When it comes to the Universe, it’s easy to make the incorrect assumption that what we see is an accurate reflection of all that’s out there. Certainly, what we observe to be out there really is present, but there’s always the possibility that there’s far more out there that’s unobservable. That extends to radiation outside of the visible light spectrum,...

The river known today as the Adige, the second-longest in Italy, flows south and then east from the Alps to the Adriatic. As it travels around hills and through flatlands, the river meanders widely, sometimes nearly looping back on itself. The city of Verona took root and grew around one of these meanders more than 2,000 years ago and, around that time,...

In an attempt to study the spine, scientists in Portugal accidentally created a mouse embryo with an extra pair of hind legs, where its genitals should be — and the strange turn of events could improve our understanding of human embryo development, metastatic cancer, and more.  What’s new? There’s a lot we still don’t understand about what goes on in...

Satellite internet startup Astranis is on a mission to help everyone in the world get online — and it just unveiled the satellite that could be the key to its success. The digital divide: An internet connection means access to jobs, education, entertainment, and more, but nearly 3 billion people aren’t online, and many others still don’t have fast,...

In 1954, psychologist Muzafer Sherif engineered a tribal war between two groups of 11-year-old boys in two camps inside Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. They were given tasks, rewards, and objectives — the kind of thing that would be prime-time reality TV these days. Before long, the two camps had established tribal identities. They had their own...

Student loans continue to burden adults decades after they’ve left school, and credit card debt haunts many Americans. On the flip side, many of us make leveraged investments in our homes, taking out mortgages to buy houses that we expect to appreciate in value. In other words, debt structures American lives in myriad ways. But, as historian Louis Hyman...