Sending humans to Mars has always seemed a distant dream. But in recent years, cheap access to space, the steady arrival of Mars rovers to explore the surface and the ambitions of billionaires like Elon Musk have made the Red Planet feel almost within reach.All concerned are aware of the huge challenges — from developing the technology to support life during the journey and to safely deliver them to the surface, to bringing them home again. This will be one of the greatest expeditions in human ...read more

Our senses of self are tricky things to pin down. We all appear to possess intuitive notions of our own identities. We're all sure there's something — whether it be our personalities, our principles, our abilities or our ambitions — that sets us apart. But our senses of self arise out of an assortment of cognitive processes, which, if altered, can change our perceptions of ourselves and our worlds.Take your awareness of your own body, for instance. A significant part of your sense of self is ...read more

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming more popular in corporate offices, thanks in part to the rise of remote work in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. VR headsets offer many potential employee benefits, from a more private and customizable virtual office to more engaging training sessions. According to Deloitte, by 2025, around 70 percent of employee training will include a VR headset. But this increase in virtual training is already driving up the number of hours employees wear a headset, cau ...read more

For many urban dwellers, large animals like bears or tigers are only glimpsed during a visit to the local zoo. Or they’re viewed on the zoo’s live camera doing tame activities like sunning themselves or enjoying an icy treat on a warm day.As they aren’t part of everyday life for many people, the idea that these animals could be man-eating predators can seem hard to fathom. One anthropologist described it as a “bizarre realization” for people to consider they aren’t always at the to ...read more

Since Darwin revealed his seminal theory of evolution by natural selection, human beings have endeavored to understand their own evolutionary origins and history. A lot of questions still remain, but these mainly pertain to the specifics. Today, paleoanthropologists understand in great detail the evolutionary emergence of a number of traits that we consider, at least superficially, unique to modern humans.Human beings and chimpanzees, our closest living genetic relatives, are thought to share a ...read more

On Sept. 1, 1859, the brunt of a solar storm collided with Earth, disabling much of the world’s telegraph system. Sparks reportedly flew from telegraph machines, and the night sky turned an apocalyptic red, causing birds to chirp at what they thought was dawn.Today, scientists believe that in 1859, Earth collided with a massive number of electrically charged particles shot from the sun, all part of a coronal mass ejection. The episode became known as the Carrington Event, after the amateur ast ...read more

Earth is a complicated planet, with a huge number of complex processes working together to make the place livable for humans and every other organism. Since the industrial revolution began — and perhaps earlier — humans have been changing many of these components directly by removing resources like stored carbon or fresh water from the system or indirectly by releasing wasteful byproducts such as aerosols, carbon dioxide and other kinds of pollution.Earth scientists have broken down the majo ...read more

Colloquially known as the "sunshine vitamin," our bodies make vitamin D when our skin is exposed to sunlight — a built-in production system that hints at just how essential vitamin D is for our health.However, modern lifestyles that keep us indoors don't lend themselves to getting enough sun for sufficient vitamin D production. As a result, experts estimate that nearly a quarter of Americans aren't getting enough vitamin D.Despite its significance, questions remain: How much is enough? Can s ...read more

Experts estimate that a new species of dinosaur is named every two weeks. While there is debate about whether these are all new species or, in some cases, previously discovered species being given new names, it's clear that there are a lot of dinosaur fossils out there. Scientists are digging them up and identifying them at a ferocious pace. As Riley Black, paleontologist and science writer, put it in a 2019 article in The New Scientist, we are in a "golden era of dinosaur discovery."Here a ...read more

Pity the poor pumpkin: Since its domestication by early farmers around 10,000 years ago, few cultivars have been more burdened by myth and misinformation than this unassuming winter squash. But pumpkins are good for much more than warding away evil spirits (when carved) or acting as a delivery system for nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves (when pureed for pie).As it happens, pumpkins are nutritional powerhouses, pharmacological wonders and offer tasty treats for both humans and their pets. Here ...read more