As the Perseverance rover[1] traversed an ancient river valley in Mars’ Jezero Crater back in July 2024, it drilled into the surface and extracted a sample from of a unique, striped rock called Chevaya Falls[2]. The rover’s instruments then analyzed the sample, which is called Sapphire Canyon[3], and surveyed the surrounding rock.
When...
While developing his theory of natural selection, Charles Darwin was horrified by a group of wasps[1] that lay their eggs within the bodies of caterpillars, with the larvae eating their hosts alive from the inside-out.
Darwin didn’t judge the wasps. Instead, he was troubled by what they revealed about evolution. They showed natural...
A moose in Minnesota stumbles onto the road. She circles, confused and dazed, unable to orient herself or recognize the danger of an oncoming semitruck. What kills her is the impact of 13 tons of steel, but what causes her death is more complicated. Tunneling through her brain is a worm that doomed both of them to die.
Commonly known...
Scientists first detected ripples in space known as gravitational waves[1] from the merger of two black holes[2] in September 2015. This discovery marked the culmination of a 100-year quest to prove one of Einstein’s predictions.
Two years after this watershed moment in physics[3] came a second late-summer breakthrough in August 2017: the...