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Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Excerpted from On a Mission: The Smithsonian History of US Women Astronauts by Valerie Neal. Copyright © 2025 by Smithsonian Institution. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Smithsonian Books. Out October 28 and available wherever books are sold. The Trailblazing Generation: Astronauts for Space Shuttle Missions, 1978–1990 After nearly five years of planning, recruiting, evaluating, and interviewing applicants, NASA announced the selection of new astronaut candidates at a press conference in Washington, DC, in January 1978. Members of the media peppered administrator Robert Frosch with questions…

The Thuma Hybrid offers three firmness options: Plush, Medium, and Firm. I chose Medium because my partner and I (mainly me) fluctuate between different sleeping positions. We both are side sleepers for the most part, but often, I revert to being a stomach sleeper sometime in the night. Both of these sleeping positions require more lumbar support to prevent back pain. But from the first night of testing, it was undeniable that this mattress had a firmer feel. In my experience, beds with medium firmness typically range between a 5 and 6.5 on a scale of 10, with 10 being…

Archaeologists have discovered an unusual circular stone grave in southern Germany. Dating to the Roman Empire, the large tomb was completely empty — and it may have been erected as a monument to honor someone buried elsewhere.”The tomb was both a place of remembrance and an expression of social status,” Mathias Pfeil, curator general of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, said in a translated statement. “We hadn’t expected to discover a funerary monument of this age and size here.”The tomb was discovered during construction work in the fall of 2024 in the village of Wolkertshofen, located in the…

The Top 5 GoPro Hero Cameras ComparedGoPros to AvoidGoPro doesn’t sell anything older than the Hero 12, but there are plenty of Hero 11s and even Hero 10s out there for sale on the internet. We suggest avoiding them. They may work fine, but modern accessories designed for later models won’t work, and these cameras have likely been through the wringer. (They are action cameras, after all.)GoProHero 11 BlackGoPro no longer sells the Hero 11, but it’s still commonly available on Amazon and other retailers. Unfortunately it’s usually the same price as the Hero 12 (around $300) and therefore not…

Around 900 years ago, Indigenous Americans at Cahokia — the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico until colonial times — felled a giant tree and transported it more than 110 miles (180 kilometers) to serve as a monumental marker post, a new study finds.The tree, known as the Mitchell Log, is the largest marker post of its kind in Cahokia, which is now known for its earthen mounds in southwestern Illinois.Marker posts were important monuments in Cahokia, but researchers still aren’t sure when the people of Cahokia erected and, finally, stopped placing these large logs. You may like By pinpointing…

If your skin is crying for help but you’re too tired to care, the best red light therapy mask is the easiest fake-it-till-you-make-it hack around. You might have seen a wave of people on social media channeling their best Hannibal Lecter while wearing a red light therapy device, like our top pick, the CurrentBody LED Face Mask Series 2 ($470). They’re not sipping Chianti but instead claiming that the wrinkles and fine lines on their faces have disappeared with the help of red light therapy. There’s nothing wrong with aging (duh), but after seeing the hype of these skin care…

Years ago, scientists noted something odd: Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres reflect nearly the same amount of sunlight back into space. The reason why this symmetry is odd is because the Northern Hemisphere has more land, cities, pollution, and industrial aerosols. All those things should lead to a higher albedo — more sunlight reflected than absorbed. The Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean, which is darker and absorbs more sunlight.New satellite data, however, suggest that symmetry is breaking.From balance to imbalanceIn a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Norman…

As you’re hunting through real estate listings for a new home in Franklin, Tennessee, you come across a vertical video showing off expansive rooms featuring a four-poster bed, a fully stocked wine cellar, and a soaking tub. In the corner of the video, a smiling real estate agent narrates the walk-through of your dream home in a soothing tone. It looks perfect—maybe a little too perfect.The catch? Everything in the video is AI-generated. The real property is completely empty, and the luxury furniture is a product of virtual staging. The realtor’s voice-over and expressions were born from text prompts. Even…

QUICK FACTSWhat it is: The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, growing a tailWhere it is: The inner solar system, barreling toward MarsWhen it was shared: Sept. 4, 2025Even as a brilliant, naked-eye comet slices through Earth’s sky (cheers, Comet Lemmon!), the most famous object in the solar system right now is hidden on the far side of the sun: the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.This alien visitor, which most astronomers believe to be a comet originating from an unknown star system far beyond our own, is only the third interstellar object ever detected in our solar system. It is the largest, fastest-moving, and quite…

I test-ride electric kick scooters as a part of my job. They’re fantastic to ride and zip around town, but they are not cool nor particularly comfortable. You’re standing on this L-shaped object, like a meerkat on wheels. Motorcycles, on the other hand? There is no other category of vehicle that oozes this much style, especially one that looks like Maeving’s new RM2.If you love the roar of a motorbike and the smell of petrol, this electric motorcycle is probably not for you. Seb Inglis-Jones, Maeving’s cofounder, tells me the company is after a demographic of people who perhaps want…