as a laboratory to study what was going on in earlier cosmic history.”

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For over 30 years, experts have been debating the evolution of massive stars and often support one of two theories. The competitive accretion theory posits that an incredibly chaotic amassing of materials coming in from different directions creates the protostar. These influences shift a protostar’s orientation over time, with jet excretions flowing out perpendicularly above and below the swirling disk. On the other hand, the core accretion theory features a much more stable stellar evolution process.

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“What we’ve seen here, because we’ve got the whole history–a tapestry of the story–is that the opposite sides of the jets are nearly 180 degrees apart from each other,” added Jonathan Tan, an astronomer and study co-author. “That tells us that this central disk is held steady and validates a prediction of the core accretion theory.”

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Despite its measurements and powerful plasma jets, Sh2-284 is showing researchers that massive stars can be born through remarkably stable conditions. Without the JWST, the accretion debate could have easily continued for another three decades. But while the argument may be nearly settled, it still amazes its observers.

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“I was really surprised at the order, symmetry, and size of the jet when we first looked at it,” said Tan.

The post Massive newborn star is firing two plasma jets at once appeared first on Popular Science.

Bubble wrap-like material could help insulate glass windows

Andrew Paul — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:45:00 -0500

A well-placed window can brighten a room with natural light and offer scenic views of the outside world. They’re also massively inefficient. Buildings consume around 40 percent of society’s energy production, and much of that energy is wasted due to poor insulation in the winter and too much heat retention during the summer. Even the most eco-friendly windows inevitably add to this energy drain.

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Given it’s unlikely that people will accept a world of windowless homes, what’s the solution? According to one team of researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, the fix may be a new material that resembles the packing bubble wrap used in moving boxes.

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“To block heat exchange, you can put a lot of insulation in your walls, but windows need to be transparent,” study co-author and University of Colorado Boulder materials physicist Ivan Smalyukh said in a statement. “Finding insulators that are transparent is really challenging.”

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Instead of discovering the unsung benefits of an existing transparent material, Smalyukh and his colleagues describe their own invention in a study recently published in the journal Science. Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator (MOCHI) is a silicone gel that functions similarly to the protective aerogel placed inside NASA’s Mars rovers to protect their electronics. Both MOCHI and aerogels work by trap[ing air inside a microscopic web of pores, each smaller than the width of a single human hair.

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What differs between the two materials is how those air bubbles are arranged. Aerogels generally contain randomly distributed pockets that reflect light and make them opaque. However, MOCHI relies on molecules called surfactants suspended in a liquid silicone solution. Much like oil and vinegar separating, surfactants tend to group into threads, while the silicone adheres to the thread’s exteriors. From there, the team swapped out the surfactants with air, leaving behind what Smalyukh described as a “plumber’s nightmare” of microscopic pipes.

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MOCHI’s volume is 90 percent air in its final form, which is what makes it so good at reflecting heat. In a gas, heat transfers as energized molecules and atoms collide with one another. However, the air bubbles in MOCHI are so tiny that they prevent gas-transfered heat.

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“The molecules don’t have a chance to collide freely with each other and exchange energy. Instead, they bump into the walls of the pores,” said Smalyukh.

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MOCHI is so good at blocking heat that a 5 millimeter (about 0.20 inches) thick sheet is enough to shield your palm from an open flame. And unlike aerogels, MOCHI’s microscopic structures are arranged so that they only reflect an estimated 0.2 percent of incoming light. Taken altogether, MOCHI may not only block heat. It could be used in a device that traps the heat as a sustainable energy source.

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“Even when it’s a somewhat cloudy day, you could still harness a lot of energy and then use it to heat your water and your building interior,” explained Smalyukh.

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While MOCHI’s ingredients are comparatively inexpensive, the manufacturing process is still time-consuming and labor intensive. That said, Smalyukh and his team hope that further research will streamline the production steps in a way that could see the transparent material make its way into everyday architectural plans.

The post Bubble wrap-like material could help insulate glass windows appeared first on Popular Science.

Famous phallic tapestry may have entertained monks during meals

Laura Baisas — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:04:00 -0500

Whether it’s the morning paper, the games on the back of a cereal box, or just scrolling through social media, there is something nice about reading with a meal. For the monks living in St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, England, one of the most famous (and phallic) tapestries in the world may have been their equivalent to the back of the cereal box. New research recently published in the journal Historical Research claims that the 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry may have served as mealtime reading.

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What is the Bayeux Tapestry?

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At 224 feet long and roughly 770 pounds, the Bayeux Tapestry is a large piece of medieval embroidery. It depicts the events surrounding and leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when William the II of Normandy, France, invaded England. The Bayeux Tapestry culminates in William II’s victory, taking the throne from Harold II. Harold ruled for only nine months before he was killed in the battle and is considered the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

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Scholars generally agree that the Bayeux Tapestry was likely designed at St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury during the 1080s. This was during the tenure of Scolland of Canterbury, the first post-Conquest abbot at the monastery. Scolland was a Norman who had previously been a monk at the island monastery of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. It is also likely that Odo of Bayeux, the bishop of Bayeux, earl of Kent, and William the Conqueror’s half-brother, was involved in the Tapestry’s creation, but opinions differ about Odo’s role.

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+ Relevant Bayeux Tapestry Stories

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Medieval toilet helps uncover lost home of the England’s last Anglo-Saxon King

Medieval tapestry’s penis count remains a bone of contention

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Communal meals

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This new re-examination of the Bayeux Tapestry helps answer some important questions and resolve a few contradictions surrounding its design and complicated origins. The first documented written source about the whereabouts of the Tapestry is a 1476 inventory document that places it at Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy.

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“The truth is: we simply do not know where the Bayeux Tapestry was hung—or indeed if it was hung anywhere at all–prior to 1476,” Benjamin Pohl, study author and a historian at the University of Bristol, said in a statement.

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In his paper, Pohl argues that the most suitable place for displaying and engaging with the Bayeux Tapestry would have been in St. Augustine’s refectory, a room for communal meals similar to a cafeteria. During a seminar, he asked his students to think of alternative possibilities for where the famous tapestry was hung and considered a large range of rooms throughout the monastery. They debated if the Bayeux Tapestry was intended for a religious or a secular audience, if the audience viewing it needed to be literate in order to engage fully with the narrative, or what kind of story it tells (English, Norman, or both/neither).

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“There still is no way to prove conclusively the Bayeux Tapestry’s whereabouts prior to 1476, and perhaps there never will be, but the evidence presented here makes the monastic refectory of St. Augustine’s a serious contender,” said Pohl. “Just as today, in the Middle Ages mealtimes were always an important occasion for social gathering, collective reflection, hospitality and entertainment, and the celebration of communal identities. In this context, the Bayeux Tapestry would have found a perfect setting.”

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While Pohl stresses that there is “no concrete evidence of the Bayeux Tapestry’s presence at St. Augustine’s,” that could be due to the fact that the abbey’s refectory that was designed in the 1080s was not completed until the 1120s.

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“Consequently, the Tapestry might have been put in storage for more than a generation and forgotten about until it eventually found its way to Bayeux three centuries later,” he said.
In fall 2026, the Bayeux Tapestry will go on display in the British Museum, marking the first time it has returned to the United Kingdom since it was made nearly a millennium ago.

The post Famous phallic tapestry may have entertained monks during meals appeared first on Popular Science.

The best chocolate chip cookie recipe, according to science

Clarissa Brincat — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

“Cooking is art—but baking is science,” Bill Nye the Science Guy once said. While a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies doesn’t resemble anything you’d whip up in a chemistry lab (hopefully), there’s plenty of chemistry happening in your oven. Understanding those reactions can help you craft the perfect cookie.

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‘Perfect’ is a matter of taste. Some people like cookies with a soft and gooey center, while others prefer a cakey or crunchy texture. Most recipes call for flour, salt, baking soda, butter, sugar, eggs, and (of course) chocolate. But their ratios change depending on the taste and texture you’re aiming for, explains Dr. Lesa Tran, a chemistry professor at Rice University. Tran grew up in a family that owned a fortune cookie factory, and now teaches a popular class on the chemistry of cooking.

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Here’s what each ingredient does and how you can tweak their ratios to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie ever, at least according to your unique tastes.

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Understand the role of each ingredient

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Flour gives cookies their framework, explains Tran. When it mixes with water (which comes from butter and egg whites in the cookie mixture), flour proteins called glutenins and gliadins link up to form gluten, an elastic network that solidifies in the oven and “gives the cookie its height, body, and chew.” Since bread flour contains more proteins than cake flour, it leads to more gluten formation and a chewier texture. Many bakers blend the two kinds of flour to balance chewiness with softness.

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Salt doesn’t just contrast and balance the sweetness from the sugar. It also boosts chocolate’s flavor. Additionally, salt helps stabilize the protein networks built by gluten and egg proteins, says Tran.

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Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is a raising agent. When exposed to heat and acidic ingredients, like brown sugar, it releases carbon dioxide, which lifts the dough and yields a “lighter, taller, and more tender cookie,” explains Tran. Some recipes may call for baking powder instead. This has the same effect, but it comes with its own built-in acid, meaning it releases carbon dioxide as soon as it meets water.

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Butter is a mixture of milk fat, proteins, and water. As it melts, it causes the dough to spread, which affects the cookie’s final shape. The fat from butter and eggs coats flour proteins. This slows gluten’s formation and keeps cookies soft and crumbly (too much gluten makes a cookie chewy). This is why the more butter you add, the softer your cookie will be. In the oven, the proteins in butter react with sugar in a process called the Maillard reaction. This produces “the caramel colors, nutty aroma, and toasty flavors we crave in baked goods,” explains Tran. And the water in butter converts to steam, giving the cookie its volume.

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Each ingredient in your dough plays a different role in what kind of cookie you get after baking. Image: DepositPhotos

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Sugar shapes texture as much as flavor, says Tran. Because it attracts and holds water, it helps keep cookies moist and soft.

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Eggs also have multiple functions in the cookie mixture. Egg whites contribute water, which reacts with flour proteins to form gluten, leading to a taller cookie. The proteins in egg whites firm up when heated, explains Tran. This strengthens the cookie’s structure and traps air and water vapor, which also contributes to the cookie’s height. Egg yolks, on the other hand, are a source of fat, which gives cookies their “creamy flavors and textures,” says Tran. More egg whites produce taller cookies, and more egg yolks create fudgier ones.

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And then there’s the chocolate chips. Thanks to the unique crystal structure of cocoa butter—the fat in chocolate—chocolate chips maintain their shape as they melt, just enough to create gooey pockets of chocolate in the cookie, without dissolving in the dough, explains Tran.

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Try these science-based baking hacks

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Tran has a few favorite tricks for engineering the perfect cookie. First of all, butter temperature can make or break the texture. Room-temperature butter traps air when it’s creamed with sugar, giving you lighter, softer cookies. Melted butter can’t hold that air, so the dough stays denser—and so do your cookies.

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Pack hot chili or cold yogurt and trust it to hold temperature until lunch. You could also pack hot yogurt, I guess, but that would probably be pretty weird. The wide mouth makes it easy to fill and clean, and the leak-resistant design stands up to daily commutes and trail time. A durable exterior resists chips and dings so it looks good after a season of use.

She also recommends using a mix of sugars. Brown sugar brings molasses to the party, which adds deeper flavor, a darker color, and a chewier texture. White sugar yields crispier edges and more spread. Combine them, Tran says, and you get “the best of both worlds.”

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Next up: chill the dough. “Even just 30 minutes will allow the flour to hydrate more evenly and flavors to develop,” Tran says. Cold dough also spreads more slowly in the oven, giving you taller, thicker, chewier cookies.

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And when your cookies are in the oven, don’t wait for the centers to look fully done. Cookies continue to cook from the residual heat they retain after being removed from the oven. So Tran suggests pulling them out of the oven “when the centers look a little soft, to give you a crispy exterior with a gooey center.”

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Experiment like a scientist

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Tran suggests approaching cookies the way you would any experiment: change one variable at a time. Use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. Substitute brown sugar for white sugar. Add an extra egg.

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“Make some observations, taking notes on how each variable impacts the cookie’s overall taste and texture,” she says. “Continue refining the recipe in this way until you land on your version of the perfect chocolate chip cookie!”

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Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to put these tips to the test.

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The post The best chocolate chip cookie recipe, according to science appeared first on Popular Science.

2025 holiday gift guide: 40+ editor-approved presents for everyone on your list

Stan Horaczek — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 14:36:01 -0500

Aura Mason 9-inch HD Wi-Fi Digital Picture Frame

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- Nobody likes a messy nightstand. + -

Belkin

Aura Frames

@@ -4554,7 +4829,7 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It @@ -4562,28 +4837,28 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and -

This compact stand powers your phone, earbuds, and watch from a single outlet, then folds flat for a tidy bag or nightstand. Magnetic alignment keeps your phone in place, which is helpful for video calls or StandBy mode. A single cable simplifies travel and reduces charger sprawl on the desk.

Red Wing IRON RANGER Men's 6-Inch Boot in Black Harness Leather

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- - You can transport your cargo without getting it wet. - -

Chrome

@@ -4749,7 +5022,7 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It @@ -4757,29 +5030,23 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and -

This weatherproof rolltop is made for bike commutes and unpredictable forecasts. It protects a laptop, swallows gym gear, and shrugs off downpours with welded seams and a tough, minimalist shell. The structured back panel and quick-access pockets keep essentials organized.

Darn Tough Men’s ABC Cushioned Hiking Boot Socks

OKAPA 17 Oz. Water Bottle

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Darn Tough

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Merino wool regulates temperature and manages moisture, while underfoot cushion keeps feet happy on long days. The lifetime guarantee is a huge plus for people like me who abuse footwear. The durable knit resists pilling and holds its shape after repeated washes.

ororo Men’s 5-Zone Insulated Heated Bomber Vest

Saris SuperClamp G4 2-Bike Hitch Rack

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ororo

Saris

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Five heat zones warm your core without adding bulky layers, which makes dog walks and sideline time more comfortable. You can pick your heat level, pop in the battery, and slide it under a jacket when temperatures drop. The water-resistant shell and hand-warmer pockets make it practical even without the heater turned on.

Dickies Tradebuilt Shirt Jacket

Castelli PERFETTO RoS 3 JACKET

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Dickies

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This durable shacket handles cool mornings and shop chores better than a hoodie. It layers easily, resists scuffs, and gives you pockets you will actually use. The snap-front closure speeds up on-and-off when you are bouncing between tasks.

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Grillo’s x P.F. Candle Co. Pickle Candle

The post 2025 holiday gift guide: 40+ editor-approved presents for everyone on your list appeared first on Popular Science.

The latest Polaroid instant film camera is down to just $99 at Amazon making it a killer holiday gift

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:14:04 -0500

Did you know you’re not supposed to shake a Polaroid picture? There’s actually a chemical process going on inside of each Polaroid print and shaking it won’t help it turn out any better. In fact, it might ruin the emulsion required for the picture to form. You can drop this tidbit on a lucky recipient when you give them a new Polaroid camera on sale for just $99 right now at Amazon. If you want to bundle it with a few packs of film, you can save $30 and get the kit for $129. This is the same or better pricing when compared to Black Friday, so order one now and make someone’s day when it’s time to unwrap presents.

Polaroid Now 3rd Generation I-Type Instant Film Camera – Black – Camera Only $99 (was $129)

Blueair PetAir Pro

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- The lens is surprisingly sharp and accurate for an instant camera at this price. + You love your pet, but you don’t need to sneeze. -

Polaroid

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+ + It’s a gift that could literally save a life. + +

Definitely not a derringer

Leatherman

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According to firearms historian Michael Helms, law enforcement’s initial assessment is slightly off target—regardless of whether you spell “Derringer” with one “r” or two.

“‘Derringer’ properly refers to a gun made by Henry Deringer, who was a Philadelphia gunmaker that developed a reputation for his compact percussion pistols,” Helms tells Popular Science. “Deringer’s name came into widespread use when one of his pistols was used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Over time the ‘Derringer’ name became a genericized term for small percussion pistols.”

While cautioning that it’s difficult to assess a historical firearm from a single photo, Helms didn’t see any immediate evidence to suggest the weapon is a replica. Tulsa police were correct in designating it a percussion pistol. These types of guns are loaded from the muzzle with a ball and powder and primed using a percussion cap. At the same time, there is also something striking about the crime scene evidence.

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“This pistol is something a bit different and somewhat rarer; this is an ‘underhammer’ pistol,” said Helms. Conventional mid-19th century weapons usually featured hammers located on either the top or side of the gun. As the name suggests, underhammers have the hammer positioned underneath the gun barrel.

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“In this case, the hammer is attached to the forward trigger, which was used to ‘cock’ the gun. The trigger behind it would have released the hammer and fired the gun,” he added.

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Underhammer guns aren’t traceable to a single person or era, but firearm historians do credit its popularization to Nicanor Kendall. The gunmaker lived in Vermont during the 1840s and 1850s, and developed his own underhammer safety lock after his own pistol misfired while attempting to shoot a squirrel.

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Satechi FindAll Smart Glasses Case

+ + + + +

+ +

Satechi

+ + The PopSci.com editors use a Theragun every day. + +

+ + + + See It -

While he said the weapon’s overall design is “pretty generic,” Helms theorizes it could have been produced by Ethan Allen. Not to be confused with the furniture company or the leader of the Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution, this Ethan Allen was a prominent 18th century arms maker who patented numerous single- and multi-shot pistols.

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A likely suspect

However, after examining the available photo, firearms historian Ashley Hlebinsky believes that the answer is pretty clear.

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Theragun Mini Plus

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Therabody

“It looks like a Bacon & Co. Underhammer Pistol,” she tells Popular Science. Although Hlebinsky admits it’s hard to conclusively determine the maker without examining the markings in person, the gun “looks identical” to firearms produced between 1850 and 1857 by the Connecticut-based company.

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Hlebinsky’s theory is further strengthened by the fact that Thomas Bacon himself previously worked with Ethan Allen. The Bacon & Co. underhammer pistols were .34 caliber weapons featuring either a 4- or 5-inch barrel and broad, floral decorative engravings. If corroborated, then the Tulsa robbery weapon is one of only 500 ever manufactured, and has recently sold for as much as $850.

In the end, there are a few reasons why only a handful of the guns were produced, with technological innovation being the primary explanation.

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ROLL Recovery R8 Plus

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+ + That looks like it feels awesome. + +

“With the development of the metallic cartridge revolver in the late 1850s, the architecture of guns changed considerably, and by the 1860s and 1870s the underhammer design (and the percussion lock in general) was largely obsolete,” said Helms.

DNA reveals new stories about Pompeii’s victims

After Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii’s ruins housed survivors, wanderers, and treasure hunters

Pompeii’s archaeological puzzles can be solved with a little help from chemistry

- - - -

A volcanic secret ingredient

- + + + + +

+ +

+ + Nobody likes a messy nightstand. + +

Belkin

Isotopic analysis confirmed that the workers in Pompeii relied on hot-mixing when making their concrete. Samples from the site contained both the lime clasts Masic previously described in 2023, as well as the dry composite materials needed before hot-mixing.

+ + + + See It + +

“These results revealed that the Romans prepared their binding material by taking calcined limestone (quicklime), grinding them to a certain size, mixing it dry with volcanic ash, and then eventually adding water to create a cementing matrix,” Masic explained.

The team also concluded that the volcanic additives(known as pumice)weren’t only selected because of their local convenience. Chemical observations confirmed that pumice particles reacted over time with the porous solution surrounding them. The results from this reaction are new mineral deposits that reinforced the concrete even more.

+ +

Victorinox Huntsman Swiss Army Knife

+ + + + +

+ +

+ + You can blend in with the ficus at your office. + +

Although the construction materials are over 2,000 years old, they remain as important as ever. Today, engineers are frequently re-evaluating the uses of self-healing cement methods in their own projects.

+ + I carry one of these every day. + +

Victorinox

+ + + + +

+ + + + See It + +

“This is relevant because Roman cement is durable, it heals itself, and it’s a dynamic system,” said Masic. “The way these pores in volcanic ingredients can be filled through recrystallization is a dream process we want to translate into our modern materials. We want materials that regenerate themselves.”

But when it comes to Vitruvius, Masic promised that his team’s latest discoveries won’t erode the architect’s legacy. While Vitruvius may have simply misinterpreted the era’s primary concrete recipe, De architectura still describes a strategy that strongly echoes the hot-mixing method seen in the authors’ studies.

“We don’t want to completely copy Roman concrete today,” said Masic. “We just want to translate a few sentences from this book of knowledge into our modern construction practices.”

The post Pompeii’s ruins challenge Rome’s famous concrete recipe appeared first on Popular Science.

The best solar generators for 2026, tested and reviewed

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:45:05 -0500

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REI Co-op Campwell Fleece Pullover

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REI

Solar generators can make your life a little easier on a good day or save you on a bad day. These powerful power packs offer huge battery capacity that can fuel large devices and even appliances in a pinch. They’re great in an emergency, but they’re also essential tailgating and camping equipment. We chose the Bluetti Elite 200v2 as our best overall pick, but there are tons of options out there on the market to meet your needs.

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Best overall: Bluetti Elite 200v2

Still great: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus

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Patagonia Men’s Work Hoody Sweatshirt

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+ +

Best high-capacity: EcoFlow Delta 3 Ultra Plus

+ + This hoodie looks great and will last for years. + +

Patagonia

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+ + + + See It + +

Best for frequent use: Anker 767 Portable Power Station Solar Generator

Best for camping: Anker Solix C800 Plus
Best for off-grid living: Bluetti Apex 300

+ +

Epson Lifestudio Flex Full HD Portable Lifestyle Projector

+ + + + +

+ +

+ + Turn your home into a movie theater with cheaper popcorn. + +

Epson

+ + You can transport your cargo without getting it wet. + +

+ + + + See It -

Best for home backup: Jackery HomePower 3000

+ +

Best for lots of ports: DJI Power 2000

Best for extreme cold: Bluetti Pioneer Na

+ +

Chrome Urban Ex Backpack 30L

+ + + + +

+ +

Chrome

Best budget: Jackery Explorer 300

+ + + + See It + + -

How we chose the best solar generators

As an avid outdoorsman, I’ve had the opportunity to test an extremely wide range of outdoor gear, including mobile and off-grid electrification equipment like solar-powered generators, as well as inverter and dual-fuel generators. These became particularly essential when the pandemic forced my travels to become domestic rather than international, which prompted me to outfit a van for long-term road-tripping.

+ +

Darn Tough Men’s ABC Cushioned Hiking Boot Socks

+ + + + +

+ +

+ + This guy is warmer than he looks. + +

To bring my work along for the ride, I needed a constant portable power source to charge my laptop, a portable fridge, lighting, and a myriad of devices and tools … even electric bikes. As a result, I’ve tried all the leading portable power stations (and plenty that aren’t leading, too), so I know precisely what separates the best from the blah. I’ve written all about it (and other outdoor tech) for publications, including the Daily Beast, Thrillist, the Manual, Popular Science, and more. There were cases when my own opinion resulted in a tie, and I, therefore, looked to reviews from actual customers to determine which solar generators delivered the most satisfaction to the most users.

+ + You’ll probably still want to wear both boots when you go out. + +

Darn Tough

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+ + + + See It + +

When to buy a solar generator

If you’re thinking about dropping big money on a solar generator, consider shopping on big shopping holidays like Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday. These are expensive devices, and they experience their largest discounts around those times. That said, they’re rarely the full prices below, even when it’s not a retail holiday, so click through to find out.

The best solar generators: Reviews & Recommendations

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ororo Men’s 5-Zone Insulated Heated Bomber Vest

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ororo

- + What’s he looking at? Not a cooler jacket, that’s for sure. -

+ + + + See It -

The solar generators on this list span a wide range of budgets, from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. They span several use cases, from camping to a backup for your home. Only you know all the factors that make one of these the best solar generator for you, but we think that one of these will get the job done.

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Best overall: Bluetti Elite 200 v2

Dickies Tradebuilt Shirt Jacket

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Nick Hilden

Dickies

- - ON SALE NOW @@ -5561,138 +6113,119 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It +

+ + + +

Grillo’s x P.F. Candle Co. Pickle Candle

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- Pros

Exceptionally portable
High output
Plenty of ports
Sleek design
Excellent build quality
One of the most usable apps out there

- Cons

Not large enough for RV or whole home backup
A few pounds heavy for its size

- Specs

- - Storage capacity - - - 2,073Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 1,800W -
- - Output capacity - - - 2,600W (3,900W surge) -
- - Dimensions - - - 13.8 × 9.8 × 12.7 in -
- - Weight - - - 53.4 pounds -
- - Price - - - $1,699 -

- - - -

Why it made the cut: No other solar generator delivers such an excellent balance of portability, capacity, and performance.

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There are a lot of excellent solar generators on this list, many of which are competitive rivals for the top spot, but none offer such an excellent fusion of capacity, portability, and well-considered design as the Bluetti Elite 200 v2. With a capacity of 2,073 watt-hours, it hits the sweet spot that will deliver on the needs of the vast majority of users.

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+ +

+ + Cinnamon has officially been replaced as the holiday scent. + +

At the same time, with its just-over-shoebox dimensions and relatively light weight, it’s as portable as can be. This makes it the perfect pick for packing in a trunk while heading outdoors, storing in a closet for backup power, or simply having around for a convenient, mobile power source.

Grillo’s x P.F. Candle Co.

+ + Smash your burgers in style. + +

+ + + + See It + + -

It also offers surprisingly oomphy output for a power box of its size. Its 2,600W running output was already hefty enough, but surge capacity up to 3,900W means it can handle the startup draw of larger electronics and appliances. Its 1000W solar input capacity equips it for a large solar panel array, and its 1,800W wall input capacity will charge from zero to full in just over 90 minutes.

While power station apps are notoriously glitchy, the Bluetti app is user-friendly and allows for remote monitoring and adjustment. Most users will find it has plenty of ports, including four AC ports, USB-A and USB-C ports, and a 120W car port, though there is no 30A or 50A RV plug.

I’ve found that its perfectly squared off design is ideal for fitting into a tight storage space or building into a small van conversion. The LiFePO4 battery has a lifespan of over 6,000 cycles, and the whole unit feels plenty durable. Indeed, I have knocked my test unit around more than a little. It seems no worse for wear.

+ +

HexClad Griddle Tool Set (8-pc)

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Hexclad

+ + + + See It -

For most mid-sized portable power purposes, the Bluetti Elite 200 v2 does pretty much everything right.

+ +

Still great: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus

Gozney Tread Portable Pizza Oven

- +

+ + You’ll never order takeout pizza again. + +

Gozney

- - ON SALE NOW @@ -5700,130 +6233,75 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It - -

- Pros

- -

Charges quickly
Very high output that can run power-hungry devices
Built-in wheels and handle
Clear display
Four AC outlets
Expandable with extra batteries
Long life batteries

- Cons

- -

Heavy
Slightly less capacity than our previous pick

- Specs

- -

- - Storage capacity - - - 2,042.8Wh (expandable up to 24,000Wh) -
- - Output capacity - - - 6,000w -
- - Dimensions - - - 18.6 x 14.7 x 14.1 inches -
- - Weight - - - 61 pounds -
- - Price - - - $1,999 -

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Why it made the cut: It offers just about everything you’d want, with the added benefits of LiFePO4 battery power.

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As new solar generators hit the market, many come toting new lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries instead of the familiar lithium-ion batteries that came before. LiFePO4 offers a few advantages, including a much longer lifespan as you charge and discharge them. They’re also safer and often faster to charge. They do typically add some weight, however. Just about all of those modifiers apply here in the form of our former best overall, the Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus.

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The Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus can power current-hungry devices at up to 6000W, so even if you want to power a welder, you can. The battery will only last you about half an hour doing this (we tried it), but it does work, and that’s more than many other models can say. I also got to test the Explorer 2000 Plus during a real power outage. It kept our router running for several hours to maintain connectivity.

This model has 2kWh of storage built in, but you can expand that capacity with extra external daisy-chained batteries. It gives a total max storage of up to 24kWh—enough for a serious off-grid job. The optional solar panels charge the battery quickly and efficiently. Jackery claims roughly two hours of charging time via the optional solar panels, and I found it took more like 2.5 hours, but that includes battling some passing clouds. With two straight hours of direct sun, it could likely get the job done.

At 61 pounds, this is considerably heavier than the Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro, which weighs nearly 20 pounds less. But the integrated wheels, handle, and chunky grips on either side of the box make it very easy to lug around. Everyone in my family could easily set it in the back of my wife’s Honda Civic.

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Superfeet Best Sellers Bundle

+ + + + +

+ +

+ + It’s the next best thing to walking on sunshine. + +

Superfeet

- + Cooking inside is boring. -

+ + + + See It -

The switch to LiFePo4 also means that this unit will last a long time before the battery degrades beyond its usable range. The company claims it will take 4,000 cycles before the battery life degrades to 70 percent. We obviously haven’t had time to test that yet, but that is the nature of LiFePo4, so it will almost certainly last longer than a lithium-ion model at least.

+ +

Best high-capacity: EcoFlow Delta 3 Ultra Plus

Traeger Flatrock 3 Zone Griddle

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Nick Hilden

Traeger

@@ -5833,132 +6311,116 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It +

+ + + +

+ + + + +

- Pros

Native Union Pocket Cable

High capacity and expandable
High output
Super fast charging
Love the smart design features

- Cons

Heavy
Pricey, especially with expansion batteries

- Specs

- - Storage capacity - - - 3,072Wh (expandable up to 11KWh) -
- - Input capacity - - - 1,800W -
- - Output capacity - - - 3,600W (4,600W X-Boost, 7,200W surge) -
- - Dimensions - - - 24.14 x 12.9 x 15.5 in -
- - Weight - - - 74.2 pounds -
- - Price - - - $1.599 -

- - + +

+ +

+ + Put it on your keychain because you can always use a cable. + +

Why it made the cut: The EcoFlow Delta 3 Ultra Plus itself is high-capacity, high-output, and exceptionally well-designed, and can expand as much as you need it to.

Native Union

+ + The built-in display lets you track how fast your gadgets charge. + +

+ + + + See It + + -

The EcoFlow Delta 3 Ultra Plus is a solid contender for “best overall,” and the only reason it didn’t get it is because it’s more of a power station than most people need. But if you do need more power station, it delivers.

The standalone unit’s 3,072Wh capacity is plenty for powering an RV or van conversion, an off-grid worksite, or a home during a blackout. 3,600W output is more than enough to power an average assortment of devices, small, and even larger appliances, the X-Boost allows it to temporarily up its running wattage to 4,600W, and its 7,200W surge capacity means it can handle spikes in draw from an AC, appliance, or power tool switching on. Its six charging options allow you to top it off lightning quick—as fast as 89 minutes if you’re readying for a storm or trip—and Storm Guard Mode will monitor the weather and charge the unit automatically if severe weather is coming.

All that’s great, but what I really like about it is how much consideration went into various design elements. For example, whoever thought of having the rear port doors slide into protective slots is a genius. It’s a heavy unit, but the sturdy handle and telescoping wheels make it easy to move around. It’s equipped with a 30A outlet so it can plug directly into an RV, and a good number of other ports.

+ +

Anker Prime Charger (250W, 6 Ports, GaNPrime)

+ + + + +

+ +

Anker

- The Anker Power Station 767 solar generator’s high capacity and fast charging make this long-lasting battery a solid everyday driver. + Think of all the projects you could do. + +

+ + + + See It -

Excellent all around. If you need a larger, potentially expandable solar generator that offers a good dose of portability, it can’t be beat.

+ +

Best for frequent use: Anker 767 Portable Power Station Solar Generator

Dremel 8150-N/20 Brushless USB-C Rechargeable 8V Rotary Tool

- +

Dremel

- - ON SALE NOW @@ -5966,267 +6428,135 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It - -

- Pros

- -

Charges up to 80% in less than two hours
Solid output and storage capacity
Optional battery pack doubles capacity
LiFePO4 batteries survive more charge cycles than traditional models
Plenty of ports
Built-in handle and wheels for transport

- Cons

- -

Heavy for its capacity
No USB-C in for charging

- Specs

- -

- - Storage capacity - - - 2,048Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 1440W Max (1000W Max Solar) -
- - Output capacity - - - 2,400W -
- - Dimensions - - - 20.67 x 9.84 x 15.55 inches -
- - Weight - - - 67.3 pounds -
- - Price - - - $1,999 -

+ -

Why it made the cut: High capacity and fast charging make this long-lasting battery a solid everyday driver.

Anker has equipped its massive portable power station with LiFePO4 batteries, which stand up much better to repeat charging and discharging over the long term than common lithium-ion cells. Anker claims it can charge and discharge up to 3,000 times before it reaches 80% battery health compared to 500 in a similar lithium-ion setup. While I haven’t had the chance to run it through 3,000 cycles, LiFePO4 batteries have a well-earned reputation for longevity.

The post 2025 holiday gift guide: 40+ editor-approved presents for everyone on your list appeared first on Popular Science.

Young moths hiss at predators

Margherita Bassi — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0500

A caterpillar-looking bug hangs out on a stem, minding its own business. Suddenly, forceps emerge, moving towards the creature. As soon as they touch the chunky insect, it hisses and whips its body side-to-side.

Regarding overall performance, the Anker 767 does everything you’d want a unit with these specs to do. The bad weather has given me [Executive Gear Editor Stan Horaczek] ample chances, unfortunately, to test it in real-world situations.

The peeved individual is a mature larva of the buff-leaf hawkmoth (Phyllosphingia dissimilis), and its irritation is warranted, since the forceps are meant to imitate a predator. In fact, it’s desired. This scene is from a lab where researchers were investigating how the species’ larvae and pupae make their shockingly noisy defense sounds.

The built-in battery offers a 2048Wh capacity and pumps out up to 2,400W. It does so through four standard AC outlets, an RV outlet, two 120W car outlets, two 12W USB-A ports, and three 100W USB-C ports.

I used it during a blackout to keep our Wi-Fi running while charging my family’s devices. Filling a phone from zero barely makes a dent in the power station’s capacity, and it ran the router for several hours with plenty of juice left.

Scientists had previously documented some moths making noises to keep predators away during various life phases. “We became interested in this topic when we noticed that the larvae and pupae of a hawkmoth species produced surprisingly loud sounds when stimulated,” Shinji Sugiura, an ecologist at Kobe University and co-author of a study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, said in a statement. Larva is the second stage of many insects’ metamorphosis, and it takes place after the animal hatches from the egg and before it becomes a pupa.

In another instance, it powered our small meat freezer for four hours before the power came back on with some juice still left in the tank. It does what it promises.

To study this noise making, Sugiura and his colleagues conducted experiments on buff-leaf hawkmoth larvae and pupae in which they mimicked an attack, similar to a bird peck or predator bite, by touching the bugs with forceps. During the simulation, they noted the animals’ resulting noise and body movement, in addition to analyzing their internal organs’ involvement in producing sound.

There are a few nice extra touches as well. Built-in wheels and an extendable handle allow it to roll like carry-on luggage. Unfortunately, those are necessary inclusions because it weighs a hefty 67.3 pounds. It’s manageable but definitely heavy compared to its competition.

According to the study, most of their mature larvae and half of the pupae responded to physical contact by making noise and moving quickly. The team conducted some of their tests underwater, revealing that the animals’ respiratory openings were unleashing these hisses, producing bubbles.

The Anker 767 is compatible with the company’s 200W solar panels, which fold up for easy transportation. I mostly charged the unit through my home’s AC power, a surprisingly quick process. The 767 Portable Power Station can go from flat to more than 80% charge in less than half an hour with sufficient power. It takes about two hours to get it fully juiced.

A pupa releases bubbles when bothered underwater. Image: Shinji Sugiura

Anker also offers a mobile app that connects to the power station via Bluetooth if you want to control it without actually going over and touching it.

“Until now, pupal sound production was thought to occur only through physical friction between body parts or against the substrate. This is the first evidence demonstrating a sound production mechanism in pupae that is driven by forced air,” explained Sugiura.

Best for car camping: Anker Solix C800 Plus

“Larvae and pupae of this species have one pair of small openings (spiracles) on the thorax and eight pairs on the abdomen. They take in air through these spiracles,” he added to Popular Science. “In this species, larvae and pupae produce sounds by expelling air through specific spiracles like a whistle.”

- - - - - -

- -

Nick Hilden

- + Give the gift of better screens. -

Except for the noise itself doesn’t sound like a whistle. The buff-leaf hawkmoth larvae and pupae’s acoustic patterns are comparable to snakes’ warning sounds.

- - - - See It - - -

- Pros

- -

Very compact
Good capacity and output
Variable-setting camp lamp

- Cons

- -

Way too small for RV needs

- Specs

- -

- - Storage capacity - - - 768Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 1,440W -
- - Output capacity - - - 1,200W (1,600W surge) -
- - Dimensions - - - 14.61 x 8.07 x 9.96 in -
- - Weight - - - 24 lbs -
- - Price - - - $649.99 -

“Because hawkmoth larvae and pupae are likely preyed upon by birds and small mammals—animals that may themselves be attacked by snakes—we hypothesize that this hawkmoth species acoustically mimics snake warning signals to protect itself,” Sugiura said in the statement.

Why it made the cut: Thanks to its small size, decent specs, fast charging, and innovative lantern, it’s perfect for camping.

It will require further study to determine if other groups of animals have similar mechanisms and how potential predators respond to the furious noises.

The post Young moths hiss at predators appeared first on Popular Science.

Man with metal detector stumbles on perplexing Viking Age grave

Margherita Bassi — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 14:07:00 -0500

It’s been a good year for metal detectorists. From a giant Iron Age hoard to tens of thousands of ancient coins and a 19th century shipwreck, it’s a wonder everyone isn’t having a go at the treasure-hunting trade. And now there’s yet another discovery to add to the list.

Say you need a solar power generator for a few days of camping, over the course of which you’re hoping to power a few small devices, a string of lights, and maybe even a small electric cooler—the Anker Solix C800 Plus is the perfect little unit. About the size of a shoebox and just 24 pounds, it’s as portable and compact as can be. At the same time, the 768Wh capacity and 1,200W output are surprisingly good for such a small box. And with a 300W solar panel and good sunlight conditions, it can charge in about three hours.

Archaeologists in Norway have excavated a Viking Age grave of an individual bedecked in costume and jewelry, as reported by Norwegian SciTech News, an outlet that publishes research news from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Scandinavian research group SINTEF.

All good stuff, but what really sets it apart is the integrated lamp, which attaches magnetically and then hides away in the body of the unit when not in use. It has three light modes and makes for an excellent addition to any campsite.

The team began their work after metal detectorist Roy Søreng discovered an oval brooch in Trøndelag County and reached out to researchers. They have since been excavating in secret to preserve the area and its archaeological riches.

Still good for van-living: Goal Zero Yeti 1000

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Archaeologists work on the skeleton remains. Image: Raymond Sauvage, NTNU University Museum

+ + + +

“The Viking Age grave contains what we believe to be a woman, buried with a typical Viking Age costume and jewelery set from the 800s,” Raymond Sauvage, head engineer at the NTNU Museum’s Department of Archaeology and Cultural History, told the outlet. “This indicates that she was a free and probably married woman, perhaps the mistress of the farm.” Sauvage also works as the archaeological surveys’ project manager.

+ + + +

The grave includes skeletal remains, two oval brooches (including the one Søreng found) that attach to a suspender dress’s straps, and a ring buckle used to close a petticoat’s neck opening. The most notable feature, however, is two scallop shells that partly covered the deceased’s mouth. While scallop shells were a Christian symbol related to the cult of St. James during the Middle Ages, they are exceedingly rare in pre-Christian graves.

+ + + +

“This is a practice that is not previously known from pre-Christian graves in Norway. We don’t yet know what the symbolism means,” Sauvage explained. He and his team also identified bird bones, likely wing bones, along the grave. According to Norwegian SciTech News, the shells and bird bones were probably meant to communicate symbolic meaning to the people who observed the burial.

+ + + +

The excavation follows the previous discovery of a pristine skeleton, recorded this same year at the same field. According to Hanne Bryn, field supervisor also from the Department of Archaeology and Cultural History, the recently discovered individual is likely one to three generations younger.

+ + + +

“During the inspection, we quickly realized that we were facing a new skeletal grave that was in acute danger of being damaged during the next ploughing,” Bryn explained. Thankfully, landowner Arve Innstrand let the excavation continue.

+ + + +

Next comes the analysis. “We will examine the skeleton, preserve the objects and take samples for dating and DNA analysis. The goal is to learn more about the person and about possible kinship to the previous find from the same place,” Sauvage said. Researchers will also investigate body height, gender-defining traits, and potential traces of disease.

The post Man with metal detector stumbles on perplexing Viking Age grave appeared first on Popular Science.

These earbuds just won one of our top innovation awards and they’re on sale for a limited time

Tony Ware — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 13:00:00 -0500

True wireless earbuds are a great gift to give because they’re a gift that keeps on giving, through commutes, workouts, Zoom calls, quiet nights in, etc. They’re small enough to be stocking stuffers and still a big upgrade to the daily routine. And Technics’ EAH-AZ100 earbuds are one of 2025’s biggest level-ups for audiophiles who bounce between laptop, phone, tablet, etc., thanks to triple-source multipoint and Bluetooth LE via Auracast. This kind of futureproofing is just one of the reasons these earbuds won a coveted Popular Science Best of What’s New award, and why we’d recommend them at full price. But we don’t have to do that if you act fast, because they’re at least $50 off for a limited time.

Technics EAH-AZ100 Wireless Stemless Earbuds — $245 (was $299)

- +

- + + + ON SALE NOW @@ -6234,113 +6564,70 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It - -

- Pros

- -

Highly portable
Incredible durability
Rapid recharge rate
Plenty of plugs

- Cons

- -

Expensive for its size/capacity

- Specs

- -

- - Storage capacity - - - 983Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 600W -
- - Output capacity - - - 1,200W (2,400W surge) -
- - Dimensions - - - 9.86 x 15.25 x 10.23 inches -
- - Weight - - - 31.68 lbs -
- - Price - - - $1,198.95 -

+ -

Why it made the cut: Thanks to its outstanding portability, high storage capacity, and Yeti’s famous durability, the Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core is great for packing along for camping or van-living.

If you’re shopping for pocket hi-fi, you’ve found it. Technics’ 10mm Free-Edge Magnetic Fluid Drivers use trickle-down tech from the reference-class $1K EAH-TZ700 wired in-ear monitors to keep cones centered, reducing distortion so the bass hits deep without fuzz and cymbals stay crisp. Adaptive noise cancellation seals the world off so you can enjoy that seductive clarity, and Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC and Dolby Atmos (available from compatible devices/services) ensures you get the highest resolution and most immersive presentation. Add in the ability to pair with/hop between three devices and a battery that lets you listen for 10 hours, and you’ve got earbuds that sound great on paper and amazing in your ears, with different colorways at different discounts.

Yeti is long-renowned for making some of the best outdoor gear money can buy, so when the company launched its Goal Zero line of solar generators, it was no surprise that they turned out to be awesome. While the whole line is great, the 1000 Core model’s balance between capacity and portability makes it perfect for taking on the road and going camping.

More last-minute personal audio gift deals

While the 1000 Core has a third less capacity than our top pick, it charges up faster, making it a great option for rapid solar replenishment. That said, its capacity is no slouch, offering 82 phone charges, 20 for a laptop, or upwards of 15 hours for a portable fridge (depending on wattage). Suffice to say, it’s more than capable of powering your basic camping gear.

EarFun Air Pro 4 Adaptive Hybrid Noise Canceling Wireless Earbuds w/ aptX Lossless $54 (was $79)

Beyond its charging capabilities, the Goal Zero 1000 Core excels at camping thanks to its hearty build quality. Built super tough—like pretty much everything Yeti makes—its exterior shell provides solid protection.

Skullcandy Method 360 ANC Wireless Earbuds with Sound by Bose $79 (was $129)

The biggest issue it presents is the cost. Like pretty much everything Yeti produces, its price tag isn’t small. While there are other 1000-level solar generators for less, this one offers a great balance of power storage and portability.

SoundPEATS Air5 Pro+ Adaptive ANC Earbuds with 10mm Composite Diaphragm + MEMS Speaker and aptX Lossless $104 (was $129)

For more on the Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core, check out our full review.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) $249 (was $299)

Best for off-grid living: Bluetti Apex 300

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds $229 (was $299)
Bose QuietComfort Noise-Cancelling Wireless Headphones $199 (was $349)
Bose New QuietComfort Ultra ANC Bluetooth Headphones (2nd Gen) with Spatial Audio $399 (was $449)
Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 SE Bluetooth ANC Headphones w/ 100-hour Playback, aptX Lossless & EQ $249 (was $299)
Nothing Headphone (1) Hybrid Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones w/ Hi-Res KEF-Tuned Sound $239 (was $299)

The post These earbuds just won one of our top innovation awards and they’re on sale for a limited time appeared first on Popular Science.

Save up to 56% ARZOPA’s digital picture frames and portable gaming monitors in time for the holidays

Stan Horaczek — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 11:36:42 -0500

If you’re going to spend large chunks of your life staring at screens, you might as well make it enjoyable. Right now Arzopa has its touch-enabled digital picture frame and portable gaming monitor on deep discount. They make great gifts for just about anyone on your list and they’re more affordable than you might expect.

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ARZOPA D14 WiFi 14-inch touchscreen digital picture frame — $144.99 (34% off)

@@ -6352,15 +6639,15 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and

- +

Nick Hilden

Arzopa

@@ -6370,121 +6657,381 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It + + + + +

If you’re shopping for someone who never backs up photos but loves seeing them, a connected digital picture frame is one of the easiest “set it and forget it” gifts. Arzopa’s frame uses a 14-inch FHD IPS touchscreen with anti-glare treatment, so it looks more like a clean display piece than a cheap tablet propped on a shelf. The real win, though, is the remote sharing workflow: ARZOPA’s app is designed to let multiple family members send photos and videos to the frame from anywhere, so the recipient doesn’t have to be the one doing the uploading.

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You can pre-load photos and even pre-set Wi-Fi so the frame is ready to go when it comes out of the box. For storage, it supports unlimited cloud uploads, plus 32GB onboard storage for offline playback, and it can expand via a TF card up to 128GB (card not included). It also packs a handful of extras—weather, alarms, calendar—and a smart sleep mode so it’s not blasting light all night. Setup note for tech support duty. It’s built around 2.4GHz Wi-Fi (and may not play nicely with WPA3-only networks), so plan accordingly if you’re installing it for someone else.

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Extra savings: The product page lists a $20-off code: ARZOPAD14 (availability may change).

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- Pros

ARZOPA Z3FC 16.1-inch 2.5K 180Hz portable gaming monitor — $159.99 (56% off)

One of the largest expansion capacities out there
Huge input/output rates
SolarX accessory is a solar game-changer

- Cons

Very expensive
Very heavy

- Specs

- - Storage capacity - - - 5,529.6Wh (expandable up to 58KWh) -
- - Input capacity - - - 1,800W (expandable up to 30KW) -
- - Output capacity - - - 3,800W (expandable up to 11.5KW) -
- - Dimensions - - - Inverter 20.67 × 12.87 × 12.6 in / Battery 20.67 x 12.87 x 8.23 in -
- - Weight - - - Inverter 83.78lbs / Battery 65.4 lbs -
- - Price: - - - $3,499 -

+ +

+ + Make remote working a lot easier on your eyes and neck. + +

Arzopa

- + The roll-top design adds extra protection from the elements. -

+ + + + See It -

Why it made the cut: Huge expandability, excellent performance, and unsurpassed solar capability make the Bluetti Apex 300 a must for reliable off-grid power.

+ + -

Bluetti’s Apex 300 does everything you can find in the best off-grid solar generators, then takes it a step further. It has huge storage capacity that gets bigger and bigger depending on your needs (and budget—all those batteries certainly aren’t cheap). You can scale up its output wattage to handle pretty much anything you throw at it. While it’s definitely very heavy, once you’ve got it in place, it’s also very intuitive to operate.

The Z3FC is the rare portable monitor that’s clearly tuned for gaming instead of just being a second screen. You’re getting a 16.1-inch 2560×1440 panel with a 180Hz refresh rate. That makes motion look dramatically cleaner than a standard 60Hz portable display when you’re playing fast shooters, racing games, or anything with lots of camera panning. It also looks great when you’re scrolling quickly through spreadsheets.

But where the Apex 300 truly excels is in its solar input capacity. Its standard dual 1,200W solar input is already great in its own right, but when you add on the SolarX 4K, it boosts that solar input to 4,000W. When chained with multiple SolarX, Apex, and battery units, it jacks up the input as high as a whopping 30,000W. That’s serious solar capability meant for an equally serious solar array, used by serious off-grid enthusiasts.

The panel is rated at 400 nits, covers 107% sRGB, and supports HDR10. Physically, it’s built to survive in a backpack. An aluminum alloy chassis, built-in stand, and a listed 780g weight with a 9.3mm thickness. Connectivity is practical, too: two USB-C ports (with DP output and PD power support) plus a mini-HDMI 2.0 port. One more detail gamers will care about: ARZOPA notes that DisplayPort over USB-C can run up to 180Hz, while HDMI tops out at 144Hz—so if you’re chasing the full refresh rate, cable choice matters.

Best for home backup: Jackery HomePower 3000

A new pumpkin toadlet species was recently discovered in the mountains of southern Brazil. Bracycephalus lulai is just over one centimeter (only 0.39 inches) long and the size of a pencil tip. It’s a completely new species of frog, and detailed in a study published this week in the journal PLOS One.

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“This new species is unique due to a combination of many characteristics,” Marcos R. Bornschein, a study co-author biologist at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) in São Paulo, Brazil, tells Popular Science. “But it stands out because of its orange coloration and particular features of its advertisement call, including the presence of four pulses per note.”

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The newly described pumpkin toadlet Brachycephalus lulai, discovered in the mountain forests of Serra do Quiriri, southern Brazil, and named in honor of Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Photo: Luiz Fernando Ribeiro. Image: Luiz Fernando Ribeiro.

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In fact, that unique advertising call (when animals send out some kind of sound to find a mater or announce their presence) is what led Bornschein and the team to this discovery. They used several tools and techniques including CT scans and DNA analysis to be sure that this tiny orange frog was distinct from its relatives in the genus Bracycephalus. There are 22 known Bracycephalus species, and Bracycephalus lulai is most closely related to two species that live in southern Brazil’s Serra do Quiriri mountain range. Its species name lulai honors Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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These tiny amphibians boast a bright orange body with green and brown freckles. The males are 8.9 and 11.3 millimeters and females are between 11.7 and 13.4 millimeters. According to the team, they are among the smallest four-legged animals on the planet. Fortunately, these tiny frogs are well protected in their habitat, where they live among the leaf litter.

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“The new species occurs in highly preserved forests that are very difficult to access, which means it is not threatened with extinction,” says Bornschein. “It is one of the few Brachycephalus species that are not threatened, which is very reassuring for us.”

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Divergent color variation of Brachycephalus species. Image: Bornschein et al., 2025, PLOS One.

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Even with their non-threatened status, the team is still calling for immediate conservation efforts to protect this frog and its relatives. Amphibians are among the most threatened group of animals due to habitat loss and the greater effects of climate change.

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For Bornschein, the discovery highlights the incredible biodiversity of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. He discovered the first Brachycephalus species as a student in southern Brazil in 1988. Since then, 22 species in this genus have been found in the region.

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“That’s roughly one new species every year and a half,” Bornschein says. “It is a great privilege to see how much science has advanced from a modest initial discovery, but we should not assume that all discoveries have already been made. I believe that as many as eight to 10 new species of these remarkable toadlets may still be described in southern Brazil over the next 10 to 15 years.”

The post Teeny tiny orange toadlet found in Brazil appeared first on Popular Science.

Rivian announces AI chip in move towards self-driving future

Kristin Shaw — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 20:00:00 -0500

Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe hosted the EV manufacturer’s first Autonomy and AI Day this week, announcing a slew of big advancements from his no-longer-fledgling company. Appropriately, from Rivian’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, the automaker revealed a project it has been keeping under wraps: a silicon chip of its own design.

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The chip is a processor that powers the next version of Rivian’s on-board computer. Dubbed Autonomy Compute Module 3, it’s capable of 1600 sparse INT8 (8-bit integer) TOPS (trillion operations per second) and 5 billion pixels per second of processing power. Without getting too deep into the bits and bytes, these numbers are indicative of bar-setting performance.

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Rivian’s new chip will power the automaker’s next generation of vehicles. Image: Rivian

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Rivian is talking about data with numbers that boggle the mind. For scale, Rivian says this new setup will quadruple the capabilities of the Nvidia-chip-centered system it’s currently using.

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Rivian focuses on the neural engine and a new middleware stack

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Semiconductors are the brains that run just about everything digital in our lives now, from smartphones to cars. Chip manufacturing generally requires a multi-billion dollar facility with cleanrooms and an incredibly complex process that results in tiny silicon-based wafers. That’s not what Rivian is doing; the automaker sources the chip itself, but the design and housing are all done in-house by Rivian. Designing an in-house chip was just a dream a couple of years ago, but it’s a massive advantage.

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“We’re cognizant of the fact that we are a car company, not a full time chip company,” says Vidya Rajagopalan, Rivian’s senior vice president of electrical hardware. Rajagopalan worked on the Model 3 at Tesla and for several silicon and systems companies before joining Rivian in 2020, and she knows what she’s talking about. Rivian works with ARM and uses the company’s microprocessor while Rivian designed the core, which is the neural engine. That’s the most important part of the chip, Rajagopalan says, and that’s where Rivian adds the most value.

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“Building a chip is time consuming and requires a world class team,” Rajagopalan says. “But the benefits are velocity, performance, and cost. This means we’re able to get to market sooner with a cutting-edge AI product and we can optimize our silicon for our use cases with room for models of the future. We don’t carry the overhead with a design that was designated for another purpose.”

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In other words, designing the chip allows Rivian to customize the system along the way instead of receiving a universal chip and figure out how to make it fit. Customizing its use of AI is a major tenet of the company’s game plan, underpinning its software, autonomy research and mapping, and Rivian Assistant, its new voice command setup. Wake it up with “Hey Rivian” and the system can handle complicated, multi-part requests, interruptions, and a texting interface that circumvents the need for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

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Another aspect of the equation is Rivian’s new middleware stack, also developed in-house. Middleware is the glue that ties the pieces together, acting as a bridge to connect different applications, databases, and services. It maximizes flexibility and speeds up testing and development, scaling across various platforms and computing hardware.

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From its headquarters in the middle of silicon valley, Rivian is preparing for an AI- and autonomous-driving-heavy future. Image: Rivian

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Rivian forges ahead with a plan for ubiquitous artificial intelligence

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Rivian also unveiled its next-generation autonomy platform, which will be run by its new chips. The proprietary, purpose-built silicon was designed to “achieve dramatic progress in self-driving,” Scaringe says, as part of his road map to reshape the future of the industry with artificial intelligence.

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“AI is enabling us to create technology and customer experiences at a rate that is completely different from what we’ve seen in the past,” Scaringe says. “If we look three or four years into the future, the rate of change is an order of magnitude greater than all the experience from the last three or four years.”

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As the market debates a potential “AI bubble” that could crash like the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, technologists, politicians, and ecological specialists have expressed their concerns. AI, for all of its potential, also represents threats to the environment due to its vast energy requirements and job loss.

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“The integration and adoption of AI in real-world settings can be complex and create unwanted outcomes as we pave our way forward,” says Ali Shojaei, a professor at Virginia Tech. “For example, the environmental impact and energy consumption of AI cannot be overlooked. Data privacy and security are also valid concerns with the increased use of AI and automation of sensitive information.”

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Scaringe insists we’re in the middle of a technology inflection point.

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“The way that we approach AI in the physical world has shifted dramatically, and the idea of not having fully capable artificial intelligence across every domain of our lives will be almost impossible to even imagine,” the CEO predicted in a video released this week.

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Up until about five years ago, Scaringe says approach was centered on a rules-based environment with a set of perception sensors to identify and classify objects. A few years ago, it became clear that the approach needed to shift to a neural net-like understanding of how to drive.

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All this will come to fruition on the upcoming R2 model with Rivian Autonomy Processor 1 chips and a new LiDAR sensor, combined with cameras and radar technology. Waymo’s driverless rideshare vehicles, for example, use LiDAR sensors all around the vehicle, sending laser pulses in all directions to detect objects. Rivian’s main lidar sensor is built into the car above the windshield instead of the Waymo-style dome that screams “taxi.”

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Scaringe’s updated vision for self-driving Rivians kicks off in 2026, when the automaker will roll out point-to-point navigation in the R2 and via over-the-air updates for its second generation vehicles. Rivian is clearly aiming for self driving that doesn’t require the driver to keep their eyes on the road without the need to be engaged in the operation of the vehicle. And after that, the CEO says, is level 4 autonomy, which means the car could drop the kids off at swim practice for you.

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Rivian engineers admit its autonomy is a work in progress, and every R2 vehicle will be eligible to provide crowd-sourcing training for the system via AI. When asked about the multiple instances of Waymo vehicles illegally passing school buses, director of product and programs of autonomy Nick Nguyen pointed out that the driver is still responsible in level 2 autonomy situations. This is not yet at level 4.

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“We will not be able to handle every single situation the car can encounter, but if the person is looking at the road [which is required at this level], in that situation the driver should take over,” Nguyen emphasizes.

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The company will start charging for its Autonomy+ software platform next year; customers can either pay $2,500 up front or a $49.99 monthly subscription. That’s less than Tesla’s FSD system, which requires either $8,000 in a lump sum or $99 per month.

The post Rivian announces AI chip in move towards self-driving future appeared first on Popular Science.

Librarians can’t keep up with bad AI

Andrew Paul — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 15:33:00 -0500

Generative artificial intelligence continues to have a problem with hallucinations. Although many responses to user queries are largely accurate, programs like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are still prone to offering made-up information and facts. As bad as that is on its own, the issue is further complicated by a tendency for these AI programs to produce seemingly reputable, yet wholly imaginary, sources. But as annoying as that is for millions of users, it’s becoming a major issue for the people trusted to provide reliable, real information: librarians.

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“For our staff, it is much harder to prove that a unique record doesn’t exist,” Sarah Falls, a research engagement librarian at the Library of Virginia, told Scientific American.

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Falls estimated that around 15 percent of all the reference questions received by her staff are written by generative AI, some of which include imaginary citations and sources. This increased burden placed on librarians and institutions is so bad that even organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross are putting people on notice about the problem.

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“A specific risk is that generative AI tools always produce an answer, even when the historical sources are incomplete or silent,” the ICRC cautioned in a public notice earlier this month. “Because their purpose is to generate content, they cannot indicate that no information exists; instead, they will invent details that appear plausible but have no basis in the archival record.”

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Instead of asking a program like ChatGPT for a list of ICRC reports, the organization suggests you engage directly with their publicly available information catalogue and scholarly archives. The same strategy should be extended to any institution. Unfortunately, until more people understand the fallibility of generative AI, the burden will remain on human archivists.

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“We’ll likely also be letting our users know that we must limit how much time we spend verifying information,” Falls warned.

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There’s a good reason why librarians remained an integral component in societies for thousands of years. Unlike generative AI, they’re trained to think critically, search for answers, and most importantly, admit when they’re wrong.

The post Librarians can’t keep up with bad AI appeared first on Popular Science.

Tesla made a $350 pickleball paddle

Mack DeGeurin — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 14:58:43 -0500

Tesla’s next big product reveal isn’t a long-anticipated affordable passenger car or an actually usable humanoid robot. It’s a $350 pickleball paddle.

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On Friday, the company announced it has partnered with prominent paddle manufacturer Selkirk Sport on an arguably over-engineered accessory meant to “bring advanced aerodynamics and precision performance” to pickleball players with deep pockets. The result, Tesla claims, is a premium product designed to improve swing speed and durability. For context, a typical high-end pickleball paddle usually costs under $150. Even the base-model tennis racket used by Novak Djokovic retails for $299.

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But Tesla and Selkirk argue this isn’t any paddle. Designers from both firms started working together on the project in 2024. Tesla was chosen as a partner due to its experience applying aerodynamic modeling tools to its car designs. During testing, Tesla analyzed various changes in airflow that occur when players swing a paddle. That involved measuring drag coefficient (a number that quantifies the amount of aerodynamic drag an object experiences) and turbulent wake patterns (the disturbances in air generated behind an object in motion), much as they would when optimizing a vehicle’s aerodynamics.

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All of that data informed the paddle’s final design, most notably its elongated silhouette and “edgeless” perimeter. Normally, paddles have an edge guard or slightly raised rim surrounding the hitting surface.

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Selkirk also developed a new “power ring” specifically for this model, which it says helps dampen vibration and increase overall stability. Rings broadly refer to the layers of foam or other materials used in the paddle that help players generate power on shots.

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The face of the paddle is made from two-ply carbon fiber, adding control and giving it an appropriately Tesla-esque cyberpunk aesthetic. Once the mock-ups for the product were complete, engineers from both companies “conducted repeated rounds of performance testing.” In other words: lots of pickleballing ensued.

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“This project is personal to me,” Selkirk co-owner and the company’s Director of Research and Development Tom Barnes said in a statement shared with Popular Science. “What started as a fun idea between friends evolved into a full collaboration with their design and aerodynamics teams.”

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A spokesperson told Popular Science the paddles have already been produced and are ready to ship to customers.

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To design their new pickleball racket, Tesla teamed up with prominent paddle manufacturer Selkirk Sport. Image: Selkirk

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Tesla boards the pickleball bandwagon

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Pickleball, once confined to the recreation centers of senior-living facilities, surged in popularity over the past decade. A 2023 report from the Association of Pickleball Players estimated that 14 percent of Americans (roughly 36.5 million people) had played the sport at least once in the previous 12 months. That rapid rise was supercharged by major investments in professional pickleball teams from high-profile athletes like Tom Brady and LeBron James.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also apparently a fan. In 2023, he responded to a tweet saying he thought pickleball is “probably going to crush tennis. Way more convenient.”

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And while designing paddles might not seem like an obvious fit for a car company, it wouldn’t be the first time Tesla has indulged in attention grabbing side-projects. In the past few years the company released a $1,600 electric quadbike meant for children, a 560 mL “CyberStein” beer mug, and a $450 mezcal. The Boring Company, Musk’s related and beleaguered urban tunnelling project also famously released at least 20,000 handheld flamethrowers. New York lawmakers referenced that product specifically when pushing forward a bill making the use of a flamethrower for recreation activity a felony.

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The paddle’s release also comes at a time when Tesla could really use some positive press. Repeated recalls, safety concerns over its self-driving technology, and Musk’s increased political activity have turned the once highly-praised company into a pariah. A survey conducted by CNBC earlier this year found that 47 percent of U.S. adults held a negative view of the company. A separate study from S&P Global Mobility, reported by Reuters, further shows how Tesla’s brand loyalty has plummeted in recent years.

The post Tesla made a $350 pickleball paddle appeared first on Popular Science.

A ‘spectacular’ dinosaur dome heads for the Smithsonian

Andrew Paul — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:35:08 -0500

A remarkably well-preserved dinosaur fossil has arrived at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of National History. According to the institution’s announcement, the nearly complete skull of a Pachycephalosaurus is set to make its public debut on December 22 in the FossiLab–the museum’s working specimen preparation laboratory.

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“This skull is by far the most spectacular specimen of this type of dinosaur that we have at the museum,” said Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist and the museum’s Dinosauria curator. “We almost never get to see the animal’s face or the teeth or other parts of the head because they usually have broken away.”

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Pachycephalosaurus is among the most recognizable herbivorous dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period, and shared the ancient landscape with fellow titans like Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. With an extremely dense, rounded bone mound at the top of their cranium, Pachycephalosaurus lived up to its scientific name that translates to “thick-headed lizard.” But despite its behavior depicted across numerous books and movies–including appearances in the Jurassic Park franchise–paleontologists aren’t certain the dinosaur actually used this anatomical feature for headbutting rivals or threatening predators.

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The largely intact skull is a relatively recent discovery. In 2024, paleontologists unearthed the specimen in South Dakota at the Hell Creek Formation. The region is famous for a diverse fossil array spanning the 1.5 million years leading up to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event asteroid strike.

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Despite the range of species preserved in Hell Creek, Pachycephalosaurus bones compose less than one percent of all excavated fossils so far. Paleontologists theorize this may be due to the dinosaur’s size. Although adults likely grew upwards of 15 feet long, they still remained much smaller compared to bulky contemporaries like Edmontosaurus and Triceratops. However, Pachycephalosaurus may also simply have occupied a small subsection of the overall ecosystem.

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The Smithsonian’s specimen features nearly its entire skull, including 32 separate cranial bones. Of those, multiple are fused to form its namesake dome. Numerous teeth also remain in the skull, as well as replacement teeth in its jaws. Combined with its size, paleontologists think the dinosaur had yet to reach adulthood. In the near future, Carrano and his colleagues will conduct CT scans of the skull to compare it with other examples, possibly learning more about how the species developed over the course of its life.

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“We can understand the shape and size of the brain and the position of each individual bone, which is really difficult to do when the outside looks basically like a bowling ball,” he explained.

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The specimen isn’t the first Pachycephalosaurus at the National Museum of Natural History. The institute also houses the species’ holotype (name-bearing) dome fossil first scientifically described in 1931.

The post A ‘spectacular’ dinosaur dome heads for the Smithsonian appeared first on Popular Science.

REI last-minute holiday deals: Score clearance prices on backpacks, travel bags, and hiking packs

Stan Horaczek — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 12:09:48 -0500

A good backpack or bag can make a surprisingly huge difference in your quality of life. It’s true whether you’re planning some upcoming holiday travel or getting ready to do some outdoor adventuring. Right now, REI has some of our favorite backpacks, hiking packs, and travel bags for their lowest prices of the year during its last-minute holiday sale. Most of these will still arrive by the holiday if you order soon, so grab one, stuff it full of mini candy canes, and make everyone else’s gifts look downright silly.

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Note: Prices and inventory can change fast on closeouts. If a pack fits your use, snag it.

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Editor’s Picks

Osprey Transporter Roll-Top Pack — $102.73 (38% off)

- +

Nick Hilden

Osprey

@@ -6494,2488 +7041,2560 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - + See It +

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This is a single bag that can handle pretty much any situation. The roll-top design lets you expand or compress the main compartment on the fly, while the tough, weather-resistant build helps keep your everyday carry protected when conditions turn. At 38% off, it’s a rare chance to grab an Osprey workhorse for right around $100.

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- Pros

MYSTERY RANCH 2-Day EDC Pack — $139.73 (26% off)

ZeroDrain ensures it works when you need it
Excellent capacity
Very compact

- Cons

Pricey
Somewhat heavy

- Specs

- - Storage capacity - - - 3,072Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 1440W -
- - Output capacity - - - 3,600W (7,200W surge) -
- - Dimensions - - - 16.4×12.8×12 in -
- - Weight - - - 59.52lbs -
- - Price - - - $2,499 -

+ +

+ + The unique Mystery Ranch closure system makes it easy to grab any gear inside quickly. + +

Mystery Ranch

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A rugged two-day workhorse that’s built for commuting, travel, and “I might end up on a trail” weekends—without feeling flimsy when you stuff it full of tech, layers, and snacks.

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+ +

REI Co-op Trail 40 Pack – Men's — $104.29 (30% off)

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+ +

+ + Just imagine this bad boy filled to the brim with trail mix. + +

REI

+ + + + + See It + + +

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A value-oriented 40L bag that hits a sweet spot for day-long hikes, light overnights, and carry-on-friendly trips. The understated design is also great for people who don’t want an overly outdoorsy look.

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+ +

Osprey UNLTD Antigravity 64 Pack – Women's — $453.73 (35% off)

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+ +

+ + This clever carrying system makes carrying heavier gear easier on your back. + +

Osprey

+ + + + + See It + + +

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Osprey’s UNLTD line is overkill in the best way. It offers premium suspension, robust load control, and (most importantly) a supremely comfortable fit.

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Daypacks & quick hikes (15–30L)

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Great for daily carry, short hikes, and “just-in-case” packs you keep in the trunk.

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Osprey Arcane XL Daypack — $80.73 (38% off)
Osprey Arcane Large Day Bag — $67.73 (38% off)
Osprey Arcane Tote Pack — $76.73 (36% off)
Osprey Arcane Roll-Top Pack — $79.73 (28% off)
REI Co-op Flash 18 Pack — $27.89 (30% off)
REI Co-op Flash 22 Pack — $41.89 (30% off)
REI Co-op Flash 22 Print Pack — $41.89 (30% off)
Patagonia Fieldsmith Lid Pack — $89.73 (35% off)
Patagonia Fieldsmith Roll-Top Pack — $111.73 (25% off)
Osprey Sirrus 24 Pack – Women’s — $134.93 (25% off)
The North Face Explore Fusebox Pack – Large — $73.73 (26% off)
The North Face Surge Daypack – Women’s — $103.73 (25% off)
Osprey Sportlite 25 Pack — $92.93 (26% off)

Why it made the cut: Great specs and portability, plus Jackery’s ZeroDrain reliability, make the HomePower 3000 a safe bet for outages.

REI Co-op Trail 25 Pack — $69.89 (30% off)

From my experience, the most important thing you need from a solar generator for home backup is reliability. I’ve been disappointed more than once to find that my power station hasn’t held its charge while in storage. To that end, the Jackery HomePower 3000, equipped with its ZeroDrain tech, ensures that you have power when you need it. The HomePower series is a new divergence from Jackery’s already popular Explorer series, and it moves the brand forward in terms of offering not only the aforementioned ZeroDrain, but an improved size to capacity to performance ratio.

Gregory Arrio 18 Pack — $67.73 (25% off)

Slightly smaller and lighter than Jackery’s Explorer 2000 Plus, it nevertheless has 1,000Wh more capacity, and it’s significantly smaller than the 3000 Pro while delivering comparable capacity and performance. That, combined with its ZeroDrain shelf life, makes it ideal for burying in the closet or garage for a rainy day.

Gregory Nano 20 Daypack — $66.73 (26% off)

Fastest charging: EcoFlow Delta 2 Max

Gregory Nano 16 Pack — $47.73 (27% off)

- - - - - -

- -

Gregory Rhune 20 Pack – Closeout — $97.73 (25% off)

- - - ON SALE NOW - - - -

- - - - See It - - -

- Pros

- -

Very fast charging over solar or mains
Relatively compact
Not as heavy as we might have expected
Long-lasting batteries
Scalable by connecting two extra batteries
Advanced temperature management for safety

- Cons

- -

Solar panels are pricy
Still heavier than non-LiFePo4 models

- Specs

- -

- - Storage capacity: - - - 2048Wh (expandable to 6,000Wh) -
- - Output capacity: - - - 3,400W -
- - Dimensions: - - - 19.8 x 9.5 x 12.01 -
- - Weight: - - - 50.71 lbs -
- - Price: - - - $2,000 -

Gregory Retna 20 Pack — $82.73 (25% off)

Why it made the cut: Whether it’s solar or AC power, you can get 80% of a charge in an hour or less.

Exped Splash 15 Pack — $29.93 (25% off)

Plug this 2048Wh battery pack into up to 1,000 watts of solar panels, and you can get an 80 percent charge in just 43 minutes. That’s blisteringly fast compared to other models. Plug the unit into the wall and you’ll go from zero to 80 percent in just 1.1 hours, which is still fairly speedy when it comes to soaking up electricity. That extra time can make a huge difference if you only have limited opportunities to top off your solar generator. We managed to get above 80 percent in just under an hour without perfect sun conditions here in Upstate New York.

Gregory Retna 28 Pack — $83.73 (36% off)

In addition to its quick charging skills, the EcoFlow Delta 2 Max offers an impressive array of connectivity, including six AC outlets, which is more than many larger models offer. That’s good if you want to run many devices or chargers simultaneously. If you need more capacity, you can add two extra external batteries to give it a total storage of 6Wh.

Gregory Juno 30 Pack – Women’s — $119.73 (25% off)

At 51 pounds, this isn’t the lightest solar generator in its category, but like the other EcoFlow generators, it has chunky handles on top that make it easy to lug around. Everyone in my family could easily get it in and out of the back of our Honda CR-V without issue. It doesn’t have wheels, though, so you will have to actually carry it around or put it on a cart.

Everyday carry, commute & travel

Ultimately, this feels like a very high-end device. The fast charging is wonderful. The display is clear and relatively bright (though it could be brighter). And it offers a wide array of connectivity.

Laptop-friendly layouts, roll-tops, and do-it-all bags that go from office to airport to trailhead.

Best for lots of ports: DJI Power 2000

Osprey Transporter Roll-Top Pack — $102.73 (38% off)
Matador SEG28 Travel Pack — $187.49 (25% off)

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Nick Hilden

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Gregory Border 25 Travel Pack — $104.73 (25% off)

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Osprey Escapist 20 Pack — $89.73 (36% off)

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CamelBak H.A.W.G. Commute 30 Pack — $100.73 (41% off)

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Gregory Citro 24 Pack – Closeout — $112.73 (25% off)

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Gregory Citro 30 Pack — $119.73 (25% off)

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Osprey Arcane Duffel Pack — $89.73 (36% off)

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REI Co-op Flash 22 Pack — $41.89 (30% off)

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The North Face Nuptse Tote Bag — $73.73 (26% off)

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REI Co-op Flash 22 Print Pack — $41.89 (30% off)

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REI Co-op Flash 18 Pack — $27.89 (30% off)

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Hiking & overnights (31–45L)

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More structure and volume for longer day hikes, winter layers, or light overnight loads.

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Deuter Trail Pro 33 Pack — $129.73 (26% off)
Deuter Trail Pro 31 SL Pack – Women’s — $129.73 (26% off)
REI Co-op Trail 40 Pack – Women’s — $104.29 (30% off)
REI Co-op Ruckpack 40 Pack – Men’s — $111.29 (30% off)
REI Co-op Ruckpack 40 Pack – Women’s — $111.29 (30% off)

- Pros

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Plenty of ports for phones, drones, and devices
Output packs a punch
Good portability

- Cons

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Subpar battery lifespan

- Specs

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- - Storage capacity - - - 2,048Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 1,800W -
- - Output capacity - - - 3,000W -
- - Dimensions - - - 17.6 x 8.9 x 12.8 in -
- - Weight - - - 48.5lbs -
- - Price - - - $1,299 -

Mountain Hardwear PCT 50 L Pack – Women’s — $209.73 (25% off)

Why it made the cut: If you have an abundance of devices to charge, the DJI Power 2000 offers ports galore and excellent performance to boot.

Backpacking (50–59L)

If you tend to use a lot of drones, cameras, and other equipment for content creation or whatever reason, it’s not uncommon to run into issues charging everything at once. The DJI Power 2000 offers a solution in the form of four AC, four USB-A, and four USB-C ports, plus a 30A plug, all backed by 3,000W of running wattage, meaning it packs plenty of power for simultaneous charging. Its 2,048Wh capacity will charge a phone over 100 times, a laptop over 15, a drone over 20, or power a photography lighting setup for over two hours. Its compact size and relatively light weight also make it decently portable.

Weekend-to-long-weekend packs with enough room for a real sleep system and cooking kit.

Its only real drawback is the somewhat subpar battery lifespan. Its capacity drops to 80% after 4,000 charging cycles, versus the 6,000 cycles offered by most leading brands. But if your priority is plenty of simultaneous charging power, it delivers.

Osprey Ariel 55 Pack – Women’s — $193.73 (35% off)

Best for extreme cold: Bluetti Pioneer Na

Gregory Kalmia 50 Pack – Closeout – Women’s — $186.73 (36% off)

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Deuter Aircontact Core 50 + 10 Pack – Men’s — $167.93 (30% off)

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Nick Hilden

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Cold weather performance and storage
Fast charging
Good output wattage

- Cons

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Sodium chemistry means it’s slightly larger and heavier than its lithium counterparts

- Specs

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- - Storage capacity - - - 900Wh -
- - Input capacity - - - 1,900W -
- - Output capacity - - - 1,500W (2,500W surge) -
- - Dimensions - - - 13.4 x 10 x 12.5 in -
- - Weight - - - 35.3 lbs -
- - Price - - - $1,299 -

Deuter Aircontact Core 45 + 10 SL Pack – Women’s — $167.93 (30% off)

Why it made the cut: Its innovative sodium battery—the first of its kind—allows the Bluetti Pioneer Na to operate and store at lower temperatures than any other model.

Big-mileage backpacking (60–75L)

Bluetti has been making some of the best lithium-ion batteries out there, and now they’ve changed the game by releasing the first-ever sodium-ion solar power generator. Typically, power stations operate poorly in cold temperatures, and store in the cold even worse. The Pioneer Na, however, can charge as low as 5 degrees, discharge as low as -13, and store reliably as low as -20. That’s a huge improvement on lithium-ion, which can’t really be used at all below 4 degrees.

For bigger loads, longer routes, and trips where comfort under weight matters.

At the same time, the performance is good. While the 900Wh capacity isn’t massive, it’s plenty for smaller-scale uses like camping or short-term backup power during an outage. And the 1,500W output is more than enough to power a fridge, TV, and a handful of devices at once. I’m also a big fan of its zippy charging, as it will race from zero to full in as few as 45 minutes. For weathering the cold, there literally is no competition.

Gregory Deva 70 Pack – Women’s — $265.93 (30% off)

Best budget: Jackery Explorer 300

Gregory Deva 70 Pack – Closeout – Women’s — $262.73 (25% off)
Gregory Deva 60 Pack – Closeout – Women’s — $247.73 (25% off)

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Gregory Baltoro 65 Pack – Men’s — $244.93 (30% off)

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Affordable
Durable
Portable
Reasonable capacity

- Cons

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No flashlight
Slower input capacity

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- - Storage capacity: - - - 293Wh -
- - Input capacity: - - - 90W -
- - Output capacity: - - - 300W (500W surge) -
- - Dimensions: - - - 9.1 x 5.2 x 7.8 in -
- - Weight: - - - 7.1 lbs -
- - Price: - - - $250 -

Gregory Baltoro 65 Pack – Closeout – Men’s — $247.73 (25% off)

Why it made the cut: With its reasonable capacity, compact size, and solid build quality at a low price, the Jackery Explorer 300 is a great budget pick.

Gregory Baltoro 75 Pack – Closeout – Men’s — $262.73 (25% off)

Though it isn’t quite as impressive as our top picks for best overall and best high-capacity, Jackery’s smaller Explorer 300 solar generator is super compact and lightweight with a decent power capacity for its price. Less a mobile power station than an upscale power bank, the 7-pound Jackery Explorer 300 provides plenty of portable recharges for your devices when you’re camping, on a job site, driving, or just need some power and don’t have convenient access to an outlet. Its modest 293Wh capacity isn’t huge, but it’s enough to provide 31 phone charges, 15 for a camera, 6 for the average drone, 2.5 for a laptop, or a few hours of operation for a minifridge or TV. A built-in flashlight would have upped its camping game somewhat, but at $300 (and often considerably less if you catch it discounted), this highly portable little power station does a lot for a little.

ALPS Mountaineering Nomad RT 75 Pack — $209.73 (25% off)

We tested this portable power station for several months, and it came in handy numerous times, especially during the winter when power outages abound. At one point, we had it powering two phones, a MacBook, and a small light.

Mammut Ducan Spine 28–35 Pack – Women’s — $145.73 (35% off)

The built-in handle makes it very easy to lug around. It feels like carrying a lunchbox. The screen is easy to read, and the whole package seems fairly durable. Our review unit hasn’t taken any dramatic tumbles yet, but it has gotten banged around in car trunks, duffel bags, and other less-than-luxurious accommodations with no issues. If you catch one of these on sale, get it and stick it in a cabinet. You’ll be extremely glad to have it around when the need arises.

Snow & winter packs

What to consider before buying the best solar generators

Designed for cold-weather missions and gear-carry needs in the mountains.

Over the past few years, solar generators have exploded onto the market. There are now dozens of different brands that largely look more or less the same at a glance. The fact is, there are only a few standouts amidst a sea of knockoffs. Here’s what to look for to ensure you’re getting a great one:

Patagonia Snowdrifter 20L Snow Pack — $179.73 (25% off)

How much power can it store?

Waist packs & slings

A portable solar generator comes in an extremely wide range of sizes, but a generator’s size doesn’t automatically make it capable of storing a lot of power. In fact, most are disappointingly limited and unable to store much more juice than a portable charger.

Hands-free storage for essentials when you don’t want a full pack.

To properly check a generator’s storage, you must look at its capacity, measured in watt-hours (Wh). One watt-hour is the equivalent of 1 watt flowing over the course of an hour. The best solar generators offer capacities of several hundred and sometimes several thousand watt-hours. That doesn’t mean, however, that it will provide power for several hundred or several thousand hours. Any generator will ultimately last a different amount of time, depending on what’s plugged into it.

REI Co-op Trail 2 Waist Pack — $20.89 (30% off)

It’s easy to predict how long a generator will last when you use it to power one thing. For example, if you were to power a 100-watt bulb using a power station with a capacity of 500 watt-hours, it would stay lit for five continuous hours. Add a portable fridge that requires 50 watts per hour, your phone, which uses 18, a mini-fan that uses three … you get the picture. The more capacity, the better.

REI Co-op Trail 5 Waist Pack — $34.89 (30% off)

Charging capability

REI Co-op Ruckpack Waist Pack — $27.89 (30% off)

No solar generator will hold a charge forever, so you want one capable of charging as quickly and easily as possible. This is where we put the “renewable” into “renewable energy.”

REI Co-op Ruckpack Sling — $38.39 (30% off)

All of the power stations included in this roundup can be charged by connecting them to solar panels (hence the designation “solar generators”). Still, you also want to look for the ability to charge via other sources like wall outlets and your vehicle’s 12-volt plug. This ensures that you can charge up whether you’re off-grid in the sun, plugged in while preparing at home, or using your dash socket on the go.

Patagonia Fieldsmith Hip Pack — $44.73 (24% off)

You must also monitor a model’s charging input capacity, measured in watts (W). For example, a solar-powered generator with a max input of 100W can take in a continuous flow of up to 100 watts, which is about the minimum that you’ll reasonably want to look for. Most of the generators below have input capacities of at least a few hundred watts when charging via solar, so a few 50- to 200-watt solar panels will max them out.

Gregory Nano Waist Pack — $28.73 (28% off)

Output capability

KAVU Rope Sling Bag – Special Edition — $44.99 (25% off)

Solar generators need to keep the power coming in and going out. The best solar generators can simultaneously charge all your intended devices via whatever plugs are necessary.

Duffels & luggage

Any portable power station worth your money will have a high output capacity so you can charge many devices, even if they require a lot of juice. A generator’s maximum output should be much higher than its max input. While a particular model might only be capable of taking in a few hundred watts at any given moment, it will usually put out exponentially more. At a minimum, you’ll want a generator that can put out 300 watts at a time, though you’ll want at least 500 for larger tasks.

Gym-to-weekend duffels and rolling luggage for travel-heavy weeks.

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The best solar generators should also offer a variety of output plugs, including AC outlets, USB-A, USB-C, and even 12-volt DC outlets like the one in your vehicle dash. This ensures you can charge several devices simultaneously regardless of their plug. The number of ports you’ll need will vary depending on how many devices you need to power, but it should have at least a couple of AC outlets and a few USB-A ports.

Osprey Ozone 4-Wheel Luggage – 85 L/27″ — $258.73 (35% off)

Portability

NEMO Double Haul 100 L Convertible Duffel and Tote — $164.73 (25% off)
NEMO Double Haul 70 L Convertible Duffel and Tote — $149.73 (25% off)
Mountain Hardwear Camp Tough Duffel 50 L — $119.73 (25% off)
Herschel Supply Co. Novel Duffel Tech — $111.73 (30% off)
The North Face Nuptse Tote Bag — $73.73 (26% off)
Gregory Juno 24 Pack – Women’s — $112.73 (25% off)

While portable battery sources have been around for a while now, over the past several decades, they’ve been pretty heavy, unwieldy things. One of the most exciting aspects of the latest generation of solar generators is that they’ve become much more physically compact.

Waterproof add-ons & dry bags

Suppose you plan on taking a generator camping or working it into a van conversion where every square inch matters; well, size and weight become major considerations. All of the products we’ve recommended are about the size of one or two shoeboxes—three at the most. The lightest is about the weight of a 24-pack of soda, while the heaviest is 100 pounds. Most fall somewhere between 30-60 pounds.

Small upgrades that keep gear dry when the weather turns.

If you’re using your generator as a more or less stationary source of backup power at home, portability isn’t a huge issue. Still, we generally recommend keeping weight and size in mind; You never know when you’ll need it for something other than a backup. (Plus, who wants to lug around something heavy and awkward if they don’t have to?)

ALPS Mountaineering Torrent Dry Bag Multi-Pack — $24.73 (38% off)

The post REI last-minute holiday deals: Score clearance prices on backpacks, travel bags, and hiking packs appeared first on Popular Science.

This 3D-printed cello puts a carbon fiber spin on a classic

Andrew Paul — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 11:45:00 -0500

3D printing is long past the days of simple plastic models. Today, the technology is used to manufacture everything from entire homes and rocket parts, to microscopes and even food. After more than six years of experimentation and refining, a former Yale University student recently showcased yet another application: concert-worthy cellos and other stringed orchestral instruments 3D-printed using carbon fiber.

Another consideration regarding portability involves the necessity for accessories, which can impact how easy it is to move and use your generator. Some generators, for example, require a lot of removable battery packs, which can be a hassle when you’re on the go or packing a vehicle. All of the inclusions on our list require some accessories—you can’t get solar power without connecting cables and solar panels—but they work well with minimal add-ons.

The cello, which dates back to the 16th century, is an engineering marvel. Its instantly recognizable, sonorous melodies are only possible through a complex interplay of wood types, geometry, acoustics, and the player’s own physicality. Even its exterior varnish is more than an aesthetic choice—the thin layer is used to both dampen the instrument’s sound without sacrificing its overall tone.

Durability

These factors also make cellos a serious financial investment. A decent, entry-level instrument can easily cost over $600, while concert-grade examples routinely set musicians back at least $15,000. Then there’s the upkeep and maintenance to consider. Without regular care, no amount of money can salvage a cracked frame or warped neck. Taken altogether, the logistical and financial barriers exclude many would-be musicians from ever taking up the art form.

As with any product you expect to last, durability and all-around quality craftsmanship are essential. This is especially true if you plan on lugging your generator around on camping and road trips. Many subpar power stations are made from cheap components and flimsy plastic that doesn’t feel like it will hold up under the rigors of the road.

Durability isn’t something you can determine by reading a spec sheet off the internet. You’ve actually got to take the generator out, use it a bunch, and see how it holds up. I’ve verified the durability of these recommendations via a combination of my own actual field tests and reviews culled from countless real product owners.

Elijah Lee, a cello player and Yale University biomedical engineering graduate, Forte3D wants to offer a novel solution. His new company is dedicated to crafting tailored, customizable, and durable stringed instruments from 3D-printed carbon fiber and polymer.

Related: Best electric generators

Lee first began tinkering with merging engineering and music while in high school. After learning of his fondness for 3D printing projects, his high school orchestra director suggested he try designing a cello using the same strategies.

FAQs

Q: What size solar generator should I get?

It’s easy to underestimate how much capacity you need. A 1,000 watt-hours might sound like a lot, but if you’re going to power a converted van with a portable fridge, lights, and occasional phone and laptop top-off, that 1,000 watt-hours will go faster than you expect. I used a setup like this and know from personal experience that you should always overestimate how much power you’ll need.

A generator with a capacity under 1,000Wh can keep electronics charged. A larger one with 1000-1500Wh should be the minimum for road trips where you’ll need it to last multiple days between full charges. For a house or worksite where you expect to use some serious energy—like a full-sized refrigerator or power tools—you’re going to want to start looking at the biggest possible power stations that can be daisy-chained to external batteries.

If you want to get precise, there is an equation:

1. Estimate how many hours you’ll need to power various devices. For example, if you want to power two light bulbs for 2 hours: you need 4 hours of operation.

2. Add up the total wattage necessary: the two bulbs are 60 watts each, so you need 120 watts.

3. Multiply these together to find the total watt-hours needed: 4 x 120 = 480. So, in this case, you’d need at least a 500Wh solar generator.

That might sound like a lot for two lightbulbs, but remember that, in most situations, you won’t really be powering 60-watt light bulbs for hours on end. You’ll be charging phones and laptops for an hour here or there, cooling a fridge that kicks on and off every once in a while, using power tools in short bursts, and whatnot.

Q: How many years will a solar generator last?

Most modern generators are rated to last upwards of 25 years. The best-designed power stations are pretty sturdy, with few to no moving parts, so they should likely keep kicking for a long time, provided that you care for them properly. I’ve been pretty rough with a few of mine, and they show no signs of stopping.

Q: Can I run my house on solar power only?

Yes and no. While it’s absolutely possible to power your house with solar power, you’re unlikely to do so with a portable solar generator unless you use several at once while limiting your power usage. The largest of our recommendations—the EcoFlow Delta Pro—will come fairly close when bolstered with extra batteries. If the power goes out, you’ll be able to keep your fridge cold and use basic electronics for a couple of days without recharging. With quality solar panels, good sunlight, and smart energy usage, your power should theoretically go uninterrupted.

“It was gradual, but when we assembled the first fully realized cello, I thought, ‘Okay, wow, we really have something here.’ That moment made it all worth it,” Lee said in a university profile.

Final thoughts on the best solar generators

Forte3D’s cello isn’t simply a clone of the classic instrument. Instead, Lee and his colleagues redesigned the overall form and shape to take advantage of their materials’ unique properties. While a wooden cello body usually features a rounded top and back, Forte3D’s iteration relies on flat, concave carbon fiber panels with a neck and ribs constructed from 3D-printed polymer. At the same time, vital components like the bridge, sound post, and fingerboard all remain crafted from wood to ensure a familiar tone and acoustic presence. Thanks to the flexibility of rendering with CAD files, each individual instrument can be further customized based on thickness, shape, and material.

Best overall: Bluetti Elite 200v2

“Because we’re using our own designs…we can really dial in the acoustics,” explained Lee.

Still great: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus

Best high-capacity: EcoFlow Delta 3 Ultra Plus

Best for frequent use: Anker 767 Portable Power Station Solar Generator

After a successful sales pitch on the show Shark Tank, Lee is now moving forward with scaling the company to reach a wider audience while also introducing a wider array of instruments. Forte3D already offers a 3D-printed violin, and there are plans to add the viola and double bass to their lineup. Ultimately, Lee wants to expand the instruments’ accessibility and durability.

Best for camping: Anker Solix C800 Plus

“Music shouldn’t be confined by price or fragile wood,” he said. “A student in a rural school, a touring professional, or a budding musician anywhere in the world could hold one [of these cellos] and feel the same richness, the same resonance, the same possibility.”

Best for off-grid living: Bluetti Apex 300

At the moment, Forte3D’s prices certainly aren’t the cheapest. Their 3D-printed cello alone costs nearly $3,000 while the violin is priced at almost $1,500. That’s better than many classic options, however. With increased institutional support, it’s easy also to envision the instruments one day making their way into schools and community music programs. Until then, the combination of arts and engineering alone is worth a standing ovation.

Best for home backup: Jackery HomePower 3000

The post This 3D-printed cello puts a carbon fiber spin on a classic appeared first on Popular Science.

Pills, powders, and opioids stress out oyster babies

Nick Hilden — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

Oyster larvae that grow in water with traces of common drugs such as cocaine, ketamine, and fentanyl are slower swimmers that appear more stressed. This new research indicates that the common drugs do have an effect on oyster larvae that are found in contaminated water. The results were presented this week at the Society for Risk Analysis’ annual conference and published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Best for lots of ports: DJI Power 2000

Best for extreme cold: Bluetti Pioneer Na

Best budget: Jackery Explorer 300

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We’re living in a “golden age” for portable solar generators. When I was a kid, and my family was playing around with solar gear while camping in the ‘90s, the technology couldn’t charge many devices, so it wasn’t all that practical.

By contrast, the solar generators we’ve recommended here are incredibly useful. I’ve relied on them to power my work and day-to-day needs while road-tripping nationwide. They’re also great when the power goes out. When a windstorm cut the power at my house for a couple of days, I was still working, watching my stories, and keeping the lights on.

We haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of the potential offered by portable, reliable, renewable, relatively affordable power. What we can do now is already incredible. The potential for what may come next, though, is truly mind-blowing.

The post The best solar generators for 2026, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

Elizabethan era gold coin sold for record-breaking price

Laura Baisas — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:27:01 -0500

A coin minted during the reign of one of Great Britain’s most famous monarchs recently fetched a record price at auction. The officially designated Elizabeth I (1558-1603) gold “Ship” Ryal of 15 Shillings ND (1584-1586) MS63 NGC sold for $372,000 by Heritage Auction in November. The sale set a world record for an Elizabeth Ship Ryal sold at auction.

The post Pills, powders, and opioids stress out oyster babies appeared first on Popular Science.

A professor kept a pet worm for 20 years. It just set a record.

Laura Baisas — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 10:11:59 -0500

Jonathan Allen, a biology professor at William & Mary in Virginia, has a very strange pet: a very very long ribbon worm (phylum nemertea) named Baseodiscus the Eldest, or just B for short. Ribbon worms, also called nemerteans, are one of the longest animals on Earth, but Allen isn’t horrified by his pal. B has been living its best life in its tank, following Allen from job to job for two decades.

A ryal was a gold coin typically from Scotland, but is not currently minted in the United Kingdom. One ryal was generally equivalent to 60 shillings and a former silver coin equal to 30 shillings. One of the most well-known ryals in coin history is the Rose Ryal. It was struck originally during the reign of King James I of England (1603–1625), the Stuart monarch who followed Elizabeth I’s reign. The Tower Mint describes the Rose Ryal as “a bold proclamation of power, prestige, and divine right.” Today, a rial is the standard unit of money used in Iran, Oman, and Yemen.

“They are gorgeous animals,” Allen tells Popular Science. “And [thy] are ecologically very important predators in nearly all marine systems.”

CREDIT: Heritage Auctions.

Willian & Mary students get an up-close look at Baseodiscus the Eldest during a biology laboratory. Image: Stephen Salpukas

Only a few of these English Ship ryals were minted between 1584 and 1586 and were typically low grade. Scholars believe that it was made in response to the gold that was captured from the Spanish galleons during English privateer (or a pirate, depending on who you ask) Sir Francis Drake’s days. The designs and symbols on the coin include a likeness of Elizabeth I on a ship, wearing a ruff and gown and holding a scepter and orb. This image of the monarch is believed to represent England’s dominance of the seas at the beginning of American colonization and the eventual defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

If you thought we were going to say that B is the longest ribbon worm, it’s hard to beat the 180-foot specimen found in Scotland in 1864. By comparison, B is only three feet long.

The coin’s reverse depicts a cross with floral designs at the center, with a rose on a radiant sun, and crowned lions. The Latin text encircling the center images reads, “IHS AVT TRANSIENS PER MEDIV ILLORVM IBAT.” According to the Royal Mint Museum, this inscription was printed on many Tudor half-sovereigns and is a biblical reference to Luke 4:30. It translates to “But Jesus, passing through the midst of them, went His way.”

CREDIT: Heritage Auctions.

“This is an incredible coin from an incredible collection, and it’s only appropriate that it produced a record result,” Heritage’s Managing Director of World & Ancient Coins Kyle Johnson said in a press release. “It is one of the most coveted and eagerly pursued pieces among British numismatics collectors and among the last coins struck in this medieval design style. These types are incredibly rare, one of the greatest numismatic rarities of the Elizabethan era.”

The post Elizabethan era gold coin sold for record-breaking price appeared first on Popular Science.

Supermassive black hole belches 30,000-miles-per-second winds

Margherita Bassi — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:00:00 -0500

A never-before-seen blast from a supermassive black hole was spotted by two sophisticated X-ray space telescopes. This giant black hole about 130 million light-years away from Earth whipped up powerful winds, flinging material out into space at 37,282 miles per second.

Willian & Mary students get an up-close look at Baseodiscus the Eldest during a biology laboratory. Image: Stephen Salpukas

This particular supermassive black hole is lurking within the spiral galaxy NGC 3783. Initially, astronomers spotted a bright X-ray flare erupt from the black hole before the flare quickly faded away. The fast winds emerged as it faded, raging about one-fifth of the speed of light.

“We’ve not watched a black hole create winds this speedily before,” lead researcher Liyi Gu at Space Research Organisation Netherlands (SRON) said in a statement. “For the first time, we’ve seen how a rapid burst of X-ray light from a black hole immediately triggers ultra-fast winds, with these winds forming in just a single day.”

This unique black hole wind is detailed in a study published today in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The post A professor kept a pet worm for 20 years. It just set a record. appeared first on Popular Science.

Why some animals eat their babies

Laura Baisas — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

To observe NGC 3783 and its black hole, Gu and the team simultaneously used the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). XRISM is a mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA participation.

This black hole is about as large as 30 million of our suns. As it is gorging on nearby material, the black hole powers a very bright and active region at the heart of NGC 3783. This region, called an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), shoots out all types of light, and hurls powerful jets and winds out into space.

“AGNs are really fascinating and intense regions, and key targets for both XMM-Newton and XRISM,” added Matteo Guainazzi, ESA XRISM Project Scientist and co-author of the discovery. “The winds around this black hole seem to have been created as the AGN’s tangled magnetic field suddenly ‘untwisted’—similar to the flares that erupt from the Sun, but on a scale almost too big to imagine.”

Different animals have different reproductive strategies

For space weather enthusiasts, the winds coming from the black hole may resemble large solar eruptions of material called coronal mass ejections. These form as the sun shoots out streams of superheated material out into the cosmos. In this way, the study shows that supermassive black holes will sometimes act like our sun, making these mysterious objects seem a little more familiar. A coronal mass ejection following an intense flare on November 11 had initial winds associated with that event clocked in at 950 miles per second.

“Windy AGNs also play a big role in how their host galaxies evolve over time, and how they form new stars,” added Camille Diez, a team member and ESA Research Fellow. “Because they’re so influential, knowing more about the magnetism of AGNs, and how they whip up winds such as these, is key to understanding the history of galaxies throughout the Universe.”

The XMM-Newton space telescope first launched in 1999 and has been exploring the hot and extreme universe ever since. XRISM launched in September 2023, with the goal of learning more about how matter and energy move through the cosmos. Both of these X-ray space telescopes worked together on this unique black hole event. XMM-Newton tracked the initial flare’s evolution using its Optical Monitor, and assessed the extent of the winds with the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC). XRISM spotted the flare and winds using its Resolve instrument, also observing the winds’ speed, structure, and determining how they were launched into space.

Partial brood cannibalism means sacrificing a few to benefit many

“Their discovery stems from successful collaboration, something that’s a core part of all ESA missions,” concluded ESA XMM-Newton Project Scientist Erik Kuulkers. “By zeroing in on an active supermassive black hole, the two telescopes have found something we’ve not seen before: rapid, ultra-fast, flare-triggered winds reminiscent of those that form at the sun. Excitingly, this suggests that solar and high-energy physics may work in surprisingly familiar ways throughout the Universe.”

The post Supermassive black hole belches 30,000-miles-per-second winds appeared first on Popular Science.

Amazon dropped Ororo’s heated jackets, vests, and gloves to prices lower than Black Friday

Andrew Coletti — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 18:53:19 -0500

If you’re staring down a few more months of cold commutes, dog walks, or pretending to have fun at an outdoor holiday market that charged you $18 for a hot chocolate , heated layers can make winter feel a lot more survivable. ORORO’s battery-powered vests, jackets, and accessories hide built-in heating elements to warm your core (and even your hands and legs) at the press of a button, and a bunch of their most popular pieces are on sale at Amazon right now.

Whether you want a low-profile heated vest to slip under a coat or a fully insulated jacket with multiple heat zones and dual controls, these discounts cover just about every style. Grab this heated gear now before the temperatures drop even more.

Editor’s picks

Don’t worry mother pigs don’t eat their young…usually. Image: DepositPhotos

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ORORO Men’s 5-Zone Dual Control Heated Jacket $189.99 (was $249.99)

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Five separate heat zones plus dual controls make this jacket a customizable furnace for your upper body. It’s built to handle everyday wear, from shoveling the driveway to winter hikes, and the heated panels help keep your chest, back, and core warm so the rest of you doesn’t feel the chill as much.

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ORORO Women’s Dual Control Heated Jacket $189.99 (was $279.99)

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Total brood cannibalism means starting over

Ororo

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This is the splurge-worthy pick if you want serious warmth and control. The dual-control design lets you fine-tune different heating zones so you’re not roasting when you’re moving around but can crank things up when you’re standing still. It’s a great option for commuters, outdoor workers, or anyone who spends long stretches outside in truly cold conditions.

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ORORO Heated Gloves $89.99 (was $119.99)

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If your fingers are always the first to go numb, these heated gloves are a big upgrade over standard winter gloves. Built-in heating elements help keep your hands warm on dog walks, ski days, or icy morning commutes, and the adjustable heat levels let you bump things up when the wind really kicks in.

Bose identifies how parent-offspring cannibalism might evolve, and how it might develop during the lifetime of an individual animal, as some of the areas that have been understudied.

Best ORORO heated vests

ORORO Women’s Lightweight Heated Vest $129.99 (was $169.99)

The post Why some animals eat their babies appeared first on Popular Science.

Mosasaurs may have terrorized rivers as well as oceans

Andrew Paul — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 20:00:00 -0500

ORORO Men’s Lightweight Heated Vest $129.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO [Upgraded] Women’s Heated Fleece Vest $109.99 (was $149.99)

ORORO [Upgraded] Men’s 4-Zone Heated Fleece Vest $109.99 (was $149.99)

A close-up of the Brachychampsa teeth sampled in this study. Credit: Melanie During

ORORO Quilted Heated Vest for Women $119.99 (was $149.99)

ORORO Men’s Heated Quilted Vest $119.99 (was $149.99)

ORORO Women’s Heated Down Vest (Detachable Hood) $159.99 (was $219.99)

The post Mosasaurs may have terrorized rivers as well as oceans appeared first on Popular Science.

If offered, rats will use cannabis to deal with stress

Andrew Paul — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 14:50:00 -0500

ORORO Men’s Heated Down Vest $149.99 (was $199.99)

ORORO Men’s Heated Softshell Vest $115.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO 5-Zone Lightweight Heated Vest for Men $123.49 (was $159.99)

ORORO Men’s Dual Control Heated Vest $169.99 (was $189.99)

ORORO Women’s Ultra Lightweight Heated Vest Liner $104.99 (was $149.99)

ORORO Men’s Lightweight Quilted Heated Vest $113.99 (was $149.99)

The post If offered, rats will use cannabis to deal with stress appeared first on Popular Science.

Wireless power grids head to the moon

Mack DeGeurin — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:08:00 -0500

A future lunar lander bound for the dark side of the moon will carry along a piece of equipment that could make these missions a little bit brighter.

ORORO Women’s Lightweight Quilted Heated Vest $129.99 (was $149.99)

ORORO Women’s Lightweight Heated Sweater Fleece Vest $125.99 (was $139.99)

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Best ORORO heated jackets and hoodies

Rendering of Volta’s LightPort payload integrated on the top deck of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander. Image: Firefly Aerospace.

ORORO Women’s 4-Zone Heated Jacket $149.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO Women’s Dual Control Heated Jacket $189.99 (was $279.99)

ORORO Women’s Heated Puffer Jacket $119.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO Men’s 5-Zone Dual Control Heated Jacket $189.99 (was $249.99)

Bringing power to the moon

ORORO Men’s Dual Control Heated Jacket $189.99 (was $249.99)

ORORO Women’s Heated Quilted Jacket $129.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO Men’s 5 Heat Zones Softshell Heated Jacket $139.99 (was $189.99)

ORORO Men’s Lightweight Quilted Heated Jacket $119.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO Women’s Lightweight Quilted Heated Jacket $119.99 (was $169.99)

ORORO [Upgraded] 4-Zone Heated Hoodie $129.99 (was $159.99)

Best ORORO heated pants and accessories

ORORO Men’s Casual Heated Pants $129.99 (was $149.99)

In other words, Earth’s nearest alien neighbor is about to get a lot more crowded. And, possibly, a little shinier.

The post Wireless power grids head to the moon appeared first on Popular Science.

Roman generals gifted kittens and piglets to their pet monkeys

Stan Horaczek — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:55:00 -0500

ORORO Heated Gloves $89.99 (was $119.99)

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Selected monkey burials from the Berenike pet cemetery. Credit: P. Osypiński, M. Osypińska / Journal of Roman Archaeology

ORORO Heated Scarf $59.99 (was $69.99)

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The post Amazon dropped Ororo’s heated jackets, vests, and gloves to prices lower than Black Friday appeared first on Popular Science.

Air New Zealand tests a new generation of electric planes

Andrew Paul — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:56:00 -0500

Air New Zealand has cleared its runways to test both all-electric and hydrogen-powered planes. Although in its early stages, the four-month “intensive proving program” may help one day usher in a new era of sustainable flight.

“The Berenike burials of monkeys of this species are the first unequivocal indication of organized importation of non-human primates from beyond the ocean,” the study’s authors explained.

Aircraft remain some of the biggest sources of vehicle-based pollution in the world. These types of pollution include greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide, as well as other toxic byproducts such as sulfur oxides and contrails. Given the ubiquity of both commercial and private air travel today, it’s vital that companies engineer better plane technology for a more sustainable future. Unfortunately, possible alternatives such as rechargeable, emissionless battery-electric arrays and hydrogen fueling still need improvement before they become economically viable.

However, these advancements are on the horizon with projects like Air New Zealand trials. In November, the nation’s flag carrier airliner started overseeing small cargo flights using an ALIA CX300. Engineered by the United States-based company BETA Technologies, the CX300 is an electric conventional takeoff and landing vehicle designed to be compatible with existing airport infrastructures.

The post Roman generals gifted kittens and piglets to their pet monkeys appeared first on Popular Science.

Asexual parasitic plants break biology’s rules

Andrew Paul — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:03:00 -0500

A two-pilot ALIA CX300 uses 65 kW chargers that enable it to recharge in around 90 minutes, allowing for daily operations on multiple routes. While it’s much smaller than today’s cargo planes, it can still carry around 200 cubic feet of cargo on nearly 250-mile-long trips. That might not seem like too far, but that’s plenty of distance for much of New Zealand air travel.

“Sixty percent of regional flights in New Zealand are less than 350 kilometers [217 miles], and around 85 percent of our electricity is renewable,” Air New Zealand CEO Nikhil Ravishankar said in a statement. Ravishankar believes this makes the country a “perfect laboratory for next-generation aircraft.”

A macro photograph of a cluster of mushroom-like plants on the forest floor against a mossy backdrop. These are Balanophora fungosa ssp. fungosa from southern Okinawa Island. Image: Filip Husnik.

Aside from the all-electric test program, a consortium of engineering and aircraft companies are developing and testing a new kind of hydrogen fuel tank. Once considered cost prohibitive, hydrogen fuel planes are showing increasing promise as another possible replacement for at least some fossil fuel aircraft. These will be trialed at Christchurch Airport on New Zealand’s South Island.

“By bringing all the elements together for the first time on site at an international airport–producing, storing and dispensing liquid hydrogen into composite aviation tanks as fuel–we’re proving that liquid hydrogen technologies for aircraft are now available and that hydrogen-electric flight will soon be a reality,” said Christopher Boyle, managing director for the engineering group Fabrum.

The post Air New Zealand tests a new generation of electric planes appeared first on Popular Science.

40,000 Roman-era coins discovered in French village

Laura Baisas — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 13:45:30 -0500

Archeologists recently discovered over 40,000 Roman-era coins during a dig in a French village. The treasure trove of ancient coins were found in three ceramic storage vessels that had been buried between 1,700 and 1,800 years ago.

The team from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) was digging in the village of Senon in northeastern France, roughly 60 miles from the Luxembourg border. Senon was one of the main cities of the Mediomatrici tribe. This Celtic tribe lived in and around northern France during the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar conquered parts of present-day France, Belgium, and Switzerland between 57 and 50 BCE.

The coins were buried in three large ceramic coin jugs called amphorae. INRAP believes that the thousands of coins uncovered in France date from the last quarter of the 3rd century to the first decade of the 4th century CE, but the exact dates are still unknown.

INRAP numismatist Vincent Geneviève told Live Science that the first hoard held an estimated 83 pounds of coin, or about 23,000 to 24,000 coins. The second jug and its contents weighed in at about 110 pounds (potentially 18,000 to 19,000 coins) and the third jug contained only three coins.

One of the coin deposits currently being excavated. Image: © Lino Mocci/INRAP.

“Contrary to what one might initially think, it is not certain that these were ‘treasures’ hidden away during a period of insecurity,” INRAP wrote in a translated statement.

Eventually, asexual reproduction might have become permanent in some Balanophora species.

Instead, these jugs might be a snapshot of “complex monetary management,” a financial system that was potentially planned for medium to long-term savings or for within a household so that deposits and withdrawals could be made at various times.

“In two cases, the presence of a few coins found stuck to the outer face of the vessel clearly indicates that they were placed there after the vessel had been buried, before the pit was filled with sediment,” INRAP wrote.

“For someone who has spent many hours observing these plants in dark, humid forests, seeing their story unfold at the genomic level is deeply satisfying,” Suetsugu concluded.

The post Asexual parasitic plants break biology’s rules appeared first on Popular Science.

Biscotti once fed Roman navies and Christopher Columbus’s expeditions

Laura Baisas — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

Two of the deposits were found in what would have been a living room, and indicate that they would have been easily accessible to their owner.

Around the beginning of the fourth century, a large fire destroyed the original settlement. The area was re-established before a second fire. Despite both fires, the older age of the coins INRAP offers evidence that a clustered settlement already existed before the Roman conquest of the area.

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“All hypotheses will be examined, but it is possible that there is a link between these three subcontemporary coin hoards—all buried, according to our current information, between 280 and 310 AD [CE]—and the known military occupation at Senon, attested by a fortification dating from the same period and located only 150 meters [492 feet] from the excavated area,” said INRAP.

The post 40,000 Roman-era coins discovered in French village appeared first on Popular Science.

Underwater robot survives voyage to ‘never-accessed region of the planet’

Andrew Paul — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:42:39 -0500

Thanks to an underwater survey robot, oceanographers are getting the first-ever readings collected from underneath East Antarctic’s vast ice shelves. But for a moment, it wasn’t clear when(or if) the bright yellow float would return to the ocean’s surface after it dove underneath the ice.

“We got lucky,” Steve Rintoul, an oceanographer with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), said in a statement.

Part of the ongoing Argo survey project, the autonomous device has spent over two-and-a-half years drifting through roughly 186 miles of frigid ocean currents. In that time, the device has amassed almost 200 reports containing data on water temperature, pressure, and salinity, as well as oxygen, pH, and nitrate levels. However, the float at one point journeyed underneath the Denman and Shackleton Ice Shelves, where it spent the next eight months collecting readings from a never-accessed region of the planet.

“These unprecedented observations provide new insights into the vulnerability of the ice shelves,” Rintoul added.

A Roman mosaic from Pompeii shows a baker selling his wares. Image: Frédéric Soltan / Contributor / Getty Images FRÉDÉRIC SOLTAN

Argo floats passively drift along ocean currents while gathering vital information. Credit: Pete Harmsen / Australian Antarctic Division

The team’s findings, detailed in a study published in the journal Science Advances, both reinforce and update our current understanding of icy shelf health. The Shackleton Ice Shelf is the furthest north in the East Antarctic and remains unexposed to warmer waters that might melt it from below. However, the Denman Glacier is in a more precarious state. Denman’s disappearance alone would contribute to a nearly five foot rise in global sea levels. Unfortunately, Denman is now exposed to some warmer waters, which could accelerate melt rates and facilitate a more unstable ice retreat.

This melting is largely dependent on the ocean’s state within a nearly 33-foot-thick boundary layer that exists directly underneath the ice shelf itself. Argo floats are designed to measure various elements inside this boundary layer, but until now, none have spent such an extensive amount of time near one.\

Middle Ages: biscotti become a “superfood” powering maritime expansion

The Argo float’s path underneath the Shackleton and Denman ice shelves. Credit: CSIRO Wen tenHout

“Against the enormity of such a wild region, this is an amazing story of the little float that could,” added Delphine Lannuzel, an oceanographer unaffiliated with the study who sampled ocean health near the Denman shelf earlier this year. “Under incredibly testing conditions, a relatively tiny instrument has delivered us a wealth of invaluable information.”

During the Middle Ages, biscotti became an important resource for maritime states. The Maritime Republic of Venice dedicated an entire area of the city to host bakeries tasked with making biscotti.

Researchers hope the Argo float won’t be the last to visit these and other ice shelves. Rintoul explained that these types of robots offer vital data that helps improve climate computer models and reduce uncertainties about sea level rise.

“Deploying more floats along the Antarctic continental shelf would transform our understanding of the vulnerability of ice shelves to changes in the ocean,” said Rintoul.

The post Underwater robot survives voyage to ‘never-accessed region of the planet’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Pair of exploding stars baffle astronomers

Andrew Paul — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:59:00 -0500

The recent deaths of two white dwarf stars are challenging our understanding of both novae and the powerful physics underlying star death. According to astronomer John Monnier, the initial analysis of these often dramatic novae offers an “extraordinary leap forward” for the field.

“The fact that we can now watch stars explode and immediately see the structure of the material being blasted into space is remarkable,” said the University of Michigan astronomer and a co-author of a study published on December 5 in the journal Nature Astronomy. “It opens a new window into some of the most dramatic events in the universe.”

It takes two to nova. These spectacular moments occur after a dying white dwarf siphons off enough material from a nearby companion star. However, experts have long assumed novae ignite as a single, explosive event and two examples are contradicting that hypothesis.

In 2021, researchers at the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array in California captured images from the eruptions of Nova V1674 Herculis and Nova V1405 Cassiopeiae.Herculis brightened and faded over only a few days, making it one of the fastest nova on record, but it also produced two perpendicular gas outflows. These jets imply that multiple, intermingling ejections powered the nova.

Scientists at Georgia State’s CHARA Array captured images of Nova V1674 Herculis—one of the fastest stellar explosions on record. Images of Nova V1674 Herculis obtained 2.2 days (left) and 3.2 days (middle) after the explosion. The images reveal the formation of two distinct, perpendicular outflows of gas, as highlighted by the green arrows. The panel on the right shows an artistic impression of the explosion. Credit: CHARA Array

These same flows from Nova V1674 Herculis and Nova V1405 Cassiopeiae were also observed by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. However, Cassiopeiae went nova much more gradually in these observations. The star retained its outermost layers for over 50 days before ultimately ejecting them, offering astronomers the first direct evidence of a delayed nova expulsion. Like in the case of Herculis, Cassiopeiae’s gamma-rays were also recorded by the Fermi telescope.

“These observations allow us to watch a stellar explosion in real time, something that is very complicated and has long been thought to be extremely challenging,” explained Texas Tech University astrophysicist and study co-author Elias Aydi. “Instead of seeing just a simple flash of light, we’re now uncovering the true complexity of how these explosions unfold. It’s like going from a grainy black-and-white photo to high-definition video.”

The major breakthroughs are thanks to a technique called interferometry. The powerful technique lets astronomers compile light from multiple telescopes to sharpen image resolution enough to document quickly evolving and dynamic events like novae. In addition to the recent novae observations, interferometry is most famous for allowing researchers to finally image the Milky Way’s central black hole.

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Although the new data likely upends some longstanding theories of novae behavior, experts say their findings will soon help expand our understanding of cosmic interactions.

“Novae are more than fireworks in our galaxy–they are laboratories for extreme physics,” added study coauthor and Michigan State University astronomer Laura Chomiuk. “By seeing how and when the material is ejected, we can finally connect the dots between the nuclear reactions on the star’s surface, the geometry of the ejected material and the high-energy radiation we detect from space.”

The post Pair of exploding stars baffle astronomers appeared first on Popular Science.

Swiss startup turns urine into plant fertilizer

Vittoria Traverso — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:58:00 -0500

When most people need to go number one, they find the nearest bathroom and don’t give half a thought to what happens to their pee once it disappears down the toilet or urinal. It turns out that the nitrogen in human urine can be used in fertilizer. However, humanity’s use of nitrogen is everything but efficient, according to a pair of siblings who founded the Swiss start-up company, VunaNexus.

“In current agriculture, there is a need for nitrogen in fertiliser, and currently we extract nitrogen using a lot of fossil fuels, but nitrogen is also a mineral that is contained in our urine,” Nadège de Chambrier, co-founder of VunaNexus, explained in a recent video. “Currently, we consider this as a waste, so what we’re trying to do is recycle it, closing the nutrients loop.”

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CREDIT: ESA

At VunaNexus, Nadège and her brother, co-founder David de Chambrier, have developed a wastewater processing system that turns urine into plant fertilizer by recycling its nutrients. The process sees dry urinals or urine-diverting toilets direct pee into a biological reactor. Inside the reactor, it is stabilized by nitrification, when two types of bacteria turn ammonium into nitrate, eliminating urine’s smell in just five to 10 days.

After nitrification, the resulting substance is filtered from micropollutants, pasteurized, and concentrated by a distiller. The result is reusable distilled water and Europe’s first certified urine-based fertilizer called Aurin. The entire system is automated, operated remotely, and needs little maintenance, according to the VunaNexus website.

The Vuna Process. Image: VunaNexus AG/ESA

“We install small wastewater treatment plants in the basement of large buildings or large urban infrastructure. We extract wastewater from the toilets. The fertilisers can be sold in bulk to farmers. People use it in their homes for the house plants or their gardens,” David explained in the video. “Currently, we have our treatment plants installed in six projects, commercial, residential, and we even have an installation in one of the largest private banks in Switzerland.”

While the de Chambrier’s team is small, VunaNexus has captured big attention—they work with support from the European Space Agency (ESA). In fact, the space technology that also reuses nutrients from human wastewater inspired the idea, which originated from a collaboration with the ESA’s MELiSSA project. The European initiative investigated regenerative systems with the goal of using them to support astronauts’ life in deep space and long-term space missions.

However, back here on Earth, “nitrogen pollution from human urine is a significant, mostly overlooked environmental problem. It impacts water, air and natural habitats,” Nadège pointed out. According to a recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports, most human urine (which contains significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus) is released untreated into the environment, causing pollution and nutrient loss. “We treat approximately 8,000 litres [roughly 2,113 U.S. liquid gallons] of urine per day, which is not ending up polluting our rivers and lakes,” Nadège added. 8,000 liters is.

In The History of Every Thing, Popular Science uncovers the hidden stories and surprising origins behind the things we use (or eat) every day.

The post Biscotti once fed Roman navies and Christopher Columbus’s expeditions appeared first on Popular Science.

Wolfbox dropped the prices on its auto accessories by up to 30%: Save on dash cams, jump starters, and more

Margherita Bassi — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:50:26 -0500

According to a social media post by the ESA, VunaNexus’ technology is lowering carbon dioxide emissions, water waste, and nitrogen ground pollution, in addition to closing humanity’s nutrient “loop”—making it a system where resources are reused rather than discarded.

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“Our vision is that in the future, most large constructions in dense city centres will have technologies to recycle nutrients from urine,” David said.

The post Swiss startup turns urine into plant fertilizer appeared first on Popular Science.

What is shivering? Why our bodies shake when it’s cold.

Stan Horaczek — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

You’re walking down a Chicago street on a blustery winter day, when a particularly strong wind almost whips you off of your feet. Despite your many layers, as well as a wool hat, gloves, and a scarf, you start shivering. Are you simply underdressed, or could this involuntary movement be the sign of something more serious? We talked to a couple of experts to find out the science behind why we shiver.

What is shivering?

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“Shivering is a way for our bodies to generate heat when we are cold. This is done through muscle contractions,” says Dr. Natasha Bhuyan, a family physician based in Phoenix, Arizona. Shivering can significantly increase the body’s metabolism, which can tire you out more quickly. “It’s a really effective way to increase or maintain our core body temperature, but it does require a ton of energy.”

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Like sneezing and goosebumps, shivering is involuntary. It’s a type of protective, physiological response to keep your body comfortable. According to Dr. Romina Sifuentes, a family medicine specialist with Keck Medicine of USC, the hypothalamus, which is a part of the brain that regulates bodily functions, can sense even a tiny drop in our body’s internal temperature. The hypothalamus “then triggers rapid muscle activity to help maintain stability.”

Rest assured shivering is a healthy response to being cold, one that’s completely natural. “It’s kind of like a built-in thermostat response designed to prevent hypothermia,” a dangerous medical condition when the body’s temperature drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Someone with severe hypothermia might show a lack of coordination or slurred speech. Video: How to spot and treat hypothermia / Canadian Red Cross / Croix-Rouge canadienne

At what temperature do our bodies start shivering?

When it comes to the temperature at which our bodies start shivering, “it really kind of varies,” says Sifuentes. Overall, she says, most people will start to shiver when their core temperature drops below a normal body temperature. Normal body temperature varies from person to person, but on average it’s between 97 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit.

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“Factors such as age, body fat, medical conditions, and even your ability to acclimate to the cold can also shift that threshold,” says Sifuentes. For instance, a seven-year-old child might start shivering quickly when she’s cold because her body’s small size is less efficient at regulating temperature.

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The same goes for older adults, whose slower metabolisms, decreased blood circulation, and thinner skin make their bodies have to work harder to maintain their core temperature.

When can shivering be a warning sign?

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While most of us shiver when we’re cold, that’s not the only reason you might shiver. Say you’re walking through a haunted house attraction and are about to turn a darkened corner, where you think there’s somebody waiting to jump out at you. Your body goes into fight-or-flight mode, a natural automatic response to danger that causes your adrenaline to surge. With your nervous system in high-gear your muscles may start contracting and suddenly you’re shivering.

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Feelings of anxiety or awe (like when you’re looking out over the Grand Canyon and marveling at its enormity) can cause a person to shiver. It’s also often a sign that you’re sick. “The interesting thing is that the same brain pathways that regulate temperature also respond to stress and illness,” says Sifuentes. So, for example, a fever-related shiver means that the body is trying to raise its set point—basically its internal thermostat setting—to fight off an infection.”

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According to Sifuentes, when shivering is extreme or persistent despite warming up, especially among older adults, it may be a sign of something more serious. Look for other clues, such as fatigue, body aches, or fever, which can signal a medical issue like an infection.

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“If someone is feeling shaky, but they are not necessarily cold, this is definitely a reason to see a family physician to investigate,” says Bhuyan.

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WOLFBOX Megavolt 24Air 4-in-1 Jump Starter with Air Compressor & Tire Inflator $139 (was $185)

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Then there’s hypothermia, which is often caused by prolonged exposure to cold, wet, or windy conditions. “We shiver when water is being evaporated from our skin,” says Bhuyan. Since water conducts heat away from the body about 25 times faster than air, clothes that are sweaty or wet can significantly increase a person’s heat loss.

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When a person’s shivering is accompanied by signs of confusion and slurred speech, it’s important to get them dry and warm immediately. You can increase their body’s core temperature by layering on dry clothing (and removing anything wet) and giving them something warm to drink such as broth or hot tea. Gentle physical activity, like jumping jacks, can also help increase a body’s temperature.

The post Wolfbox dropped the prices on its auto accessories by up to 30%: Save on dash cams, jump starters, and more appeared first on Popular Science.

19 hilarious and delightful Comedy Wildlife Photography Award winners

Laura Kiniry — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:38:49 -0500

Nature can be captivating, awe-inspiring, and downright metal. It can also be hilarious. Case in point: The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, a delightful dive into the silliness of the animal kingdom.

“In general shivering is protective,” says Sifuentes, “but it’s really important to understand the context around it. That’s what really matters.”

So if you find yourself outside and feel a slight shiver when a gust of cold air hits you, don’t worry too much. Instead, use it as an excuse to indulge in a hot chocolate and spend the afternoon warming by a fire.

“High Five”
Overall Winner
Credit: Mark Meth-Cohn / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

The post What is shivering? Why our bodies shake when it’s cold. appeared first on Popular Science.

Ancient ‘dirty dishes’ may have led archaeologists astray for decades

Popular Science Team — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 10:09:00 -0500

As far as kitchen staples, you don’t really get much better than olive oil. It can do it all—jazz up a salad, sauté vegetables, add a nice crisp to some noodles, and more. Humans have been using olive oil for about 8,000 years, so archeologists often report olive oil residue on excavated pottery.

However, the prevalence of this wonder food might have been overstated in certain environments. For decades, archeologists may have misidentified olive oil in Mediterranean ceramics, possibly missing other plant oils or mistaking olive oil for animal fat. The reason for this potential archaeological shake up? A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science shows that the organic residues in plant oils do not preserve well in the calcium-filled soils from around the Mediterranean. So what earlier archeologists thought was residue from olive oil on ceramics, could be from some other food source.

‘I wash dirty dishes’

The interdisciplinary study technically began in 2019. As a doctoral student, study co-author and Cornell University archeologist Rebecca Gerdes also studied chemistry and wanted to better understand how it could be applied to archeology

“I usually describe my work as: I wash ancient dirty dishes, I save the rinse liquid, and I use the molecules in it to figure out how people are using their pots,” Gerdes said in a statement.

Organic residue analysis, where archaeologists and chemists join forces to study the molecular make up of plant and animal remains at a dig site, is already an established subdiscipline of archaeology. However, many older claims about finding olive oil at ancient sites have not been revisited as technology has improved, so some of the pots and pans dug up years ago may not have olive oil on them at all.

At the recommendation of her Ph.D. chair, Sturt Manning, Gerdes decided to dig deeper.

“Digging for Gold”
Portfolio Category Winner
A young female chimpanzee picking her nose and eating it!
Credit: Maggie Hoffman / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

“One of the things that I was realizing early in my Ph.D. was people were making all sorts of claims about what they had found in pots in the eastern Mediterranean, and there was a lot of room for backing those claims up with more solid experimentation,” she said. “I wanted to answer some interesting archaeological questions, but I realized I had to” develop a “method” for doing so.

Gerdes collaborated with other Cornell researchers finding a key partner in chemical engineer Jillian Goldfarb.

Ancient Play-Doh

Due to the travel restrictions in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gerdes could not travel to sample the geological conditions of Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea that was her focus area for this study. Instead, Cyprus’ soil samples were brought to her at the Cornell Soil Health Lab. There, scientists sterilized the samples before releasing them to Gerdes’ team for safe study. Soil Health Lab director Bob Schindelbeck also played a critical role in helping Gerdes understand how these soils behave.

Together with Goldfarb’s biochemistry research group, Gerdes developed an in-lab experiment to test how unique soil chemistries kick off chemical reactions that break down food residues found on ancient pottery. They created ceramic pellets using rolled out terracotta clay and fired them in a tube furnace.

“I was thinking about playing with Play-Doh the whole time,” Gerdes said.

Thilo Rehren at the Cyprus Institute collected the Cyprus soil samples and sent them to Upstate New York. They then soaked the pellets in olive oil and buried them in two types of moistened soil. One of the soil samples was from Cyprus and the other was from the Soil Health Lab’s agricultural fields, which is less acidic.

Cyprus “soil is really common in the eastern Mediterranean, so it impacts a lot of major historical periods, especially where we’re looking at trade and connectivity in that region,” Gerdes said. “The Late Bronze Age [about 1650 to 1100 BCE] is one of those time periods.”

For up to a year, the samples sat in incubators set up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius). The team then dug up their pellets and extracted the olive oil residues. In the lab, they studied the profile of the molecules that had been preserved on the pellets.

“We managed to do it in the lab at an accelerated rate, so we didn’t have to wait 3,000 years to finish my Ph.D.,” Gerdes said.

They found that the amount and composition of the olive oil residue in the ceramic pellets had degraded in the calcium-rich, alkaline soil from Cyprus. Compared with the pellets that were buried in the mildly acidic New York soil, the pellets in the Cyprus soil had lower amounts and a loss of the dicarboxylic acid plant oil biomarkers that signal the presence of olive oil. While the team did not test any preserved pots and pans to see what was really on them if not olive oil, this kind of research offers a chance to give already discovered artifacts a second look. There could be different oils or fats on the relics waiting to be detected.

“There’s definitely a sense among archaeologists of wanting to believe that you found olive oil, because it makes a nice story,” Gerdes said. “And because it’s such an economically important Mediterranean product, there is a default assumption that if you found molecules that match olive oil, then you must have found olive oil.”

The post 19 hilarious and delightful Comedy Wildlife Photography Award winners appeared first on Popular Science.

NASA astronaut comes home after circling Earth 3,920 times

Laura Baisas — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 15:31:22 -0500

Olive oil’s composition can sometimes overlap with other plant oils on clay pots. “And if you start to degrade it, then it gets even worse—it starts looking like an animal fat,” Gerdes said.

Since all of the reported instances of ancient olive oil residue may not be accurate, there’s work to be done to figure out which artifacts really are coated in this delicious oil. It seems Gerdes will need to keep washing those dirty dishes.

The post Ancient ‘dirty dishes’ may have led archaeologists astray for decades appeared first on Popular Science.

You’re not making the most of the clipboard on your Android phone

Andrew Paul — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0500

The clipboard on your Android phone can be just as useful as the same feature on your Windows or macOS laptop. Although it can feel as though the cut, copy, and paste functions aren’t as well utilized on mobile as they are on desktop operating systems.

Whether you’re pasting an image from the web into an email, or copying an address from Google Maps into a chat conversation, the Android clipboard can save you a substantial amount of tapping and swiping—if you know how to use it properly.

The default Android clipboard actually comes with more capabilities than you might have realized—and it’s likely that you’ll want to make full use of them, once you know what they are. Here’s how the clipboard works on Pixel and Galaxy phones.

The clipboard on Google Pixel phones

The post NASA astronaut comes home after circling Earth 3,920 times appeared first on Popular Science.

Tumbleweeds inspire this rolling, resilient robot

Andrew Paul — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:27:40 -0500

To a certain extent, the features available through the clipboard on Android depend on the keyboard app you’ve got installed. If you’re on a Google Pixel phone, then that will be Google’s own Gboard by default, but you can install this keyboard on just about any Android phone you want, and get access to the same functionality.

Open up Gboard in any app (such as a messaging app), and you’ll see a clipboard icon above the rows of letters. Tap on this then turn on the toggle switch or choose Turn on clipboard to get at the full set of features offered by Gboard, including a clipboard history. Straight away you’ll see some tips on screen to help you get started.

Make sure the Pixel clipboard is fully enabled. Screenshot: Google

There are a few ways to get text, links, and images to the clipboard, depending on the app you’re in. In Google Chrome, for example, press and hold on an image then choose Copy image to send it to the clipboard. In WhatsApp, press and hold on a message then tap the copy icon (the two rectangles) up at the top of the screen.

As soon as you copy or cut anything, you’ll see a small preview in the lower left hand corner. Tap the share button immediately to the right of the preview window, and you can quickly paste the text, link, or image into another app. You’ll see your most used apps and the contacts you most frequently communicate with listed first.

You can pin items to the clipboard if you don’t want to lose them. Screenshot: Google

To see the items on the clipboard at any time, tap the clipboard icon in Gboard. You can then tap and hold on any item to paste, delete, or pin it—note that anything that isn’t pinned automatically disappears from the clipboard after an hour. You can also tap the pen icon to the top right to select multiple items at once.

Finally, there are some clipboard settings you can access too, by tapping the four dots in the top left corner of Gboard, then Settings and Clipboard. The toggle switches on the next screen let you show recent clipboard items in the keyboard suggestions bar, store screenshots in the clipboard, and pick out phone numbers and addresses from items.

HERMES on a roll

The clipboard on Samsung Galaxy phones

On Samsung Galaxy phones, the clipboard works slightly differently—unless you’ve installed Gboard of course, in which case everything works largely as above. On Galaxy handsets, the default keyboard is the imaginatively named Samsung Keyboard, which pops up whenever you need to enter text in an app.

In field testing, the robot successfully navigated steep inclines and mapped GPS networks. HERMES moved around this terrain, while simultaneously transmitting geotag data at long range.

You’ll notice that this keyboard has a clipboard icon of its own, just above the rows of letters. This time though there’s no need to enable the full feature set of the clipboard, as there is on Pixel phones: The Samsung Keyboard clipboard stores multiple items right from the start, which you can see at any time by tapping the clipboard icon.

The Samsung Keyboard will store multiple items for you. Screenshot: Google

To paste anything from the keyboard into whatever box or field you’ve currently got selected, just tap on it. Tap and hold, and you get the option to delete items or pin them so they’re always accessible. Samsung doesn’t specify how long non-pinned items stick around for, but if there’s something you want to make sure doesn’t get lost, pin it.

To get at the settings for your Samsung Keyboard, tap the gear icon, which is just to the right of the clipboard. There’s only really one clipboard-related setting of note here, which is the Save screenshots to clipboard toggle switch: Turn this on if you want to see captured screenshots in the clipboard too.

With additional advancements and fine tuning, robots like HERMES could one day be deployed in hazardous disaster zones, deadline minefields, and even on windy neighboring planets like Mars.

You can save screenshots to the Samsung Keyboard clipboard too. Screenshot: Google

“The guiding philosophy is beautifully simple and energy-aware,” Manoharan explained.

The post Tumbleweeds inspire this rolling, resilient robot appeared first on Popular Science.

Who built Scandinavia’s oldest wooden plank boat? An ancient fingerprint offers clues.

David Nield — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:00:00 -0500

As on Pixel phones, copying and pasting depends to some extent on the app you’re using. In the Samsung Internet browser, for example, you can tap and hold on an image then choose Copy image to send it to the clipboard. If you select text on a website, by tapping and holding on it, you’ll see a Copy button on the pop-up toolbar above.

You don’t get the clipboard preview you do on Pixel phones, but you can paste the most recently added clipboard item anywhere by tapping and holding on the screen—usually in a text field somewhere. As well as getting a Paste option, you’ll also see a Clipboard button that takes you to the full clipboard view.

The post You’re not making the most of the clipboard on your Android phone appeared first on Popular Science.

Upgrade your home espresso game with these holiday deals on Breville machines

Laura Baisas — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 18:30:00 -0500

Breville Espresso Machine Sale: Up to $500 Off Premium Coffee Makers

Right now, some of Breville’s most popular espresso machines are seeing significant discounts across the board, with savings reaching up to $500 on high-end models. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an aspiring home barista, there’s a machine at a great price point to elevate your morning coffee routine. Plus, it’ll eventually pay for itself by helping you break your takeout coffee habit.

What is the Hjortspring Boat?

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Breville Barista Express — $549.95 (Was $699.95)

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Breville

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The Barista Express remains one of the most popular all-in-one espresso machines for good reason. This model combines an integrated conical burr grinder with a 15-bar Italian pump, allowing you to go from whole beans to espresso in under a minute. The dose control grinding system delivers freshly ground coffee directly into the portafilter, while low-pressure pre-infusion ensures balanced flavor extraction.

Key features include a 54mm stainless steel portafilter, precise temperature control via a thermocoil heating system, and a powerful steam wand for creating microfoam milk perfect for latte art. The machine comes with single and dual wall filter baskets (ideal for both beginners and experienced users), an integrated tamper, razor dose trimming tool, and a stainless steel milk jug.

At $549.95, this is matching the lowest price we’ve seen all year—$150 off the regular retail price.

CREDIT: Lund University.

Pine pitch and prints

Breville Bambino Plus — $399-$499.95

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“The weapons they used, which were found in the boat, were quite common for the time and were used throughout Northern Europe, giving us few instructions as to their origins,” the authors said.

For those with limited counter space, the Bambino Plus delivers professional espresso results in an impressively compact footprint. At just 7.7″ wide x 12.6″ deep x 12.2″ high and weighing only 11 pounds, it’s one of the smallest machines in Breville’s lineup.

Don’t let the size fool you—this machine features Breville’s innovative ThermoJet heating system that reaches optimal extraction temperature in just 3 seconds, making it up to 32% more energy efficient than traditional thermoblock systems. The automatic steam wand handles milk frothing with three adjustable temperature settings and texture levels, taking the guesswork out of creating velvety microfoam.

The Bambino Plus uses a 54mm portafilter with capacity for 18 grams of coffee and includes both single and dual wall filter baskets, the Razor precision dosing tool, a stainless steel milk jug, and cleaning accessories. The 64-ounce water tank means less frequent refilling.

Bambino Plus Available Colors:

Black Truffle

Brushed Stainless Steel

Sea Salt

With pine pitch clues and now some fingerprints, we are inching closer to solving this Iron Age boat mystery.

The post Who built Scandinavia’s oldest wooden plank boat? An ancient fingerprint offers clues. appeared first on Popular Science.

Neanderthals harnessed fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought

Andrew Paul — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

Smoked Hickory

Damson Blue

Excavation of the ancient campfire, removing diagonally opposed quadrants. The reddened sediment between band B’ is heated clay. Credit: Jordan Mansfield / Pathways to Ancient Britain Project

Royal Champagne

The evolution of intentional fire use

Olive Tapenade

The Artisan

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“Archaeological evidence for early fire use is limited and often ambiguous, typically consisting of associations between heated materials and stone tools,” the study’s authors wrote.

Breville Bambino (Standard) — Budget-Friendly Option

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Breville Barista Touch Impress — $999.95 (Was $1,499.95)

This is Breville’s most advanced assisted espresso machine, and it’s seeing a massive $500 discount right now. The Barista Touch Impress features an intuitive touchscreen interface that provides step-by-step barista guidance with real-time feedback, making it perfect for beginners while still offering enough control for coffee enthusiasts.

Iron pyrite’s potential

The standout feature is the Impress Puck System, which includes intelligent dosing, assisted 22-pound tamping with automatic correction for the next dose, and a finishing 7-degree barista twist—all designed to create a perfectly prepared puck every time. This eliminates much of the mess and inconsistency that can frustrate new espresso makers.

The Auto MilQ system features specific settings calibrated for almond, soy, and oat milk (in addition to dairy), adjusting air injection time and temperature for each milk type. You can customize temperature from 104°F to 167°F across 8 texture levels. The ThermoJet heating system achieves extraction temperature in 3 seconds, and the integrated conical burr grinder offers 30 grind settings.

The touchscreen lets you select from 8 café favorites or customize and save up to 8 personalized drinks. At $999.95, this represents exceptional value for a machine that typically costs $1,500.

The post Neanderthals harnessed fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought appeared first on Popular Science.

The space billboard that nearly happened

Stan Horaczek — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

In 1993, Mike Lawson, an aerospace entrepreneur based in Roswell, Georgia, unveiled his vision for a brave new future of advertising: space billboards.

Additional Breville Models

Barista Express Impress — Enhanced version with assisted tamping

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The history of space advertising

Barista Touch — Touchscreen without the Impress tamping system

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Smart Grinder Pro — Perfect companion for machines without built-in grinders

The Conestoga, shown here in a photo taken in Matagorda Island in Texas, was the first-ever privately-funded launch rocket model. Image: Eric Grabow – Space Vector Corporation/ CC BY-SA 3.0

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Baratza x Breville Bundle — Bambino Plus paired with Baratza Encore ESP grinder

The public’s reaction to a space billboard

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“A lot of people want to look at the night sky and not see an ad for soda,” explains Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz, an expert on space law who’s written about issues with space advertising.

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The post Upgrade your home espresso game with these holiday deals on Breville machines appeared first on Popular Science.

5 captivating images from National Geographic’s Pictures of the Year

Popular Science Team — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 10:08:00 -0500

A jaguar that snuck up on a photographer trying to spot an armadillo, a polar bear sitting on a sperm whale, and more take center stage in this year’s Pictures of the Year from National Geographic.

“Pictures of the Year is a project that is always inspiring and thought-provoking,” said Nathan Lump, editor-in-chief of National Geographic. “Each year, our photographers and editors sift through thousands of images, searching for those rare moments that stop us in our tracks. Individually, these photographs speak to beauty, fragility, and wonder. Taken together, I see a collective sense of urgency — a call to preserve what’s in danger of being lost, as well as a reminder of the poetic beauty to be found in carrying on, in daring to dream of a better future.”

A sample of this year’s incredible photographs are listed below (Click to expand images to full screen.) For more on this story visit natgeo.com/photos.

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Diego Paredes, standing on the saddle Diego Paredes, standing on the saddle of his horse, Lobuno, surveys a formerly bustling trade route that cut through this picturesque valley in northern Argentina. With his brother Hugo, Diego takes pride in the new life they bring to the land by leading educational horseback tours with their company, Renaciendo Costumbres (Reviving Traditions). Image: Photo by Natalis Favre.

The end of Lawson’s space billboard

For years, photographer Anand Varma has attempted to document when an egg yolk can still be seen but a bird form has clearly emerged. He experimented by incubating embryos in artificial shells before finally capturing the transformation at 12 days old. Varma separately raised some embryos to chicks, which he donated to people in the community. Image: Photo by Anand Varma.

While monitoring the burrow of a rare giant armadillo in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, photographer Fernando Faciole came face-to-lens with a different vulnerable animal: the jaguar. Severe deforestation has decimated the population here, and today fewer than a dozen jaguars may remain in the state park where Faciole took this image. Image: Photo by Fernando Faciole.

The Solomon Islands are home to some of the most diverse coral reefs on the planet. Earlier this year, the island nation pledged to preserve 59 million acres of its marine waters—including the seas surrounding this lush isle–which make up part of a vital aquatic region called the Coral Triangle that spans six countries and contains 76 percent of the world’s coral species. Image: Photo by Manu San Félix.

How lawmakers protected space from ads

The cover of National Geographic’s 2025 Pictures of the Year. Image: National Geographic

The post 5 captivating images from National Geographic’s Pictures of the Year appeared first on Popular Science.

German hairy snails are disappearing from London’s River Thames

Margherita Bassi — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 09:17:00 -0500

Meet the German hairy snail (Pseudotrichia rubiginosa): a tiny mollusk with a hairy shell that lives along the River Thames in England, among other places. Researchers believe that its signature hairs help the strange creature live in its damp, riverside environments by enabling it to sweat off moisture. By wicking off that excess moisture, the slime gets more sticky, so the snail can hold onto the slick riverside debris and the plants it eats.

Determined to make sure no one would ever try to deface the stars with ads again, America’s legislators slowly crafted a law banning “obtrusive space advertising.”

However, the snail needs some extra support. The German hairy snail is one of the United Kingdom’s most endangered mollusks, with its original habitat along the river diminished to limited, disconnected areas. As such, rewilders, conservationists and citizen scientists in London have started conducting surveys to investigate the situation.

They are trying to better understand the snail’s presence in the city and contribute to future conservation efforts..

“These surveys will help us understand how the snail is faring and how we can protect it – not only securing their future for years to come, but also helping safeguard green spaces throughout London for people and wildlife for future generations,” Joe Pecorelli, Freshwater Conservation Programme Manager at the Zoological Society of London, said in a statement by the society.

According to the fossil record, the German hairy snail has existed in the UK at least since the Stone Age and perhaps even since the last Ice Age. At the time, mainland Europe was still connected to Britain, and the Thames was connected to the German River Rhine.

“This charming little snail has called our riverbanks and wetlands home for thousands of years – yet it is sadly now very rare in the UK, potentially restricted to just a few sites along the Thames,” Pecorelli added.

In 2001, Mike Lawson helped Pizza Hut deliver a six-inch salami pie to astronauts at the International Space Station. Video: Pizza delivered to International Space Station/ AP Archive

The snail has been known to exist across Europe. An assessment from 2013 identified eastern Russia, islands in the Baltic Sea, and Germany—where the mollusk is considered endangered—as parts of its range.

Dreams of a space billboard live on

Getting a better picture about the distribution of this funky snail is important to its survival and could rally efforts to safeguard and restore London’s riverine habitats. Clearer waterways will only benefit all of the f other native animals, including the European eel, seals, and the short snouted seahorse, that live in London’s busy waterways.

The post German hairy snails are disappearing from London’s River Thames appeared first on Popular Science.

The strange Wild West tale of the first cow-buffalo hybrid

Mark Hay — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0500

The “cattalo” was a homely creature—stocky and shaggy, with a slight buffalo’s hump and a cow’s docile face. Charles “Buffalo” Jones invented the cow-buffalo hybrid in 1888. His intention? To create the hardiest free-range livestock the Great Plains had ever seen. But Jones could’ve never predicted what happened next.

In December 1925, Popular Science heralded Jones’s cattalo as a bold scientific attempt to invent a new meat supply: “Great herds of cattaloes, it is expected, will increase at no expense, as long as the northern plains remain unsettled, repeating the history of our prairie buffalo.” But the crossbreed was doomed from the start, its proliferation stymied by poor fertility rates that were not well understood at the time. In the century since, such biological hurdles haven’t stopped efforts to try to carry on what Jones started.

The cow-buffalo hybrid has a sad origin story

The cattalo didn’t emerge from a laboratory, or even from particularly sound science. Rather, it arose from a moment of crisis in the American West.

By the mid-1880s, the Great Plains had a ghostly aura. Just a decade earlier the grasslands teemed with buffalo, but when railroads like Santa Fe and Union Pacific cut tracks across Kansas and into Texas, hunters began shooting buffalo from train windows for sport, leaving carcasses to rot where they fell. Commercial hide hunters joined in, followed by the U.S. military, which slaughtered buffalo to starve Native Americans. By 1884, following a killing frenzy that lasted barely ten years, government auditors estimated that, of the 60 to 70 million buffalo that once roamed the plains, only a few hundred remained south of Canada. As national newspapers sounded alarms about extinction, the question became whether the most iconic animal of the American West would vanish before anyone bothered to save it.

As the buffalo disappeared, ranchers claimed vast swaths of land to raise cattle on open ranges for their meat, milk, and hides. Then came the great blizzard of 1886, which swept across the Plains, reaching as far south as Galveston, Texas. Unsuited for such harsh winters, cattle piled against barbed-wire drift fences—used to demarcate the open range—trying to escape the -40 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures and relentless snow, until they suffocated or froze. A second blizzard struck the following winter. Across the West, the “Big Die-Up” left hundreds of thousands of cattle carcasses strewn along fence lines.

By 1884, U.S. government auditors estimated that, of the 60 to 70 million buffalo that once roamed the plains, only a few hundred remained south of Canada. Image: Public Domain

“We—or at least those of us who still have a sense of responsibility—know that space is a precious resource for the benefit of society,” he adds. “And as such, it must be protected.”

The years-long massacre of buffalo, also known as bison, followed by the blizzard carnage of cattle prompted Jones, a reformed buffalo hunter who once boasted of shooting buffalo by the thousands, to attempt to preserve one species while creating a new one. In 1886, Jones set out to wrangle as many remaining buffalo as he could. His ranch in Kansas—and later in other states—soon held the largest private herd of buffalo in the United States. By 1888, Jones had succeeded in crossbreeding buffalo with cattle, a hybrid he claimed could not only restore what Americans had nearly eradicated, but also replace what the region’s harsh winters had exposed as too vulnerable to survive. It was a creature engineered from guilt, ambition, and a scant supply of biological know-how.

Unfortunately, Barentine admits, “some believe there is a high return-on-investment to be realized” in a space billboard, potentially beyond Lawson’s wildest dreams circa 1993.

A cowboy scientist and his cattalo dream

“The lure of that money is so great that, certainly, someone will eventually try it.”

Charles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones led a colorful life of a pioneer and cowboy. He moved from Illinois to Kansas in the 1860s, during a time when the western frontier was booming, supercharged by the 1862 Homestead Act, which offered free land to families who settled west, and by the promise of railroads.

In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation.

The post The space billboard that nearly happened appeared first on Popular Science.

The 50 greatest innovations of 2025

Bill Gourgey — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 07:00:00 -0500

Although Jones gained distinction early on as a prolific buffalo hunter, his efforts to save them from extinction proved more profitable and enduring. The buffalo he raised on his farms in Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas made their way to parks and gardens in Europe, such as the London Zoological Gardens. He traveled to Africa to rope and capture wild animals like lions and cheetahs. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Jones Park Warden of Yellowstone National Park, a post he held for several years. But his attempt to hybridize buffalo with cattle may have been his most colorful adventure.

A collection of Best of What’s New winners from 1989-1991. Images: Popular Science

Jones was also known as a con man who made and lost fortunes many times—his cattalo venture being no exception. “Buffalo Jones is enthusiastic over an enterprise in which he hopes to make a big fortune,” the Kansas City Star reported in 1897.

In addition to creating the first cattalo, Charles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones led a colorful life of a pioneer and cowboy. Image: Public Domain

Our list this year is the culmination of countless hours of debate, hands-on testing, and expert conversations. This is the Best of What’s New 2025.

Despite limited success in growing his cattalo herd, Jones kept the dream alive for decades by making exaggerated claims about his successes and the animal’s benefits. He found sponsors that included the U.S. government, which in 1906 granted Jones land on the Grand Canyon Forest Reservation in northern Arizona to further his crossbreeding efforts.

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By 1908, however, Jones had largely failed. Male cattalo offspring had a low survival rate, were infertile, and were often deformed. Females experienced low fertility and high abortion rates. Even after numerous attempts, his cattalo failed to consistently reproduce on their own.

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Searching for the genetic sweet spot

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Jones’s unbridled optimism compelled other ranchers to take up the cause in the early 1900s. By the time Popular Science published its cattalo report in 1925, the Canadian government was the largest sponsor of hybridization efforts. “The [Canadian] government has spent $2,000,000 in its project to stock the plains with buffaloes,” Popular Science wrote. “Its new scheme to set loose herds of cattaloes with valuable meat and hides will make up in a few years, it is thought, for this expense and will assure an ever-growing source of revenue.”

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By the early 1940s, however, the “scheme” still wasn’t working, both in Canada and the States. Cattalo herds were not organically reproducing as planned. But in the late 1940s a Montana rancher, Jim Burnell, had a different idea—to experiment with the genetic mix.

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In 1957, he produced his first fertile three-quarters buffalo bull, which, it was thought, would be the right ratio to ensure ongoing fertility. When Burnell got sidetracked in his crossbreeding efforts by a political career, a modern-day Buffalo Jones took up the cause in California a decade later. Using Burnell’s hybrid bull, D. C. “Bud” Basalo—a California meat broker, who also kept his own private herd of buffalo—crossbred a new hybrid in the early 1970s that was 3/8 buffalo and 5/8 cow. He named his new breed the “beefalo.” Interested ranchers gathered to form the American Beefalo Association in 1975 to promote beefalo worldwide.

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A cattalo herd grazes on a Texas ranch in 1908. Image: Public Domain

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Just as Buffalo Jones wooed investors and consumers by selling cattalo potential, beefalo promoters began making big promises. According to the American Beefalo Association, beefalo were not only leaner than beef, but also required less feed, exhibited greater disease resistance, and tolerated harsh winters and hot conditions better than traditional cattle. The optimal genetic balance was claimed to be 3/8 buffalo-to-5/8 cow, which offered enough buffalo DNA to confer ruggedness, but not so much that animals became unmanageable or infertile. Ranchers described beefalo as self-reliant, able to forage on coarse prairie grass, and yielding lean meat with lower cholesterol and fat levels than beef. Some went further, suggesting it was the future climate-resilient beef.

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DNA forever entwined

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But even in the 21st century, biological hurdles have stubbornly resisted marketing enthusiasm. Ranchers have struggled to maintain true ratios across generations. A 2024 genomic analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture added a surprising wrinkle: Researchers found that most of the cattle marketed as beefalo contained little to no detectable buffalo DNA. In other words, modern beefalo herds may be far more bovine than buffalo.

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But if cattle genes have a way of nudging out buffalo across successive generations, the reverse may not be true. In a 2022 study of a sampling of buffalo taken from various U.S. National Parks researchers found genetic traces of cattle DNA in all they tested. Although Jones failed to create a stable hybrid, his legacy lives on in the DNA of modern North American buffalo, even those found living in the wild.

Genetic scrutiny has pushed beefalo ranchers toward formal DNA ancestry verification, which is now offered by genetic testing services such as Zoetis, Neogen, and the University of California–Davis Veterinary Genetics Lab. As a result, beefalo has evolved from a frontier-breeding experiment to a genetic-identity project: how much buffalo is needed to still call something beefalo, and who gets to decide?

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A beefalo bull stands in grassy paddock. Image: Karl Young/ CC BY-SA 3.0

Despite these lingering questions, beefalo maintain a niche but persistent presence. It is not the national “new meat supply” that Popular Science once imagined, and the Great Plains are not teeming with hybrid herds. But beefalo represent the ever-present desire to engineer better livestock, an impulse that has not faded with time: From the whimsical-seeming yakalo (the yak and buffalo hybrid) and sheep-goat to serious efforts to genetically engineer cattle to withstand climate change-induced heat waves and disease.

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Whatever shape the next frontier of hybridization takes, the dream that Charles “Buffalo” Jones started in the 1880s continues to evolve, but it’s still motivated by a mix of redemption, ambition, and overconfidence—by the belief that nature can be coaxed into giving back what we’ve taken and yielding something more perfect.

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In A Century Later, Popular Science revisits our archives to see how past predictions and discoveries have held up 100 years later.

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Deep sea mining test uncovered multiple new species

Andrew Paul — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:34:29 -0500

Researchers completing one of the largest impact studies on the potential environmental impacts of deep-sea mining found a bit more than they bargained for on the ocean floor: 4,350 animals, each at least larger than 0.3 millimeters. From these, they ultimately identified 788 separate species of unique crustaceans, mollusks, marine bristle worms, and other creatures living in this sought after mining zone.

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While the team found that harvesting rare earth metals from over 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface may not be quite as destructive as initially theorized, the disruptions are still cause for serious concerns. The team’s findings are published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

By making its data widely available, the observatory will also open new doors for discovery for researchers, students, and citizen scientists around the world.

Despite being one of the most inhospitable environments for humans on the planet, there is a rapidly growing commercial interest in the deepest parts of the ocean. Unfortunately, this fascination is frequently less about conservation and more about profits. That’s because some of the planet’s largest deposits of rare earth metals are located on the seafloor, which makes them an increasingly attractive target for companies.

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One of the most attractive targets for deep sea mining advocates is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a continent-sized abyssal plain located at a depth of around 2.5 miles between Hawaii and Mexico. In addition to being rich in minerals, the CCZ is also one of the world’s least understood habitats. In 2022, marine biologists announced the discovery of over 5,000 new species catalogued during a research excursion to the area.

The nodules are densely packed on the seabed in the survey area. Here, an underwater robot taking a sample of a deep-sea sponge animal with a starfish. Credit: ROV Odysseus, Pelagic Research Services

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With so much biodiversity left to explore, conservationists have repeatedly voiced worries about the environmental impacts of deep sea mining on regions like the CCZ. However, there is barely any research into the topic.

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“Critical metals are needed for our green transition and they are in short supply,” Thomas Dahlgren, a marine biologist at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg and study coauthor, said in a statement. “Several of these metals are found in large quantities on the deep-sea floor, but until now, no one has shown how they can be extracted or what environmental impact this would have.”

To learn more about the possible effects, Dahlgren and his teammates surveyed a nearly 50-mile stretch of the CCZ two years before it was slated to receive a test run from a deep sea mineral mining vehicle. They then returned two months after the collector for a total of 160 days of fieldwork, having spotted the over 4,000 organisms living there, including those 788 separate species of mollusks, crustaceans, marine bristle worms, and more.

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“I have been working in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone for over 13 years, and this is by far the largest study that has been conducted,” Dahlgren explained. “Since most species have not been described previously, molecular (DNA) data was crucial in facilitating studies of biodiversity and ecology on the seabed.”

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The researcher identified a new solitaire coral attached to polymetallic nodules. It was named Deltocyathus zoemetallicus. Credit: Natural History Museum of London / University of Gothenburg

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The mining test’s effects were stark: within the machine’s tracks, the team calculated a 37 percent decrease in total animal population along with 32 percent decrease in diversity.

“Deep-sea mining within the CCZ is at a critical juncture, as the industry looks to move beyond the exploration phase and into commercial exploitation,” the study’s authors wrote. “Consequently, there is a clear need for direct assessment of the impacts of mining on faunal abundance and biodiversity at the seafloor.”

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With this first major project completed, marine biologists hope it can serve as a baseline for future analysis of deep sea mining impacts. Moving forward they hope to also investigate the 30 percent of the CCZ currently protected by environmental regulations.

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“At present, we have virtually no idea what lives there,” added Natural History Museum of London researcher and study coauthor Adrian Glover.

The post Deep sea mining test uncovered multiple new species appeared first on Popular Science.

Sardine-inspired washing machine filter removes 99% of microplastics

Andrew Paul — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 13:59:42 -0500

Fish gills may inspire an unexpected solution to one of our biggest sources of microplastics. According to researchers at Germany’s University of Bonn, taking a cue from the animals’ filtration systems might help remove the vast majority of harmful plastic particulates from washing machine wastewater.

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Microplastics are a huge problem. At this point, they can be found both inside our bodies as well as some of the Earth’s most remote locations. Aside from taking thousands of years to decompose, the particles are increasingly linked to a wide array of health issues.

Our dirty laundry sneakily contributes to a huge amount of microplastics. Researchers estimate a washing machine in a four-person home produces as much as 500 grams of microplastics every year due to textile abrasion and deterioration. These removed clothing particles then travel with the wastewater into sewer systems and eventually treatment facilities. Because portions of sewage are often integrated into agricultural fertilizer, the microplastics ultimately find their way onto farmlands.

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The fish gill filter system relies on rakers covered in microscopic denticles. Credit: Leandra Hamann

University of Bonn biologist and study co-author Leandra Hamann explained that while washing machines often include various filter systems, they’re far from perfect.

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“Some of them quickly become clogged, others do not offer adequate filtration,” Hamann said in a statement.

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According to Hamann, designing alternative filtration methods could dramatically reduce laundry’s mountains of microplastic material. Instead of investigating advanced engineering concepts, she and her team looked to millions of years of animal evolution for inspiration.

Fish like sardines, anchovies, and mackerel feature funnel-shaped gill arch systems that work similarly to a cross-flow filtration system. As water travels through their mouths and down their gullets, comb-like formations covered with tiny teeth form a stretchy mesh that screens out unwanted particles. A gill arch system works as both a filter and a means to catch a fish’s next meal.

“During food intake, the water flows through the permeable funnel wall, is filtered, and the particle-free water is then released back into the environment via the gills,” added biologist and study co-author Alexander Blanke. “However, the plankton is too big for this; it is held back by the natural sieve structure. Thanks to the funnel shape, it then rolls toward the gullet, where it is collected until the fish swallows, which empties and cleans the system.”

It’s a crafty bit of evolution. Because the arches roll toward the gullet, it’s much harder for particles to clog the filter.

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The filter element in the center imitates the gill arch system of the fish. The filter housing enables periodic cleaning and installation in washing machines. Credit: Christian Reuß/Leandra Hamann

After experimenting with various mesh sizes and funnel opening angles, Hamann and her colleagues settled on a design that rivals all those eons of evolutionary fine-tuning.

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“We have thus found a combination of parameters that enable our filter to separate more than 99 percent of the microplastics out of the water but not become blocked,” Hamann said.

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Once the microplastics are captured, the system collects them in a filter outlet before suctioning them out multiple times per minute. The team suggests that with minor alterations to a washing machine, the appliance could ultimately press the plastic to remove excess water before molding it into a pellet. After a few dozen washes, an owner could simply remove the plastic block and dispose of it properly in their general waste.

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The study’s authors also say that their new filter doesn’t require complex mechanical parts and is extremely cheap to produce. With a patent now pending, the team hopes washing machine manufacturers will soon help improve the system and integrate them into their own products.

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Hubble Space Telescope caught a second glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS

Andrew Paul — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:50:14 -0500

It’s understandable why every space agency and astronomy enthusiast around the world is trying to catch a glimpse of 3I/ATLAS. Not only is it the third-known interstellar object to pass through our solar system,it’s also the fastest comet ever recorded. But even as it races at 130,00 miles per hour towards its closest distance from Earth, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently caught another stunning glimpse of the icy rock.

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According to NASA, Hubble took its latest photo of 3I/ATLAS on November 30 using its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument. At that point, the comet was around 178 million miles away from Earth. While 3I/ATLAS is clearly visible in the image’s center, the distant stars behind it are a blur thanks to its impressive speed.

Astronomers first noticed 3I/ATLAS in July, which prompted NASA to direct Hubble towards the comet for the first time. Since then, researchers have spent months examining the cosmic traveler. Aside from most certainly not being an alien spacecraft, the comet is estimated to be between 0.2 and 3.5 miles wide. Recent analysis also indicates it may be covered in icy cryovolcanoes.

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3I/ATLAS’ impressive speed is also a testament to its age. To attain such a rate, the comet would have required multiple gravitational slingshots as it passed stars, planets, and other galactic objects. Given the universe’s immensity, such events aren’t frequent occurrences. This likely means 3I/ATLAS is billions of years old, possibly forming in some distant corner of the galaxy after breaking off from a proto-planet.

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3I/ATLAS will soon pass by the sun and likely continue its journey out of our solar system. Although its orbital path will eventually take it back towards Earth, it won’t happen for thousands of years. This means that every new look at the comet adds to this once-in-a-lifetime event.

The post Hubble Space Telescope caught a second glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS appeared first on Popular Science.

Ruby the turtle needs a new greenhouse. Dance companies are stepping up.

Laura Baisas — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

Ruby the Burmese roofed turtle (Batagur trivittata) might not be fighting crime like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but this very real turtle is beginning to make her own mark on culture. The critically endangered reptile living at a top secret turtle sanctuary in New Jersey is inspiring professional dance companies to choreograph conservation into their work.

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Burmese roofed turtles are among the most rare turtle species on Earth, and almost went extinct in the early 2000s. Five females and three males were found and placed together to form the first captive assurance colonies for the species. Assurance colonies keep animals at risk of extinction in zoos, aquariums, or semi-wild conditions so that they can one day breed. Ruby is one of those reptiles that the Turtle Conservancy is working to keep alive.

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But conservation costs money. Ruby is the centerpiece of The Ruby Initiative, a photo exhibition presented in the lobby of New York Live Arts ahead of a Dancing For Our Wonderful World. Presented by vildwerk., a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds and environmental awareness through dance, the upcoming performance features eight newly choreographed dance pieces that fuse the arts with a call to environmental action.

“Everyone who supports vildwerk. must be an animal and a ballet lover somehow, or climate change activist. It sort of goes hand in hand,” vildwerk. founder and Turtle Conservancy volunteer Chiara Gorodesky tells Popular Science. “It’s a very specific crowd, but it’s a big crowd.”

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A performance of Moss Anthology#5 for Buglisi Dance Theatre. Image: Hisae Aihara.

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The organization includes dancers from major dance companies including the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Alvin Ailey, and Martha Graham Dance Company to educate and raise critical funds for animal conservation organizations including the World Wildlife Foundation and Turtle Conservancy.

“During the creation process, the environmentalists and conservationists speak to the artists, so that they’re really informed of what’s going on in their programs and in the field,” explains Gorodesky. “In the theater, I’d like the audience to be inspired by beautiful dance work, but also then be able to take action from there.”

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Gorodesky, who grew up around tortoises and has been volunteering with the Turtle Conservancy for several years, formed a bond with Ruby when she began helping to clean her tank.

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“Some of these confiscated animals, they come and go, they’re then being placed in other parts of the world,”she explains. “But Ruby is sort of a constant.”

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Photographs of Ruby will appear in the lobby at New York Live Arts ahead of a Dancing For Our Wonderful World, which features eight newly choreographed dance pieces. Image: Samantha Bass.

The Turtle Conservancy is currently using the arts to help raise $250,000 to build a new greenhouse for Ruby and the other turtles living at the rural New Jersey sanctuary. Ruby lives alongside critically endangered Burmese narrow-headed softshell turtles (Chitra vandijki), Indian spotted turtles (Geoclemys hamiltoni), and Mata Mata Turtles (Chelus fimbriata) from the Amazon. Many of the turtles here were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade, while Ruby came from a veterinarian and taxonomist who passed away, leaving her in the care of the conservancy. A bigger space will allow them more elbow room and potentially space to breed.

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“My back porch is sort of a temporary holding. It’s a mess and it’s cramped, but it’s what I have for now,” Turtle Conservancy co-founder Maurice Rodrigues tells Popular Science. “I’m excited to work with wild work with Chiara’s team to raise money to get the greenhouse built. We’ll get these animals more spacious enclosures, and a more naturalistic setting.”

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Chiara Gorodesky poses with Ruby the Burmese roofed turtle. Image: Stephanie Diani.

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According to Gorodesky, the team has raised $65,000 and already has the structure of the greenhouse. However, they still need to fund a “hugely sophisticated pumping system” that will ensure that the temperature is just right for the animals to thrive. Along with amphibians, turtles are among the most threatened groups of vertebrates due to the continued pressures of habitat loss and climate change. Those continued threats help fuel the team taking care of Ruby and her compatriots, preserving their precious DNA and keeping species going.

While dance may not seem the most natural way to highlight their plight, these reptiles and the way we move do share something crucial.

“Both dance and turtles have been there from the beginning of mankind. Movement, dancing, cave drawings, music, all these things that fill the soul are essential things,” says Gorodesky. “Turtles have been around always. For millions of years, they’ve been basically unchanged. They’re like fairy tale animals.”

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Fairy tale animals that are in very real danger, but still can be saved.

The post Ruby the turtle needs a new greenhouse. Dance companies are stepping up. appeared first on Popular Science.

A pilot turned an old plane into a two-bedroom apartment

Laura Kiniry — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

When flight instructor and former commercial airline pilot Jon Kotwicki happened upon a DC-6 air freighter for sale in 2022, he knew it was the perfect plane to transform into an overnight rental. However, once he made the purchase, “my first thought,” says Kotwicki, “was, ‘My God, what have I done?’”

Built in 1956, the 117-foot-wide, 108-foot-long cargo plane had spent its days carrying freight and fuel to remote villages in Alaska before retiring from flight. Now it sits on Kotwicki’s 115-acre property in Big Lake, Alaska, as a two-bedroom, one bath Airbnb unit. It’s also used by students at Kotwicki’s FLY8MA flight school, which he runs onsite.

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Kotwicki says the decision to turn an airplane into accommodations came pretty out of the blue. “I didn’t start off with a ton of construction experience,” says Kotwicki, “so building a runway and cabins for students undergoing training was a steep learning curve for me. Still, the airplane was a totally different kind of ball game. Suddenly I’m working inside of a metal tube that’s round instead of square.”

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Finding the right plane

It took six months of calling around until Kotwicki finally found a plane available for purchase: a piston-powered DC-6. This type of aircraft is known for its ruggedness and reliability—an ideal fit for Alaska’s extreme and unforgiving environment.

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With the help of 20 laborers, Kotwicki worked from approximately eight a.m. until midnight daily throughout an entire Alaskan summer to turn his DC-6 into lodging, trying to preserve much of the aircraft’s interior while transforming it into a place where people would want to stay. The six-guest home looks just like a plane from the outside, and sits on a 100-acre private lot with trails for scenic summer walks and cross-country skiing in winter. Guests enter via the structure’s cargo loading door. Its two bedrooms and bathroom are situated in the far back, with the cockpit in front and a kitchen, dining room, and living room in the middle. There’s even an al fresco dining patio on the wing.

Kotwicki kept the interior’s industrial look by using regular sheet metal on the walls. He also utilized shiplap, a type of wooden planking with overlapped edges that was originally used to create watertight joints on ships. “It works well in a curved space,” he says. For the floors—which are heated—Kotwicki went with Luxury Vinyl Planks (LVP), a durable and water-resistant flooring made to mimic the look of wood.

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Original features include the front cockpit area, where both the captain and co-pilot chairs remain intact (along with many of its retro switches and original flight controls). The aircraft’s dome-shaped pressure bulkhead, which was once used to help maintain cabin pressure, serves as the headboard for its master bedroom’s king-size bed. There’s a washer and dryer onboard, and guests can even sip coffee and watch the morning sunrise right from the airplane’s fight deck.

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The completed DC-6 aircraft apartment features heated floors, a king size bed, and an onboard washer and dryer. Video: The FLY8MA Team/ Jon Kotwicki

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Open for lodging

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Kotwicki opened his vintage airplane house to visitors in August 2022, and it was an instant hit. The accommodation is especially popular throughout summer, when couples and families come to experience what has been called the area’s “most unique lodging” and revel in the midnight sun.

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“Kids just start sprinting up and down between the cockpit and the back, opening up doors and running back and forth,” says Kotwicki. “They’re excited to stay here and just go crazy. It’s pretty cool to watch.” Lodging starts at about $349 per night, not including taxes and fees.

More planes, more business

In the years since he first started transforming the DC-6, Kotwicki has become a certified aircraft mechanic and has acquired two more planes that he’s turned into lodging: a DC-9 from Fairbanks and a 727 that FedEx had donated to the local university. “They just weren’t sure what they were gonna do with the 727 in the long term,” says Kotwicki, “so I jokingly said I’d buy it.” In addition to the flight school and overnight stays, FLY8MA also offers scenic flight tours amid the region’s glacier-filled mountain surrounds.

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Kotwicki also converted this yellow DHL DC-9 aircraft into a three bedroom and two bathroom apartment. Image: The FLY8MA Team/ Jon Kotwicki

Kotwicki says that building a house out of aluminum in Alaska—a place where the sun beats down from directly overhead 20 hours a day during summer and in winter, negative air temperatures, and endless darkness are par for the course—is the “worst idea that a person could possibly have.” But it hasn’t stopped him from acquiring more aircraft. “I still didn’t know what I was getting into when I brought back the next two,” he says.

Turning a plane into a motor home

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But rather than building another stationary unit, he’s planning to turn a fourth plane (a C-119) into a motorhome to drive around the lower 48. “The idea is to get an old school bus or motor home and pull the body off of it,” he says. “Then to basically drop the airplane on top of the engine transmission chassis, and connect all the controls in the cockpit so I can drive it down the highway from there.”

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It may be a lofty goal but, for Kotwicki, turning high-flying ideas into reality has become second nature.

In The Workshop, Popular Science highlights the ingenious, delightful, and often surprising projects people build in their spare time. If you or someone you know is working on a hobbyist project that fits the bill, we’d love to hear about it—fill out this form to tell us more.

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Philly’s ‘transit vigilante’ created a real-time bus tracker for his neighbors

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The post A pilot turned an old plane into a two-bedroom apartment appeared first on Popular Science.

Why did this ancient bird die with tiny rocks in its throat?

Andrew Paul — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

Fossils may reveal what type of animal died millions of years ago, but they rarely depict exactly how they perished. Even rarer are the examples that clearly showcase an animal’s exact cause of death. In fact, a 120-million-year-old bird specimen housed at China’s Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature may be the only fossilized remains of its kind.

“There are thousands of bird fossils at the Shandong Tianyu Museum, but on my last trip to visit their collections, this one really jumped out at me,” Chicago’s Field Museum associate curator of fossil reptiles Jingmai O’Connor said in a statement. “I immediately knew it was a new species.”

Although its physiology and large teeth resembled a larger bird known as Longipteryx, the mystery avian was only about as large as a present-day sparrow. And then there was also the surprising discovery found while analyzing the fossils under a microscope, as O’Connor described in a study published on December 5 in the journal Palaeontologica Electronica.

“I noticed that it had this really weird mass of stones in its esophagus, right up against the neck bones,” said O’Connor. “This is really weird, because in all of the fossils that I know of, no one has ever found a mass of stones inside the throat of an animal.”

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An illustration showing Chromeornis in life. Credit: Sunny Dror

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That this ancient bird swallowed stones wasn’t surprising on its own. Multiple species throughout the evolutionary timeline are known gastroliths, meaning they either intentionally or accidentally consume small rocks while they eat. Chickens store tiny stones in their gizzard that help grind the food they ingest. Biologists have also documented similar behavior in crocodiles, ostriches, and even sea lions.

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But was the mystery bird a previously undiscovered gastrolith? To figure that out, O’Connor and colleagues reviewed their work using CT scans of fossils from birds who definitely relied on gizzard stones.

“We had quantified the average volume of the stones, the number of stones that these other fossil birds had in their gizzards, the size of the gizzard stone mass compared to the total size of the bird,” O’Connor said.

After examining a wide array of bird fossils, the paleontologists surprisingly uncovered that over 800 small stones in the specimen’s throat weren’t gizzard stones. Some were not even stones at all.

“They seemed to be more like tiny clay balls,” explained O’Connor. “With these data, we can very clearly say that these stones weren’t swallowed to help the bird crush its food.”

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With one question answered, another immediately arose: If the bird didn’t eat them as gizzard stones, then why did it ingest them at all? Luckily, O’Connor’s team already has a solid theory.

“When birds are sick, they start doing weird things,” she said.

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They now believe the ill animal started eating stones, then tried to regurgitate them as one large mass. Unfortunately, the mass was simply too big at that point, causing it to get stuck in the bird’s esophagus.

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“Even though we don’t know why this bird ate all those stones, I’m fairly certain that regurgitation of that mass caused it to choke, and that’s what killed that little bird,” said O’Connor.

After theorizing on the fossilized bird’s cause of death, the paleontologists decided on the new species’ name: Chromeornis funkyi. It might not roll off the tongue, but Chromeornis is still an ode to one of O’Connor’s favorite bands, the techno-funk duo Chromeo.

“We’ve been doing this for 20 years but this is the first time someone’s called us a dinosaur,” Chromeo said in a statement. “Jokes aside, this is an incredible honor to add to a career full of surprises. We’re glad to bring a little fossil funk to the great science of paleontology.”

The post Why did this ancient bird die with tiny rocks in its throat? appeared first on Popular Science.

The Sans holiday sale drops prices on these editor-approved air purifiers and water purifiers

Stan Horaczek — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 17:38:29 -0500

If your New Year’s resolution involves breathing cleaner air, drinking cleaner water, or just cutting down on the general funk that builds up in your home and body, Sans air and water purifiers can help. These are high-end devices that don’t typically get discounts, so these holiday sale prices are worth grabbing before they end.

Featured products

Remote Patient Monitoring program for blood pressure by UC Davis Health: A personalized, widely accessible program to resolve hypertension

Sans Air Purifier – HEPA 13 Filter, Activated Carbon and UV-C Light Save $140

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- - The glow lets you know how clean your air is. - -

Sans

@@ -8984,45 +9603,46 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - - See It + + Learn More

I have been testing this Flagship HEPA filter in my home for the past several weeks and I have been very impressed with how it performs. It’s extremely easy to set up and maintenance. The filter is easy to pull out to clean or replace. It operates nearly silently, even when it’s blowing at high power.

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The simple design fits in well with pretty much any decor and you can fully turn the lights on the display off if you’re using it in a bedroom. That’s a very thoughtful feature. As far as cleaning power goes, this model keeps the air clean throughout my entire house. Even when I had an air fryer mishap and burned some chicken fingers, it took just minutes to pull the burnt smell out of the air.

This is a high-end model with an extremely simple interface and that’s a good thing.

NanoKnife by AngioDynamics: A minimally invasive intervention for prostate cancer

Sans Water Purifier – Countertop Reverse Osmosis with UV Save $140

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- - This is one of the best-looking air purifiers around. - -

Sans

@@ -9031,200 +9651,258 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - - See It + + Learn More

This countertop everse-osmosis system offers UV purification that strips out a wide range of contaminants. Systems like this often require full professional installation, but this is a movable device with a relatively small footprint. Setup couldn’t be simpler. Put the pitcher in place, Fill up the tank. Plug in the machine, and it starts purifying.

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I have extremely hard water at my house so I like using this filter for drinking water. But, it’s also great for putting in my clothing steamer and developing film, both of which typically require me to use bottled water if I don’t want sediment deposits.

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Sans Air Mini Purifier Bundle Save $220
A smaller-format air purifier that’s sized for bedrooms, nurseries, home offices, or any smaller space where you still want HEPA-level filtration and odor control.

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Whole-home and multi-room air bundles

Bundle: The Healthy Home Bundle – Sans Save $470
A multi-piece kit built to overhaul the main living areas in one shot, pairing Sans air purifiers for high-traffic rooms and key spaces that collect dust, dander, and everyday pollutants.

Bundle: The Apartment Essentials Bundle – Sans Save $200
Designed with smaller footprints in mind, this bundle gives apartment dwellers coverage for living rooms, bedrooms, or studio layouts without overkill hardware.

Gadgets

Bundle: The Ultimate Home Bundle – Sans Save $530
The everything-at-once option, combining multiple purifiers to cover large homes or multi-story layouts so you can address bedrooms, common areas, and high-use rooms together.

Sans Air Mini multi-packs

Grand Award Winner, Gadgets

Bundle: Two Sans Air Purifier Minis Save $100
A pair of Minis that’s perfect for hitting two bedrooms, or splitting between a bedroom and a home office.

Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses and Neural Band by Meta: The first true face computer

Bundle: Three Sans Air Purifier Minis Save $200
A three-pack that makes it easy to cover kids’ rooms, a nursery, and a primary bedroom without juggling a single unit between spaces.

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Bundle: Four Sans Air Purifier Minis Save $300
A four-pack of Minis for whole-apartment or smaller-home coverage—or to outfit multiple rooms at once in a larger house.

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Air + water and hydration bundles

Bundle: Sans Air + Water Save $290
A straightforward pairing of a Sans air purifier and the countertop water purifier so you can address what you breathe and what you drink in one go.

Cosmos by Nvidia: A “world model” stack for physical AI

Bundle: Two Sans Self-Cleaning Water Bottles Save $40
A two-pack of self-cleaning bottles that use built-in tech to help keep your on-the-go water fresher between washes—ideal for commuters, gym-goers, or kids.
Bundle: Sans Water Purifier + Two Self-Cleaning Water Bottles Save $180
Pairs the countertop reverse-osmosis system with two self-cleaning bottles so you can purify at home, then take that cleaner water with you all day.

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Want to see everything in one place? You can also browse the broader bundle lineup here: All Sans bundles

The post The Sans holiday sale drops prices on these editor-approved air purifiers and water purifiers appeared first on Popular Science.

Why using a donkey to treat whooping cough makes sense

Laura Baisas — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:45:00 -0500

Rubbing a black snail on a wart and impailing the creature with a thorn will make the bumps go away. Giving a donkey some bread will treat whooping cough. Mumps can be cured if you rub your head on the back of a pig. They may sound a bit strange now, but folk remedies like these are an important part of human history. Folk treatments can help explain more about everyday life in the past and how belief systems evolve.

In rural Ireland, using pigs to cure mumps and snails for warts are just some of the hundreds of remedies once believed to be cures. To learn more, a team from Brunel University of London combed through a rare archive of 3,655 folk cures first collected in the 1930s in order to test an anthropological theory: People are more likely to turn to religious or supernatural remedies when the cause of the illness is vague. Their findings are detailed in a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Building a folklore archive

Antigravity A1 by Insta360: A 360-degree drone for photo-first flying

In 1937, the Irish Folklore Commission began a project to document and collect forgotten Irish lore with the help of some young researchers. Partnering with the Irish Department of Education, the commission asked primary school students to document the folklore in their own communities. About 50,000 schoolchildren were given notebooks and asked to interview their parents, grandparents, and neighbors all about local history, beliefs, and cures.

This study builds on earlier anthropology research that found ritual behavior flourished under uncertainty, such as fishermen saying prayers when heading into dangerous seas. In these often frightening situations, the team argues that belief systems fill in gaps when nothing quite explains what is going on around us. While these beliefs are rooted in history and may seem quaint by modern standards, the team feels that they can still apply.

“It’s pretty unsatisfying just not having a solution of any form,” said de Barra. “When there aren’t particularly good medical solutions, I expect people will keep searching for something that makes sense.”

Emergency Services

In future work, the team hopes to examine the geographic spread of these beliefs using the original school records from the districts that participated in the Irish Folklore Commission’s project to trace how folk medicine traveled, clustered, or faded away.

“This is such a rich resource and there’s still more to uncover,” said de Barra.

The post Why using a donkey to treat whooping cough makes sense appeared first on Popular Science.

REI is blowing out coats, jackets, and tons more clothing for clearance prices during its winter sale

Popular Science Team — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:39:14 -0500

You don’t need to be an outdoor enthusiast or weather researcher to appreciate a good winter jacket. Whether you’re waiting for a bus, shoveling the driveway, or doing winter sports, you’ll want to stay warm and dry. Right now, REI is throwing its annual winter sale, which has dropped prices on just about every piece of clothing you could ever want. That includes high-end down jackets and simple base layers. You won’t get another shot at these prices this year, so get them now and stay warm all season.

Grand Award Winner, Emergency Services

Men’s editor’s picks

NISAR satellite by NASA: Mapping entire land and ice-covered surface of Earth every 12 days

REI Co-op 650 Down Hoodie – Men's $89.39 (was $149.00)

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- - The 650 down makes it extremely warm. - -

REI Co-op

@@ -9233,37 +9911,34 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - - See It + + Learn More

This is the classic do-everything puffy: light enough to stuff into a daypack, warm enough for frosty dog walks and shoulder-season hikes, and simple enough to wear as an everyday winter jacket around town.

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SoyFoam TF 1122 by Cross Plains Solutions: Fighting fires without PFAS forever chemicals

Patagonia Jackson Glacier Down Parka – Men's $418.83 (was $599.00)

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- - I love an understated parka. - -

Patagonia

@@ -9272,435 +9947,742 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - - See It + + Learn More

This long, insulated parka leans into cold, wet city winters—think slushy sidewalks, long commutes, and nights standing on the sidelines at a game—while still looking clean and streamlined enough to wear to work or out to dinner.

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Men’s down & insulated jackets, parkas & vests

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REI Co-op 650 Down Jacket – Men’s $77.39 (was $129.00)

REI Co-op Campwell Down Parka – Men’s $137.39 (was $229.00)

Pit Viper 360 by Bounce Imaging: World’s first 360° thermal tactical throwable camera

REI Co-op 650 Down Vest – Men’s $59.89 (was $99.95)

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Rab Valiance Down Jacket – Men’s $311.19 (was $415.00)

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REI Co-op 650 Down Hoodie – Men’s $89.39 (was $149.00)

Patagonia Jackson Glacier Down Parka – Men’s $418.83–$599.00 (was $599.00)

National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) by U.S. Fire Administration: Replacing legacy National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), offering advanced analytics and seamless interoperability

REI Co-op Campwell Quilted Down Jacket – Men’s $88.93 (was $119.00)

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Marmot Guides Down Hoody – Men’s $119.73 (was $275.00)

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Helly Hansen Odin Stretch Insulator Jacket 2.0 – Men’s $149.73–$181.73 (was $250.00–$260.00)

The North Face Jacket 2000 Insulated Jacket – Men’s $149.73 (was $200.00)

Power X2 Ambulance Cot and Power F2 Fastening System by Ferno Norden: Advancing the future of emergency medical services

Arc’teryx Thorium Down Jacket – Men’s $315.09–$360.09 (was $450.00)
Mountain Hardwear Stretchdown Hoody – Men’s $239.99 (was $320.00)

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Helly Hansen Isfjord Insulated Shacket – Men’s $123.73 (was $180.00)

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Boulder Gear Voyage Insulated Puffy Jacket – Men’s $69.73–$82.73 (was $100.00–$110.00)

Mountain Hardwear Deloro Down Vest – Men’s $120.73 (was $190.00)

Smartwool Smartloft Hooded Insulated Jacket – Men’s $176.73 (was $295.00)

Auto

Men’s rain jackets & running shells

Marmot PreCip Eco Pro Rain Jacket – Men’s $119.73 (was $160.00)

Grand Award Winner, Auto

Brooks Canopy Jacket – Men’s $94.73 (was $130.00)

Greentell Brakes by Brembo: Bye bye, brake dust. Hello, longer-lasting brakes

REI Co-op Campwell Rain Jacket – Men’s $94.93 (was $159.00)
Helly Hansen Verglas Infinity Shell Jacket – Men’s $269.73 (was $450.00)

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Boulder Gear Stratus Rain Jacket – Men’s $52.73–$59.73 (was $70.00–$80.00)

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REI Co-op Swiftland Pack Running Anorak $65.93 (was $94.95)

Multi-adaptive seat belts by Volvo: At long last, seat belts that truly fit

Men’s fleece, sweaters & flannel midlayers

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Fjallraven Singi Flannel Overshirt – Men’s $112.49 (was $150.00)

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Patagonia Lightweight Synchilla Snap-T Fleece Pullover – Men’s $104.73 (was $139.00)

The North Face TKA Glacier Full-Zip Jacket – Men’s $59.73 (was $80.00)

Automated Road Test System (ARTS) by QTPIE: No more riding with strangers to get a driver’s license

Arc’teryx Delta Pullover Hoody – Men’s $145.73 (was $180.00)

Patagonia Retro Pile Half-Snap Pullover – Men’s $113.73–$139.73 (was $189.00)

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KUHL Dillingr Flannel Shirt – Men’s $68.93–$99.00 (was $99.00)

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KUHL Ryzer Quarter-Zip Sweater – Men’s $73.93–$99.00 (was $99.00)

The North Face Gordon Lyons Full-Zip Jacket – Men’s $89.73 (was $120.00)

Flexible manufacturing by Honda: A smart pivoting option as America weighs its powertrain direction

REI Co-op Campwell Fleece Pullover – Men’s $53.89 (was $89.95)

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Fjallraven 1960 Logo Badge Sweater – Men’s $49.83–$100.00 (was $100.00)

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Free Country Easywear Flannel Shirt – Men’s $59.73 (was $90.00)

Mountain Hardwear Summit Grid Big Grid Hoody – Men’s $82.49 (was $110.00)

The Donut Motor by Donut Lab: Enabling lighter, cheaper, and more powerful electric machines

Patagonia R1 Pullover – Men’s $73.83–$149.00 (was $149.00)

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VISSLA Eco-Zy Long-Sleeve Polar Flannel Shirt – Men’s $56.73 (was $74.95)

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Smartwool Sparod Crew Sweater – Men’s $74.73 (was $105.00)

Mountain Hardwear Glacial Trail Pullover Hoody – Men’s $81.73 (was $110.00)

Helly Hansen Maridalen Fleece Pullover – Men’s $82.73–$86.73 (was $120.00)

The North Face Tekware Grid Hybrid Full-Zip Jacket – Men’s $97.73 (was $130.00)

Home

Topo Designs Vista Quarter-Zip Lightweight Fleece Pullover – Men’s $48.83–$99.00

Arc’teryx Covert Cardigan – Men’s $146.73 (was $180.00)

Grand Award Winner, Home

Smartwool Intraknit Active Jacket – Men’s $158.73 (was $220.00)

Spin&Load rack by Whirlpool: A dishwasher lower rack that actually comes to you

Patagonia Re-Tool Jacket – Men’s $137.73 (was $199.00)

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Sherpa Adventure Gear Ranga Button Mock-Neck Sweater – Men’s $83.73–$99.73 (was $140.00)

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The North Face Lightrange Sunriser Quarter-Zip – Men’s $59.73 (was $80.00)

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Men’s base layers & thermal bottoms

RMA 448 V lawn mower by Stihl: A one-sided handle that simplifies bagging and storage

REI Co-op Merino 185 Long-Sleeve Base Layer Top – Men’s $55.89 (was $79.95)

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REI Co-op Merino 185 Long-Sleeve Half-Zip Base Layer Top – Men’s $62.89 (was $89.95)

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REI Co-op Merino 185 Base Layer Bottoms – Men’s $55.89 (was $79.95)

Icebreaker Merino 200 Oasis Long-Sleeve Crewe Thermal Top – Men’s $78.69 (was $105.00)

Dyson HushJet Purifier Compact: Jet-style airflow without the jet-engine noise

REI Co-op Lightweight Long-Sleeve Crew Base Layer Top – Men’s $27.93–$39.95 (was $39.95)

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Icebreaker 260 Merino Tech Thermal Leggings with Fly – Men’s $93.69 (was $125.00)

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Icebreaker Merino 200 Oasis Base Layer Leggings with Fly – Men’s $78.69 (was $105.00)
Icebreaker Merino 260 Tech Long-Sleeve Crewe Thermal Top – Men’s $93.69 (was $125.00)

Smartwool Intraknit Thermal Merino Crew Base Layer Top – Men’s $92.73 (was $130.00)

Solar Roof Tiles by Jackery: Curved crystalline panels that behave like actual roofing

Free Country Force Grid Fleece Base Layer Top – Men’s $29.73 (was $45.00)

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Arc’teryx Rho LT Base Layer Bottoms – Men’s $79.73 (was $100.00)

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Helly Hansen LIFA Tech Lite Pullover Hoodie – Men’s $61.73 (was $100.00)

Men’s performance shirts, sun shirts & running layers

Refillable Air Filter Kit by Filtrete: A reusable HVAC frame with collapsible refills

REI Co-op Active Pursuits Long-Sleeve T-Shirt – Men’s $23.93–$34.95 (was $34.95)

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REI Co-op Sahara Long-Sleeve T-Shirt – Men’s $29.93 (was $39.95)

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Arc’teryx Cormac Crew Long-Sleeve Shirt – Men’s $55.93–$63.93 (was $80.00)

Patagonia Capilene Cool Daily Shirt – Men’s $35.93–$45.00 (was $45.00)

Patagonia Capilene Cool Daily Graphic T-Shirt – Men’s $43.93 (was $55.00)

Sports & Outdoors

Arc’teryx Cormac Hoody – Men’s $62.93–$71.93 (was $90.00)

NRS Silkweight Baja Sun Shirt – Men’s $56.73 (was $79.95)

Grand Award Winner, Sports & Outdoors

REI Co-op Campwell Henley Shirt – Men’s $36.93–$49.95 (was $49.95)

Mimikai Insect Repellent by Mimikai: The first biomimicry insect repellent

REI Co-op Sahara T-Shirt – Men’s $16.83 (was $34.95)

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REI Co-op Swiftland Running T-Shirt – Men’s $27.93–$44.95 (was $44.95)

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Patagonia Capilene Cool Daily Graphic Long-Sleeve Shirt – Men’s $51.93 (was $65.00)

Arc’teryx Cormac Logo Long-Sleeve Shirt – Men’s $55.93–$63.93 (was $80.00)

Fade 101 by Solk: A sneaker that’s beautiful, holds up, and won’t poison the planet

REI Co-op Swiftland Running Vest – Men’s $48.93 (was $69.95)
VISSLA Twisted Long-Sleeve Rashguard – Men’s $26.83 (was $55.00)

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Columbia PFG Tamiami II Long-Sleeve Shirt – Men’s $37.83–$55.00

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Smartwool Active Ultralite T-Shirt – Men’s $48.73 (was $65.00)

REI Co-op Swiftland Grid Running T-Shirt – Men’s $30.93–$49.95

Advanced Mountain Kit by The North Face: The most versatile high alpine clothing

Men’s pants & everyday bottoms

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REI Co-op Trailmade Pants – Men’s $51.93–$69.95 (was $69.95)

+ Learn More

KÜHL Deceptr Pants – Men’s $73.93 (was $99.00)

REI Co-op Sahara Stretch Convertible Pants – Men’s $49.83 (was $99.95)

Daylight DC-1 by Daylight Computer: The first computer designed to be used outdoors

REI Co-op Campwell Pants – Men’s $55.89 (was $79.95)

Vuori Maverick Volley Shorts – Men’s $36.83–$50.93 (was $74.00)

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REI Co-op Active Pursuits 6″ Shorts $14.83–$49.95

+ + + + Learn More + +

Patagonia Powder Town Pants – Men’s $186.73 (was $249.00)

The North Face Easy Wind Pants – Men’s $66.73 (was $90.00)

Deflectr RLS Bike Helmet by Canyon: The most effective brain-protective helmet system is on the outside

Patagonia Hydropeak Board Shorts – Men’s 18″ Outseam $36.83 (was $75.00)

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Roark Alta 5″ Shorts – Men’s $24.83–$85.00

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Socks & accessories

Icebreaker Ski+ Medium OTC Socks – Men’s $23.73 (was $31.00)

Woolrich Merino Wool Hiking Crew Socks – Men’s $17.73 (was $20.00–$22.95)

Engineering

Icebreaker Multisport Light Mini Socks – Men’s $14.73 (was $19.00)

Grand Award Winner, Engineering

Women’s editor’s picks

Superwood by InventWood: Stronger than steel and 6 times lighter, no blast furnace required

REI Co-op 650 Down Jacket – Women's $77.39 (was $129.00)

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- - The down makes it warm but super light. - -

REI Co-op

@@ -9709,76 +10691,50 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - - See It + + Learn More

This is a go-to everyday puffy that punches way above its price, with warm 650-fill down, a clean look for town, and enough packability to live in your daypack all winter.

Steel is responsible for roughly 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but is so reliable that builders don’t want to go without.

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Arc'teryx Thorium Down Hoody – Women's $350.09–$400.09 (was $500.00)

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- - This is a burly winter jacket that will keep you warm no matter what. - -

Arc’teryx

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The Thorium is a premium down hoody built for serious cold, combining lofty down with strategic synthetic insulation in moisture-prone areas so it stays warm even when conditions get messy.

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Sand Battery by Polar Night Energy: An industrial-scale thermal battery out of sand to avoid fires and mining pollution

Outdoor Research Aspire 3L Jacket – Women's $186.69–$249.00

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- - The bright color is great for exploring and skiing in the back country. - -

Outdoor Research

@@ -9787,1339 +10743,2559 @@ A tall, slender, white rocket with blue tail fins, featuring a circular blue and - - See It + + Learn More

This 3-layer waterproof shell is made for truly wet weather, with breathable fabric, pit zips, and a longer cut that works for everything from all-day hikes in the rain to commuting through downpours.

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Women’s down & insulated jackets, parkas & vests

REI Co-op 650 Down Jacket – Women’s $77.39 (was $129.00)

REI Co-op Campwell Down Parka – Women’s $137.39 (was $229.00)

Arc’teryx Thorium Down Hoody – Women’s $350.09–$400.09 (was $500.00)

Willow Quantum by Google: A chip that actually makes fewer errors as the number of physical qubits increases

REI Co-op 650 Down Vest – Women’s $59.89 (was $99.95)

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REI Co-op Powderbound Insulated Jacket – Women’s $113.83–$229.00

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+ + + + Learn More + +

The North Face Sequoia Triclimate 3-in-1 Jacket – Women’s $262.73 (was $350.00)

Patagonia Lost Canyon Insulated Vest – Women’s $132.73 (was $189.00)

Helly Hansen Verglas Backcountry Jacket – Women’s $239.73 (was $400.00)

REI Co-op Swiftland Insulated Running Jacket – Women’s $69.93–$99.95

Populus Hotel by Urban Villages/Studio Gang: an Eco-Hotel That Takes Sustainability Seriously and Looks Like an Aspen Tree

Patagonia Re-Tool Hybrid Jacket – Women’s $179.73 (was $299.00)
Columbia Silver Falls II Insulated Jacket – Women’s $75.73 (was $110.00)

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Patagonia Corduroy Overshirt Jacket – Women’s $134.73 (was $179.00)

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Arc’teryx Allium Insulated Jacket – Women’s $239.73 (was $300.00)

The North Face ThermoBall Eco Insulated Jacket 2.0 – Women’s $172.73 (was $230.00)

Women’s rain jackets & technical shells

REI Co-op Activator Soft-Shell Hoodie – Women’s $69.83 (was $169.00)

Delivery Zip by Zipline: An autonomous drone system safely winching burritos down into the front of Dallas homes

Outdoor Research Aspire 3L Jacket – Women’s $186.69–$249.00

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+ + This is a sweet spot for users who want to keep something on-hand for emergencies. + +

REI Co-op Campwell Rain Jacket – Women’s $94.93 (was $159.00)

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+ + + + Learn More + +

Marmot PreCip Eco Pro Rain Jacket – Women’s $119.73 (was $160.00)
Patagonia Storm Shift Jacket – Women’s $374.73 (was $499.00)

Women’s fleece, hoodies & midlayers

BOWN 2025 Credits:

Vuori Halo Performance Hoodie 2.0 – Women’s $77.93–$98.00

Package Leads and Judges: Annie Colbert and Stan Horaczek

Patagonia Glorya Hooded Long-Sleeve Top – Women’s $63.73 (was $85.00)

Editors, writers, and researchers: Laura Baisas, Berne Broudy, Annie Colbert, Julia Daye, Rachel Feltman, Alan Haburchak, Stan Horaczek, Jenni Miller, Andrew Rosenblum, Kristin Shaw

REI Co-op Campwell Fleece Pullover – Women’s $53.89 (was $89.95)

Fact checker: Alex Schwartz

Mountain Hardwear Summit Grid Big Grid Hoody – Women’s $82.49 (was $110.00)

Art Director: Tag Hartman-Simkins

The post The 50 greatest innovations of 2025 appeared first on Popular Science.

Save hundreds on EF ECOFLOW solar generators and portable power stations with this limited Amazon deal

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:10:22 -0500

Patagonia Lightweight Synchilla Snap-T Pullover – Women’s $104.73 (was $139.00)

Editor’s picks: Standout EF ECOFLOW power deals

REI Co-op Campwell Fleece Jacket – Women’s $59.89 (was $99.95)

EF ECOFLOW DELTA 2 1024Wh Portable Power Station $399 (was $479)

Patagonia R1 Jacket – Women’s $117.93–$169.00

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+ +

EF ECOFLOW

Free Country UltraFill Knit Cowl Neck Top – Women’s $48.73 (was $70.00)

+ + + + See It + +

prAna Wooly Bird Fleece Half-Zip Jacket – Women’s $79.73 (was $155.00)

The North Face Osito Lux Jacket – Women’s $51.73 (was $130.00)

EF ECOFLOW DELTA Pro Ultra 6144Wh + Smart Home Panel 2 $4,999 (was $7,499)

REI Co-op Flash Hyperstretch Fleece Jacket – Women’s $49.83–$99.95

+ + + + + +

+ +

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EF ECOFLOW DELTA 2 1024Wh Portable Power Station $399 (was $479)
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EF ECOFLOW DELTA 3 Max 2048Wh Portable Power Station $798 (was $1,199)
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Female Galápagos birds flaunt their sexual partners. The males don’t seem to mind.

Andrew Paul — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:48:27 -0500

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“That’s just mind-blowing for a seabird,” said Anderson. “Many of these female boobies are really freewheeling it when it comes to sexual behavior.”

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So, why the permissiveness among male Nazca boobies? According to the study’s authors, the answer can be phrased as its own question: What choice do the male Nazca boobies have?

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As to the benefits of such a free spirited lifestyle, the biologists are still searching for an explanation.

“Why are these females doing it, if it’s not leading to a fertilized egg?” said Anderson. “We would very much like to know the answer to that.”

The post Female Galápagos birds flaunt their sexual partners. The males don’t seem to mind. appeared first on Popular Science.

The latest Polaroid instant film camera is down to just $99 at Amazon making it a killer holiday gift

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:14:04 -0500

- -

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Polaroid Now 3rd Generation I-Type Instant Film Camera – Black – Camera Only $99 (was $129)

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It even offers some clever creative shooting modes, like double exposure, which lets you take two images on the same negative to create a unique overlaid effect.

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Sure, you could go out and buy a vintage Polaroid camera, but they often run into issues, the worst of which involves flat spots on the film rollers, which leads to ruined photos.

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DNA reveals new stories about Pompeii’s victims

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The post The latest Polaroid instant film camera is down to just $99 at Amazon making it a killer holiday gift appeared first on Popular Science.

Rare 19th century pistol used to rob Tulsa liquor store

Andrew Paul — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 13:21:07 -0500

This article has been updated to include additional source commentary.

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Authorities soon apprehended and charged the suspect before providing some additional details about the weapon.

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According to firearms historian Michael Helms, law enforcement’s initial assessment is slightly off target—regardless of whether you spell “Derringer” with one “r” or two.

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“In this case, the hammer is attached to the forward trigger, which was used to ‘cock’ the gun. The trigger behind it would have released the hammer and fired the gun,” he added.

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However, after examining the available photo, firearms historian Ashley Hlebinsky believes that the answer is pretty clear.

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In the end, there are a few reasons why only a handful of the guns were produced, with technological innovation being the primary explanation.

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“All the same, this is an interesting antique pistol,” Helms conceded.

The post Rare 19th century pistol used to rob Tulsa liquor store appeared first on Popular Science.

Pompeii’s ruins challenge Rome’s famous concrete recipe

Stan Horaczek — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

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A volcanic secret ingredient

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The post REI is blowing out coats, jackets, and tons more clothing for clearance prices during its winter sale appeared first on Popular Science.

Robot dog with Elon Musk’s head poops out AI generated art

Andrew Paul — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:01:11 -0500

Robot dogs are already a bit creepy. But slap on a hyper-realistic image of a tech billionaire’s face and have them literally crap out a piece of AI-generated art and you’re left with something that would make Black Mirror producers shudder.

That’s exactly what’s on display at Art Basel Miami, one of the world’s most prodigious art fairs. In Regular Animals, the event space is crowded with six flesh-toned robotic dogs, each bearing a detached, photorealistic head of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, or the installation’s creator, digital artist Beeple. Every few moments, the dogs stop, lean back on their hind legs, and pinch off a Polaroid-like print from their rear ends. A small LED screen on each dog’s back flashes “POOP MODE” while this performance art occurs.

Beeple's REGULAR ANIMALS debut at Art Basel today
with Elon + Zuck finally in the ring, and Bezos too pic.twitter.com/DsGwg8vj8H
— Steve Jurvetson (@FutureJurvetson) December 3, 2025

BUCKLE UP pic.twitter.com/SuLwQizLxj
— beeple (@beeple) December 4, 2025

“We don’t want to completely copy Roman concrete today,” said Masic. “We just want to translate a few sentences from this book of knowledge into our modern construction practices.”

The post Pompeii’s ruins challenge Rome’s famous concrete recipe appeared first on Popular Science.

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Mack DeGeurin — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:45:05 -0500

“What if the act of looking at art were no longer a one-way encounter, but part of a feedback loop in which the artwork observes, learns, and remembers us in return?” Beeple said in an artist statement accompanying the installation.

Each of the human-dog hybrids has cameras located around its head, continuously capturing photos of the surrounding environment. That data is used (presumably with the help of an AI image generator) to create the prints that the dogs “poop” out. Much like AI-generated slop flooding the internet, these digital creations are voluminous. The New York Post reports that the robots will collectively produce 1,028 prints over the course of the exhibit, 256 of which are verifiable NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that can be listed on cryptocurrency marketplaces. Each image is labeled “Excrement Sample.” Unlike an actual dog’s daily sample, these will likely rack up monetary value over time.

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But while the end products are appropriately crappy, no two photos are exactly alike. The piles of prints each carry an aesthetic that reflects the personality of the human head attached to the dog. The Picasso images appear geometric, while those pushed out of the Zuckerberg dog’s rectum look like a clip from a low-budget Matrix knockoff. More examples of the prints, which Beeple refers to as “memories,” are viewable on the installation website.

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The human-dog hybrids featured at Art Basel Miami. Image: Beeple Studios.

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‘Beyond disturbing’

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Each artist or billionaire inspired robot dog has its own “temperament.” For example, Elon Musk’s is described as a “cognitive blueprint,” while Picasso’s is “proto-cubism.” (Beeple’s dog, for what it’s worth, has a temperament of “dystopic futurism”). Each also has its own speed setting—slow, medium, or fast. Maybe unsurprisingly, the tech billionaires all fall into the fast category.

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This dystopian fever dream is the brain-child of Mike Winkelmann, (aka Beeple) an artist best known for his oddball NFT images created at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. He gained mainstream attention in 2021after a collection of 5,000 of his images sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s in its first-ever NFT auction.

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Beyond fueling nightmares, Beeple says the bigger point of this robodog project is to draw attention to how more and more of the observable world consists of benign design, created to fulfill the vision of a select few techno-billionaires. That, he says, contrasts with past eras, when artists played a greater role in shaping reality.

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A robot dog featuring the face of Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg is part of an exhibition at Art Basel Miami. Image: Beeple Studios.

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“It used to be that we saw the world interpreted through the eyes of artists, but now Mark Zuckerberg and Elon, in particular, control a huge amount of how we see the world,” Beeple told The New York Post. “We see the world through their eyes because they control these very powerful algorithms that decide what we see.”

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Reactions to the installation, at least so far, seem notably less highbrow. Commentators online have described the event as “terrifying,” “absurd,” and “beyond disturbing.”

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One Instagram user, conversely, said they “want one” referring to the dog-human hybrid. Apparently, they aren’t alone. The Post notes that all of the robots on display have already sold, for $100,000 each. While it’s unclear who the dogs’ new owners are, plenty of deep-pocketed Silicon Valley titans and artists attended Art Basel.

The post Robot dog with Elon Musk’s head poops out AI generated art appeared first on Popular Science.

Pond frogs devour murder hornets, stinger and all

Andrew Paul — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:55:00 -0500

In hindsight, the North American “murder hornet” (Vespa mandarinia) scare of 2020 was probably a bit overblown (not to mention culturally problematic). Of course, you still want to avoid the venomous sting from a northern giant hornet, as they’re now known. According to entomologist Masato Ono, receiving a dose of the insect’s potent, neurotoxic venom felt “like a hot nail being driven into my leg.” And while not necessarily as painful, it’s still best to keep clear of similar yellow hornets like V. analis or V. simillima.

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However, some animals have no fear of a hornet’s stinger. What’s more, certain birds and spiders willingly seek the insects out as meals. Some frog species also have an appetite for hornets.

“Although stomach-content studies had shown that pond frogs sometimes eat hornets, no experimental work had ever examined how this occurs,” Kobe University ecologist Sugiura Shinji said in a statement.

The venomous stinger of an northern giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia). The venom injected by this stinger can cause sharp, intense pain as well as local tissue damage and systemic effects such as destruction of red blood cells and cardiac dysfunction, which may even be fatal. Credit: Shinji Sugiura / Ecosphere

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One of the most pressing mysteries is whether or not these amphibians devour hornets in a way that avoids their stingers, or if they simply tolerate the venom. To fill in this knowledge gap, Suguira and fellow researchers recently offered all three hornet species (V. mandarinia, V. analis, and V. simillima) to hungry black-spotted pond frogs (Pelophylax nigromaculatus). The team only used each frog once, and paired them with the hornet species that corresponded to their size. The largest frogs received a roughly 1.75-inch-long northern giant hornet. They then recorded how the amphibians reacted to their potential snacks.

The results detailed in the journal Ecosphere were unambiguous. Frogs attacked and consumed V. simillima, V. analis, and V. mandarinia at a respective rate of 93, 87, and 79 percent. They didn’t avoid the stingers, either. In some cases, the frogs were even stung in the mouths and eyes.

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“While a mouse of similar size can die from a single sting, the frogs showed no noticeable harm even after being stung repeatedly,” explained Suigiura. “This extraordinary level of resistance to powerful venom makes the discovery both unique and exciting.”

Frogs may have evolved to tolerate both the hornet venom and its resulting pain. Credit: Shinji Sugiura, Ecosphere

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Prior studies have indicated there isn’t always a connection between pain and lethality in a venomous insect’s sting. A single sting from a bullet ant (Paraponera clavata), may make you feel like you’re dying, but you’ll most likely survive an encounter with the world’s most notoriously painful insect. Meanwhile, a common bee sting may be enough to kill someone allergic to their venom. Knowing this, Suigiura theorizes that the pond frogs used in his study may have evolved a double tolerance to both the hornet venom’s pain and toxicity.

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“This raises an important question for future work,” he said. “Namely, whether pond frogs have physiological mechanisms such as physical barriers or proteins that block the pain and toxicity of hornet venom, or whether hornet toxins have simply not evolved to be effective in amphibians, which rarely attack hornet colonies.”

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With the confirmation that certain frogs are more than happy to dine on stinging hornets, researchers may soon study the amphibians in the hopes of identifying their mechanisms of venom tolerance. Once better understood, the information could inform new antivenoms, as well as medical treatments tailored towards pain resistance.

The post Pond frogs devour murder hornets, stinger and all appeared first on Popular Science.

Afraid your fish is too fishy? Smart sensors might save your nose

Mack DeGeurin — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:03:00 -0500

A new biosensor made out of needles most commonly seen in dermatology clinics and medspas could make the fresh fish “smell test” seem antiquated.

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For as long as humans have eaten fish, we’ve identified rot or spoilage by looking for a handful of physical signs. Cloudy eyes, bruised gills, and the unmistakable “fishy” smell are all signs that a piece of salmon might lead to gastric distress or worse. Though relatively effective, these observable signs take time to develop, time during which the fish may already be decomposing. A far more accurate method involves detecting faint traces of metabolic compounds that appear during the earliest stages of spoilage. While that is possible now, these methods typically require large, controlled laboratory settings.

Researchers at the American Chemical Society believe their new “microneedle based freshness sensors” device could make that process much more efficient. Detailed this week in the journal ACS Sensors, the team describes a small device made from an array of microneedles that inserts into a dead fish (or fillets) and continuously measures hypoxanthine (HX), a key compound closely associated with spoilage.

This new sensor determined exactly how fresh a piece of fish was within two minutes. Image:
Khazaei et al., ACS Sensors, 2025.

In their experiment, the researchers tested fish samples at varying levels of decay and found that the device could deliver a highly accurate freshness reading in under two minutes. They are hopeful the sensor could bring laboratory-level freshness evaluations to more fish markets—and possibly spare some unwilling victims from having to take a whiff of rotting seafood.

“The ability of the biosensor to monitor HX levels directly in fish samples without extensive pretreatment makes it a valuable tool for assessing fish freshness and quality in real-time,” the researchers write in the paper. “Its portability, fast response time, and ease of use make it ideal for on-site applications in fish markets, processing facilities, and food safety inspections.”

Scientist poked rancid fish with needles

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The device is a four-by-four, 3D-printed microneedle array coated with gold nanoparticles. These particles carry an enzyme that can break down any HX compound present when they come into contact with fish. The sensors then measure the resulting changes in the manipulated molecules, a process the team says corresponds to levels of freshness. Some of those early indicators of decomposition notably appear before any physical signs are noticeable to the human eye (or nose).

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Several microneedle sensors attached to the fish immediately begin emitting an enzyme that disturbs molecules associated with rot. Image: Khazaei et al., ACS Sensors, 2025.

In the testing phase, the sensor was inserted into fish samples that had been left at room temperature for 0, 6, 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours, the last of which is more than enough time for spoilage to occur. Overall, the researchers observed a, “progressive increase in HX levels over time,” with concentrations rising steadily throughout the entire test period. That consistent uptick mirrors already established results from controlled laboratory studies. At the lower end, the microneedle sensors detected HX concentrations below 500 parts per billion, which is considered “very fresh.” In other words, keeping the sensor in the fish allowed the researchers to pinpoint the moment the sample began to deteriorate.

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‘Smart sensors’ could reshape industrial-scale food safety

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Charges quickly
Very high output that can run power-hungry devices
Built-in wheels and handle
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Expandable with extra batteries
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Heavy
Slightly less capacity than our previous pick

+ Specs

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+ + Output capacity + + + 6,000w +
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+ + Weight + + + 61 pounds +
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Sensors of various shapes and sizes are becoming common staples in the increasingly industrialized and high-tech world of global food production. Two years ago, engineers at Koç University in Turkey designed a battery free, smartphone controllable sensor device that can be applied directly to the surface of protein-rich meats like beef to remotely monitor their spoilage rates. Meanwhile, over at MIT, researchers developed Velcro-like food sensors (also made with microneedles) designed to attach to plastic food packaging and detect signs of contamination. In this system, the needles were coated with a bioink that changes color when they encounter fluids with pH levels associated with spoilage. For example, the sensors shift from blue to red when they come into contact with E. coli and other harmful bacteria.

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More recently, researchers at the University of Connecticut developed a machine-learning AI model that analyzes data continuously collected from 12 sensors measuring dairy samples and used it to identify patterns associated with the presence of pathogens. In testing, the model was able to detect eight different pathogens and bacteria that cause spoilage in milk in under two hours, with 98 percent accuracy.

As for the fish sensor, the chemists and engineers developing the device are hopeful it could make a real-world impact in the seafood industry, though it’s not quite ready for commercial use. For now, it is also limited primarily to measuring fish, because the HX spoilage thresholds at the core of its detection method can vary significantly between animal species.

Until then, it looks like the smell test inevitably remains an unpleasant but necessary fallback for most home cooks.

The post Afraid your fish is too fishy? Smart sensors might save your nose appeared first on Popular Science.

Medieval volcanoes may have ignited the Black Death

Andrew Paul — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

While fleas, rats, and global trade played a major role, no single organism or action allowed the bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis) to wreak havoc during the 14th century. Understanding the complex network of preceding events and their consequences is the only way to get a clearer picture of the Black Death’s infamous devastation. Now, researchers say newly analyzed evidence suggests an additional, unexpected reason for the plague’s medieval resurgence.

Writing in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, a team from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Germany’s Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) say one or multiple volcanic eruptions around 1345 helped usher in the pandemic that ultimately killed 30 to 50 percent of the population across Africa, Central Asia, and Europe.

“This is something I’ve wanted to understand for a long time,” Ulf Büntgen, a University of Cambridge geographer and study coauthor, said in a statement. “What were the drivers of the onset and transmission of the Black Death, and how unusual were they? Why did it happen at this exact time and place in European history? It’s such an interesting question, but it’s one no one can answer alone.”

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Close-up of tree ring samples taken from the Pyrenees, showing ‘blue rings.’ Credit: Ulf Büntgen

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+ Pros

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High capacity and expandable
High output
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Heavy
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To investigate these lingering questions, Büntgen’s team collaborated with GWZO medieval climate and epidemiology historian Martin Bausch to collect high-resolution data and documentary evidence from the years before the Black Death’s arrival. Researchers were particularly interested in examining food security systems and famines during that time to better contextualize what they describe as a “perfect storm” for the plague.

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However, the breakthrough came in the form of a comparatively innocuous dataset: centuries’ old trees in Spanish Pyrenees. Each ring in a tree trunk tells the story of a particular year. Many of the rings hinted at unusually cold and wet summers in 1345 to 1347. A single cooler summer isn’t particularly telling, but it’s far rarer to see multiple consecutive summers with similarly cold temperatures.

Researchers then corroborated these summers to written primary sources, which noted oddly cloudy skies and dark lunar eclipses. Taken together, the written sources and tree rings imply nearby volcanic activity around 1345. This was further supported by documentary evidence of poorer crop yields, weak harvests, and resultant famines. By 1347, the Italian republics of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice began importing grain from the Mongols living near the Sea of Azov.

“For more than a century, these powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” Bauch explained. “But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe.”

The study’s authors believe that these grain ships arrived with stowaways: plague-infected fleas. Once in Europe, the fleas transferred to rodents and the Black Death began its infamous spread.

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The effects of the Black Death in Europe famously weren’t uniform. Instead, the plague also tells a story of class, resources, and privilege.

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“In so many European towns and cities you can find some evidence of the Black Death, almost 800 years later…And yet, we could also demonstrate that many Italian cities, even large ones like Milan and Rome, were most probably not affected by the Black Death, apparently because they did not need to import grain after 1345,” said Büntgen. “The climate-famine-grain connection has potential for explaining other plague waves.”

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Büntgen added that while such a unique set of cascading effects may sound like a rare occurrence, the chances may be increasing due to climate change .

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“The probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalised world,” he said. “This is especially relevant given our recent experiences with COVID-19.”

Faster and more effective sustainability strategies remain crucial to staving off the worst effects of the climate crisis and its effect on health. But by better understanding climate-induced crises of the past, researchers like Büntgen and Bauch are helping plan for the future.

The post Medieval volcanoes may have ignited the Black Death appeared first on Popular Science.

Why we have two nostrils instead of one big hole

Sarah Philip — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 09:01:00 -0500

If you close one eye or put a finger to your ear, there’s an immediate sense of loss. Two eyes help us see the world while two ears enable us to locate sounds. But there’s not the same dramatic sense of loss if you block one nostril. Unlike the eyes or ears, they’re in almost the exact same position on our face. So why don’t we just have a large hole like the mouth? Why do we have two nostrils?

It turns out that each nostril behaves differently to the other nostril throughout the day. This is known as the nasal cycle, and it plays a vital role in our overall health. At a certain point, one nostril takes in air more rapidly. Later the dominant nostril shifts. Throughout the day, which nostril is dominant keeps swapping. This alternating airflow seems to help us breathe and smell more effectively.

How our nostrils take turns breathing

We’re wired to breathe through our nose. Mouth breathing is only really required when we need more air during exercise or respiratory distress, or when the nose is blocked. Unlike the mouth, the nose does more than just draw air into and out of the lungs. One of its core functions is to prepare the air for the lungs, something the mouth cannot do. The nose filters out dust and pollutants, warms the air to body temperature, and adds the right amount of moisture so that the air is at 100 percent humidity before it gets to the lungs. Without this process, the air would be colder and drier, which irritates and constricts the airways and can lead to inflammation.

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Having two nostrils helps the nose cope with this demanding task of preparing air for the lungs. “The fact that we have two nostrils is not unusual, as we have two eyes and two ears,” says Ronald Eccles, an emeritus professor at Cardiff University who founded its Common Cold Centre. “What is unusual is that the nostrils alternate airflow from one side to the other. This may allow one side of the nose to rest.”

Breathing through your nose is better for you than breathing through your mouth. Video: Why you should breathe through your nose with James Nestor / BBC Maestro

Studies have shown that at no point do both nostrils draw in the same amount of air. Every few hours one side of the nose is more open and handles most of the airflow while the other processes less air, enabling it to recover moisture.

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How each nostril smells differently

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Smell is closely linked to breathing. As we breathe, odor molecules enter the nostrils, dissolve into the mucus lining and bind to neurons that send signals to the brain. Thanks to the nasal cycle, air flows into the nostrils at different speeds and so each nostril handles odors differently.

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When we breathe, one nostril is more closed than the other and so has a slower rate of airflow. That slower flow of air means that there’s more time for slowly-absorbing chemicals to dissolve into the mucus lining. Experiments suggest that people smell slowly absorbed chemicals more strongly through a resting, or more closed, nostril.

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However, the more closed nostril is not as good at detecting quickly-dissolving odor chemicals. Meanwhile, the more open nostril’s faster airflow means that quickly-dissolving chemicals can reach more of the smell-detecting tissue in your nose and send more signals to the brain. So basically each nostril smells slightly differently.

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“It’s not one blunt odor that’s hitting you,” says Thomas Hummel, the head of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Smell and Taste at Dresden University of Technology.

“You perceive chemicals differently because they are absorbing differently.” This usually happens without our conscious awareness. The alternating airflow ensures that each nostril gives the brain different inputs. The brain then combines these inputs together to get more information and a richer sense of smell.

Two nostrils improve our ability to locate smell

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The distance between our two nostrils is not as large as the distance between the eyes or ears. But having two nostrils can still help us locate smells. “The brain is good at using even small inputs,” says Matthew Grubb, a professor of neuroscience at King’s College London, who focuses on the olfactory system. “There’s pretty good evidence that one of the things nervous systems can do is to use information from the two nostrils to figure out where a smell is coming from.”

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Why are some cities worse for allergies than others?

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In one experiment, scientists asked blindfolded participants to sniff out a 33-foot chocolate trail through grass. Participants wore a device that fits onto the nose and mixed odors from the outside world so that there was no difference in what each nostril smells. This made participants slower and less accurate at locating and tracking the chocolate scent than when they didn’t wear the device.

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Two nostrils might give us an advantage against colds

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Two nostrils could even bring other benefits besides breathing and smell: They may help us fight viral infections. When you have a cold, one nostril is a lot more congested while the other manages most of the breathing. Having a severely blocked nostril causes the temperature of the nasal passage to increase. This may repel cold viruses since viruses don’t reproduce well at high temperatures.

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Having two nostrils is far from redundant. We might not notice the nasal cycle, but it’s still a key part of the way the nose functions. The nostrils work together to enhance the way we breathe and smell. So next time you take a deep breath or smell a delicious pie, don’t take your two nostrils for granted.

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The post Why we have two nostrils instead of one big hole appeared first on Popular Science.

Goodbye, finger pricks? Diabetes patients could monitor glucose with lightwaves.

Andrew Paul — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:26:00 -0500

A new, noninvasive blood-glucose monitoring system may allow people with diabetes to finally ditch their painful finger pricks and under the skin sensors. Although the current iteration is comparatively bulky, MIT scientists writing in the journal Analytical Chemistry say they are well on their way to scaling down their invention. In time, their light-based approach could even fit on a device the size of a watch.

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Diabetes management requires a person to regularly monitor their glucose levels. For decades, this almost always required multiple, daily finger pinpricks to obtain blood samples. While wearable glucose monitors have risen in popularity in recent years, they still have their own issues. These types of wearables provide constant analysis via interstitial fluid, but only after inserting a sensor wire under the skin. Even then, wearers must replace their sensors every 10 to 15 days, and they still frequently cause irritation.

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“Nobody wants to prick their finger every day, multiple times a day,” MIT research scientist and study co-author Jeon Woong Kang said in a statement, adding that this issue goes beyond someone’s pain tolerance. “Naturally, many diabetic patients are under-testing their blood glucose levels, which can cause serious complications.”

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An illustration of what an early version of the commercial device may look like. Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT

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For this new way to monitor blood sugar without the pinpricks, Kang and colleagues are building on research stretching back over 15 years. Biomedical engineers at MIT Laser Biomedical Research Center (LBRC) medical engineers first demonstrated they could noninvasively calculate glucose levels in 2010 using Raman spectroscopy, a technique that uses light particles to examine and identify molecules. In this instance, scientists used a device that shined near-infrared and visible light on organic tissues. They then compared the resultant Raman wave signals bouncing off skin cells’ interstitial fluid to reference glucose levels. While accurate, the method wasn’t practical for daily use.

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The possibility of harnessing Raman signals became much more viable after researchers designed a workaround to their problem. In 2020, the LBRC announced that they could pinpoint glucose signals by simultaneously firing Raman signals at tissue while also shining near-infrared light from a different angle. This approach filtered out the signals from unrelated skin molecules, allowing engineers to locate and monitor glucose information.

Although the original Raman glucose monitor was about the size of a printer, they have since shrunk the overall device down to the proportions of a shoebox. To do this, they identified only the Raman bands that are needed to measure glucose in the blood.

“By refraining from acquiring the whole spectrum, which has a lot of redundant information, we go down to three bands selected from about 1,000,” explained researcher and study co-author Arianna Bresci. “With this new approach, we can change the components commonly used in Raman-based devices, and save space, time and cost.”

Each measurement scan takes slightly more than 30 seconds to complete. The device also shows an accuracy comparable to two commercially available, wearable glucose monitors.

“If we can make a noninvasive glucose monitor with high accuracy, then almost everyone with diabetes will benefit from this new technology,” said Kang.

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As they continue scaling down their Raman glucose scanner, researchers will also focus on additional clinical and larger study tests to ensure the technology’s feasibility, as well as its ability to scan across all skin tones.

The post Goodbye, finger pricks? Diabetes patients could monitor glucose with lightwaves. appeared first on Popular Science.

Infamous 3I/ATLAS comet is covered in ice volcanoes, surprising astronomers

Andrew Paul — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 13:15:40 -0500

As comet 3I/ATLAS continues its exciting journey through our solar system, scientists are still learning everything they can about this special space rock. It is only the third interstellar object ever tracked through our solar system and is among the fastest comets ever observed.

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As the 3I/ATLAS nears its closest distance to Earth, an international team of astronomers now says the space rock may be covered in active, icy cryovolcanoes. If true, the evidence detailed in their pre-print study may force researchers to reconsider how comets form–not only in deep space, but our own solar system.

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What is 3I/ATLAS?

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Astronomers first detected the 3I/ATLAS in July and the comet has gripped global attention ever since. Since then, researchers around the world have aimed their telescopes and sensitive equipment arrays at it as the comet continues its 130,000 mile-per-hour journey through our stellar neighborhood. 3I/ATLAS offers us a never-before-seen glimpse at ancient, deep space comets. What’s more, the icy rock has never passed close enough to a star to be altered by its heat and radiation. This essentially makes it an untouched cosmic artifact dating back billions of years.

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Apart from being the fastest comet ever observed (and also assuredly not an alien spacecraft), 3I/ATLAS also appears to display some unexpected surface activity. After monitoring the visitor for months, astronomers recorded a “sharp and lasting surge” in brightness as it reached around 2.5 astronomical units from the sun (roughly 185.9 million miles). The sustained level of brightness captured by their analysis indicates that 3I/ATLAS didn’t withstand a sudden explosion, but what appears to be an eruption across the comet’s entire water-ice surface layer.

Comet cryovolcanoes

They argue the most likely explanation for this brightness is cryovolcanism. Although volcanism on Earth is traditionally associated with scorching lava and fiery eruptions, cryovolcanism essentially operates similarly, but with the opposite materials. During cryovolcanism, liquid and vaporous water as well as other materials are ejected from inside a cosmic body. Astronomers have seen this type of behavior on moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, but if confirmed, it represents a rarely seen event on comets.

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The cryovolcanism on 3I/ATLAS is even more unique given the object’s origins. While eruptions are usually more acute, 3I/ATLAS lacks the protective, dusty mantle seen in our solar system’s comets. This would explain why its entire surface erupted in such a noticeable way.

Further examination of light reflected from the comet surface revealed that 3I/ATLAS likely resembles a rare type of meteorite called a carbonaceous chondrite. A carbonaceous chondrite is one of the universe’s oldest meteorites, and is heavy in metals such as nickel and iron. This composition could explain the comet’s cryovolcanism.

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The study is still awaiting peer review, but its authors theorize that as 3I/ATLAS warmed and its surface ice began to melt, liquid corroded microscopic metal grains inside the rock. This would subsequently release more energy and gases like carbon dioxide, causing the frigid eruption.

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Challenging the standard model

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If true, 3I/ATLAS contradicts the standard model of comet formation. Instead of a more uniform amalgamation of rock, ice, and low amounts of metal, comets may begin their lives under a much more diverse set of circumstances.

“Interstellar visitors like 3I/ATLAS continue to challenge and refine our understanding of planetary-system formation and the chemical evolution of small bodies,” the study’s authors wrote, adding that, “each newly discovered object reveals unexpected properties that test and expand current models.”

The post Infamous 3I/ATLAS comet is covered in ice volcanoes, surprising astronomers appeared first on Popular Science.

Pet dogs can help teens’ mental health

Laura Baisas — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0500

It’s old news that having a dog provides a lot of benefits. Playing with a pooch can help our brains concentrate and relax, a family dog can help prevent food allergies in children, and even fulfill our primal need to nurture. They also may have some sway over some of the tiniest organisms around—the microbes that live in our bodies. A study published December 3 in the journal iScience found that the family dog prompts changes in our gut microbiome that result in better mental health.

“Raising dogs has beneficial effects, especially for adolescents, and these effects may be mediated through symbiosis with microorganisms,” Dr. Takefumi Kikusui, a study co-author and animal behaviorist at Azabu University in Japan, said in a statement.

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Living inside of all of our intestines is a bevy of bustling natural bacteria and other microorganisms working together called the gut microbiome. Most of these microorganisms have a symbiotic relationship with us, meaning we both benefit from the relationship. Our bodies provide food and shelter, while they help out bodies in return. The gut microbiome helps our bodies digest important nutrients, train our immune system, and can even stimulate the production of important neurotransmitters in our brains. Importantly, these organisms also help to keep potentially harmful microorganisms in check.

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Some studies have found that dogs also have important differences in their gut microbiomes, including greater microbial diversity. Kikusui’s team previously found that young people have a dog from a young age and then continue to have dogs later in life have better levels of social support and companionship.

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A middle-school boy and his dog, relaxing together after settling a friendly sofa showdown. He’s been raised with dogs from day one, and the dog by his side is the family’s second dog. And to him, having a four-pawed brother feels just as natural as having a human one. Image: Ai Tsujimura.

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For this new study, the team explored if some of the beneficial effects that dogs have on adolescent mental health might also be tied to these differences in the microbiome.

“Adolescent children who keep dogs exhibit higher mental well-being, and we also found that dog ownership alters the gut microbiota,” said Kikusui. “Since the gut microbiota influences behavior through the gut-brain axis, we conducted this experiment.”

Initially, they found that a person’s dog-owning status at age 13 could predict their future mental health and behavioral scores. Adolescents with a dog at home reported fewer social problems than those without a dog.

The team then collected saliva microbiome samples from 247 non-dog owning and 96 dog-owning adolescents. After sequencing the microbes, they saw similar species diversity and richness between the both groups of teens. However, the composition of the microbiome composition was different in dog owners. According to the team, this means that having a dog in the house might shift the abundances of some mouth bacteria—potentially bacteria that might correlate with the adolescents’ psychological scores.

To test that psychological hypothesis, the team treated laboratory mice with the microbiota found in dog-owning teens to see whether and how it affected their social behavior. The mice with this new microbiome spent more time sniffing the other mice in their cages. These animals also showed a more social approach toward a trapped cage-mate—a behavior test that is often used to test prosocial behavior in mice.

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“The most interesting finding from this study is that bacteria promoting prosociality, or empathy, were discovered in the microbiomes of adolescent children who keep dogs,” Kikusui said. “The implication is that the benefits of dog ownership include providing a sense of security through interaction, but I believe it also holds value in its potential to alter the symbiotic microbial community.”

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According to the team, more research is needed to weed out how other variables affect the adolescent microbiome. For example, poverty can negatively affect the gut microbiome diversity, as it can lead to malnutrition and make accessing regular healthcare difficult.

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Still, these results suggest that a family dog can change the microbiome in ways that support prosocial behavior, empathy, and mental health in general. We can thank the tens of thousands of years of human-canine coexistence for this very special relationship inside and out.

The post Pet dogs can help teens’ mental health appeared first on Popular Science.

Escaped lab monkey finds new home at New Jersey animal sanctuary

Andrew Paul — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 10:36:29 -0500

A rhesus macaque who spent a week on the lam in Mississippi in late October is finally settling into a new home over 990 miles from the original site of his escape. Popcorn Park Animal Refuge in Forked River, New Jersey, is now caring for Forrest, a young monkey from the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Covington, Louisiana.

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“The secret is out!” Popcorn Park posted to social media on December 2.

Forrest’s stressful saga began on October 28, 2025, when a transport truck crashed along Interstate 65 while carrying 21 monkeys from the Tulane Primate Research Center destined for a Florida biomedical research facility. Although initial reports suggested the animals were carrying hepatitis C, herpes and COVID-19, Tulane later clarified that none of the monkeys were infectious. Regardless, rhesus macaques can grow as large as 40 pounds and are often aggressive towards humans. Nearby residents were advised to stay as far away from the monkeys as possible.

Forrest is healthy and recovering from a small injury to his nose. Credit: Popcorn Park Animal Refuge

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While eight of the 21 macaques escaped their enclosures during the collision’s aftermath, authorities located and euthanized all of them except for a monkey initially designated “NI 62” within hours. NI 62 proceeded to spend about a week on the loose in southeast Mississippi before being located and safely recovered. Now named Forrest, the monkey has spent the weeks since his recapture recovering from a small wound sustained on the bridge of his nose during the ordeal.

“Because he had spent so much time outside of the facility, he could not return to the research program,” Popcorn Park explained in their announcement. “That’s when our team stepped in to offer him lifelong sanctuary.”

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In addition to acclimating to his new surroundings, refuge officials wrote that Forrest has discovered he enjoys grapes and has started vocalizing, “a good sign that he is becoming more comfortable and confident in his new surroundings.”

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Aside from grapes, Forrest reportedly is also a fan of peanuts.

Why it made the cut: Its innovative sodium battery—the first of its kind—allows the Bluetti Pioneer Na to operate and store at lower temperatures than any other model.

“He will come over and take those peanuts from us very nicely,” Popcorn Park executive director Cory Scott told NJ.com.

The Mississippi rhesus macaque escape was reminiscent of a similar situation last year. In November 2024, 43 monkeys managed to flee a biomedical animal housing facility in South Carolina nicknamed the “Monkey Farm.” In that instance, all escapees were eventually recaptured.

The post Escaped lab monkey finds new home at New Jersey animal sanctuary appeared first on Popular Science.

Vintage vaccine skeptics thought medicine would turn kids into demon cows

Popular Science Team — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0500

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. -The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

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FACT: Vintage anti-vaxxers thought medicine would turn kids into demon cows

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