Educational Science

This Exploding 'Cow' May Be the First Black Hole Birth Ever Observed

On June 16, 2018, a stupendously bright explosion tore across the cosmos and lingered in the sky above Earth for several weeks. The mysterious blast traveled 200 million light-years from the gut of the Hercules constellation, shone with the light of nearly 100 supernovas and captured the attention of the...

Note Penned by British King on Eve of Napoleonic Wars Fetches Nearly $15,000 at Auction

A letter penned by King George III of England on the eve of war has sold for more than $14,000 at auction. The 1803 missive sold for 11,430 British pounds, or $14,670.97, the BBC reported. The anonymous seller really cleaned up, according to the news agency: He or she had...

The most distant celestial object ever explored may well have moons, and astronomers are trying hard to find them. In the wee hours of Jan. 1, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past the small, frigid object Ultima Thule, which lies more than 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) from Earth....

Why do people hate Comic Sans so much?

When Vincent Connare invented the typeface Comic Sans in 1994, he never set out to offend anybody. The typographer designed it for some of the first Microsoft home computers: it was intended for the speech bubbles of an animated cartoon dog that would help people navigate the Microsoft Windows interface...

More Than 250,000 People May Die Each Year Due to Climate Change

In the coming decades, more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change, according to a new review study. In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that climate change would lead to about 250,000 additional deaths each year between 2030 and 2050, from...

Is Anyone Out There? New SETI Tool Keeps Track of Alien Searches

With research on extraterrestrial life continuing across the world, a noted researcher from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute launched a new tool to help researchers keep track of results. Jill Tarter, a co-founder of the institute who inspired the fictional character Ellie Arroway in the Carl Sagan novel...

See Far Side of the Moon in Amazing Panorama from China's Chang'e 4 Lander

China made history earlier this month with the first successful soft landing on the far side of the moon — and now, the mission has sent back an incredible panorama view of its work site. The mission consists of two robots: the Chang'e 4 lander and the Yutu 2 rover....

Doctors Thought a Woman Was Having a Panic Attack. She Actually Had Rabies.

When a Virginia woman went to the emergency room with shortness of breath, anxiety, sleeping troubles and difficulty swallowing water, doctors thought she was having a panic attack. But her symptoms were actually due to something much rarer: she had a rabies infection — one that would prove fatal —...

What to Expect from the Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse

Call in late to work on Monday (Jan. 21) and prepare to spend Sunday night staring at the sky: The Super Blood Wolf Moon eclipse is coming. That's a mouthful, but let's break it down. January's full moon is a supermoon, meaning that the moon is at the point in...

The Polar Vortex Is Collapsing — Here's What That Means for Your Winter Weather

The blast of Arctic weather headed for the United States this weekend could be a first sign of still worse things to come this winter, with signs that a circular low-pressure system of swirling winds that normally keeps frigid air locked up at the North Pole has been disrupted and...