CATEGORIES

How Do We Know What Dinosaurs Looked Like?

YOU’VE SEEN ENOUGH MUSEUM models, illustrations, and CGI predators that you’d likely recognize a Tyrannosaurus rex if you saw one.

the original illusions

ILLUSIONS HAVE FASCINATED HUMANS FOR centuries. Before we fully understood the science of sensation and perception, philosophers like Aristotle simply observed the world— and picked up on some weird stuff. According to Vincent Hayward, who studies such phenomena at the Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics in Paris, these tricks occur when experience and context make you expect one feeling but perceive another due to abnormal circumstances. Here are three of Aristotle’s earliest observed illusions, explained by modern science.

stairs that start nowhere

GLANCE AT THE STAIRS ABOVE.

BIGGEST. DIG. EVER.

One massive rail project, 10 millennia of history, 60-plus excavations, 143 miles of track, and thousands of skeletons. How a crew of British archaeologists will make sense of their…

Could Doing Things The Old-Fashioned Way Make Us Better Modern Scientists?

Today, we imagine lab experiments as part of a separate realm from fine arts like painting or trades like carpentry.

WHY ARE WE NOSTALGIC?

WE’VE ALL FELT THAT JAB TO THE SOUL YOU get from driving by your old high school haunts or hearing a tune you once danced to. But why is that bittersweet sort of reminiscence so universal?

STARTER KIT: Fire it up

HUMANITY'S FIRST COOKS DIDN'T NEED ELABORATE BARBECUE SETUPS, AND NEITHER DO YOU. THESE FIVE TOOLS WILL HELP YOU PERFECTLY CHAR YOUR GRUB.

In Search of the Missing Microbe

Most Mongolians are lactose intolerant, and yet their diet relies on dairy. A mysterious world of bacteria could be at play.

DOGS: A LOVE STORY

IT’S ONE OF THE LONGEST RELATIONSHIPS IN HISTORY. SCIENTISTS ARE RECONSIDERING WHO STARTED IT.

Back to the land

To curb their climate impact, farmers are turning to ancient techniques that catch more carbon than they spew.

A WORLD OF THEIR OWN

The birth of a new trend puts everyday people in control of the data that maps our planet.

Seven Sounds Science Has Yet To Solve!

Seven sounds science has yet to solve

What It's Like To Sing On Another Planet

Acousticians sometimes speculate about how conversations might carry on alien worlds. Of course, you’d have no time to chat if you stood in the open air on Mars: Your blood would boil you to death in seconds. But what about those final screams?

I Wish Someone Would Invent...

Noise-selecting earbuds

How Birds Got Their Groove

NATURE PUTS EVERY CHIRP in its proper place. Avian sounds— flutish trills, alarmlike buzzes, and one-note squawks alike— are immediately absorbed, reflected, and scattered by everything in a bird’s habitat.

Papa, Can You Hear Me?

Most of us can’t ignore a baby’s cry.

Static On The Line

When our farthest-out craft call home, space itself sends a message.

Comal, a bustling,

Oaxacan-inspired restaurant in Berkeley, California, has all the ingredients for the kind of ear-splitting ambience that’s become familiar in modern eateries: packed bar, open kitchen, high ceilings, and concrete walls. But when I join a dinner there one spring evening, it’s easy to jump into the margarita-fueled conversation and order up plates of grilled corn, carne asada tacos, and rotisserie chicken with mole.

The Song Of The Immortal Violin

The masterpieces that Antonio Stradivari created three centuries ago will not live forever. One museum hopes digitizing their melodious voice will save them for future generations.

Making It On Mars

If humans want to create a lasting presence on the Red Planet, they’ll have to live off the dirt beneath their feet.

Reading Astronauts' Secret Diaries

What astronaut diaries tell us—and NASA—about the perils and potential of a mission to the red planet

A Mini Medieval Siege Weapon

AROUND THE TURN OF THE 14TH CENTURY, ENGLAND’S KING EDWARD I led his soldiers north to battle Scottish rebels.

Toy Box Overfloweth

YOU BOGARTED YOUR NIECE’S ROBOT DINOSAUR for a solid three hours after her birthday party. Admit it. We won’t judge you. Today’s playthings are some tempting stuff. They’re bigger, stronger, and faster than the foot-powered plastic “cars,” immobile Lego fortresses, and dead-eyed Teddy Ruxpin dolls that came before. Building sets are so lifelike, go-karts so zippy, and robots so intelligent that even adults will find these outsize toys utterly irresistible. Now kindly hold my beer, kid; there’s a Nerf battle that needs my full attention.

Heads In The Cloud

RIGHT NOW, IN A DATA CENTER far, far away, gargantuan cloud servers are providing brainpower to devices as minute as fitness trackers. A baseball-size camera, for example, might seem like little more than simple home surveillance; or an adorable green dinosaur might appear to be just a child’s plaything. In reality, armies of servers undergird these—and countless other— unassuming gadgets. Here are five of the smartest out there.

Parched

A week exploring how we’ll have to live in post water America.

Get Ready to Rumble

Working the controls of an excavator is a little like flying a helicopter in that it requires the use of both hands independently, as well as your feet.

Downhill Dynamo

Extreme Skiers Like Davo Karnicar Are Why Extreme Skis Exist

Eyes On The Skies

Jane Poynter Wants to Take You Higher in a Very Big Balloon —and Give Science a Lift Too

Mod Squad

With drought parching the West, seeding clouds for snow is more important than ever. Could this team of scientists prove it really works?

Pillar Of Fire

In 2011, a New Mexico wildfire went from normal to nuclear, kicking up a 45,000-foot column of tornadic winds and burning debris. Three local scientists set out to learn why.