Watch a turkey closely and its stare can seem almost unnervingly steady. Its eyes sit high on the sides of its head, scanning the surroundings while the bird walks, feeds and watches for danger. Around Thanksgiving, that intense gaze has in...
Read article
The sky is so reliably blue on a clear day that the color can feel like a property of the atmosphere itself, as though Earth were covered by an enormous blue ceiling. It is not. Air is essen...
Read
Ask a modern AI whether it is frightened, lonely or aware of its own existence and it may produce an answer that sounds uncannily introspective. It can discuss its “thoughts,” describe imagi...
Read
Every few years, a headline or social-media post seems to announce the same piece of cosmic good news: Pluto is a planet again. For anyone who learned the old nine-planet Solar System in sch...
Read
If Mars can come within roughly 55 million kilometers of Earth, why does a spacecraft sent there travel something closer to 480 million kilometers — and spend around seven months doing it? T...
Read
Science-fiction space battles have trained us to expect a particular soundtrack: engines roar, lasers crack and exploding spacecraft detonate with a cinematic boom. Put the same battle in th...
Read
You are almost asleep when the floor seems to disappear. For a fraction of a second, your body feels as though it has stepped off a ledge. A leg kicks, an arm jerks or your whole torso jumps...
Read
A cat is calmly eating from its bowl. While its attention is elsewhere, someone quietly places a cucumber on the floor behind it. The cat turns, sees the vegetable and suddenly launches itse...
Read
Few breakfast foods come with a better internet story than Corn Flakes. According to the version repeated across social media, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg invented the famously plain cereal in t...
Read
You are walking past a town hall, courthouse, school or government building when something looks slightly wrong: the flag is not at the top of its pole. It is hanging lower, leaving an unmis...
Read