Technology

This Seriously Hipster Bean Is Coffee’s Best Hope for Survival

Climate change is straining the world’s two favorite coffee species. Could a resilient 19th-century alternative solve the brew’s existential...

The Tonga Eruption Is Still Revealing New Volcanic Dangers

One year later, researchers are still marveling at the power of the Hunga Tonga explosion—and wondering how to monitor hundreds of...

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A Teenager Solved a Stubborn Prime Number ‘Look-Alike’...

In his senior year of high school, Daniel Larsen proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers—strange entities that mimic the primes.

When Did the Anthropocene Actually Begin?

Scientists want to pinpoint the technology that marked when humanity became a “geological superpower.” On the short list: the H-bomb...

The Key to California’s Survival Is Hidden Underground

The state is ping-ponging between severe drought and catastrophic flooding. The solution to both? Making the landscape spongier.

How Airports Catch Illicit Radioactive Cargo

Hidden screening devices are used to track the movement of dangerous materials—and recently caught a shipment of uranium at London’s...

Why the Search for Life in Space Starts With Ancient Earth

Need to estimate, from trillions of miles away, how likely another world is to host life? There’s a flowchart for that.

2022 Wasn't the Hottest on Record. That’s Nothing to Celebrate

Last year was one of the warmest measured, say NASA and NOAA. It would have been even more sweltering if not for La Niña, which will...

2022 Wasn't the Hottest on Record. That's Nothing to Celebrate

Last year was one of the warmest measured, say NASA and NOAA. It would have been even more sweltering if not for La Niña, which will...

What You Need to Know About the Kraken Covid Variant

XBB.1.5, aka the Kraken, is sweeping the Northeast US and dodging immunity. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to panic.