A conspiracy popular in flat Earth circles claims mountains are severed stumps from trees that once reached 40 miles high, even though rocks and living trees differ fundamentally in composition and the supposed evidence has been repeatedly debunked.
A study of vegetation and beryllium-10 in the Barnes Ice Cap found Arctic ice began growing about 2,000 years ago, only for recent warming to halt the expansion and potentially delay another glacial period for hundreds of thousands of years.
Raúl Esparza leads a Broadway musical that turns Galileo’s discoveries, ego and explosive conflict with church authorities into a rock spectacle, complete with an immersive digital starfield designed by Taylor Swift collaborator Ethan Tobman.
Project CETI is expanding a collection of sperm whale codas so AI can search for speechlike patterns, decode possible language, and perhaps enable humans to send messages back to whales.
Researchers found that mass sacrifices linked with El Niño disasters did not signal widespread bloodshed in Peru’s Lambayeque Valley. Among 1,633 ancient skeletons, only 25, or 1.6%, showed evidence of violent death outside ritual contexts.
Europa offers an enormous hidden ocean, while Enceladus boasts geysers carrying complex chemicals. Missions arriving in the early 2030s could clarify Europa’s potential, but a planned search for life at Enceladus may require waiting until the early 2050s.
On the Tiangong Space Station, a Chinese research team cooled 20,000 rubidium atoms to 9.7 picokelvins, setting the first cold temperature record in space and exceeding the brief experimental windows possible with simulated microgravity on Earth.
Researchers have proposed 27 giant exoplanets as potential targets for Lazuli, a private space telescope launching in 2029 that will use advanced instruments to examine reflected light and investigate distant planetary atmospheres.