Someone tracking the conflict raging in the Middle East could have seen the following two videos on social media. The first shows a little boy hovering over his father’s dead body, whimpering in Arabic, “Don’t leave me.” The second purports to show a pregnant woman with her stomach slashed open and claims to document the testimony of a paramedic who handled victims’ bodies after Hamas’ attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Astronomers have known for decades that the universe is expanding. When they use telescopes to observe faraway galaxies, they see that these galaxies are moving away[1] from Earth.
To astronomers, the wavelength of light a galaxy emits is longer the faster the galaxy is moving away from us. The farther away the galaxy is, the more its light has shifted toward the longer wavelengths on the red side of the spectrum – so the higher the “redshift.”
Building a space station on the Moon might seem like something out of a science fiction movie, but each new lunar mission is bringing that idea closer to reality. Scientists are homing in on potential lunar ice reservoirs in permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs. These are key to setting up any sort of sustainable lunar infrastructure.
More than 37 million people[1] in the U.S. have diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association, 8.4 million Americans[2] needed to take insulin in 2022 to lower their blood sugar. Insulin, however, is tricky to deliver[3] into the body orally because it is a protein easily destroyed in the stomach[4].
Cars are no longer just a means of transportation. They have become rolling hubs of data communication. Modern vehicles regularly transmit information wirelessly to their manufacturers[1].
However, as cars grow “smarter,” the right to repair them is under siege[2].
When landing on the surface of the Moon, astronauts can become spatially disoriented, which is when they lose sense of their orientation – they might not be able to tell which way is up. This disorientation can lead to fatal accidents.
Even on Earth, between 1993 and 2013[1], spatial disorientation led to the loss of 65 aircraft, US$2.32 billion of damages and 101 deaths in the U.S.
People fact-checked social media posts more carefully and were more willing to revise their initial beliefs when they were paired with someone from a different cultural background than their own, according to a study my collaborators Michael Baker[1] and Françoise Détienne[2] and I recently published in Frontiers in Psychology[3].