September 18, 2025 5 min read How Do You Weigh a Black Hole? Gauging the mass of a black hole is tricky, but astronomers have devised multiple methods to measure the heft of these galactic gluttons By Phil Plait edited by Lee Billings This jagged jumble of pixels may look like a rainbow-colored thunderbolt, but… Continue reading How Do You Weigh a Black Hole?
Five Questions: Melanie Zaber on Making It in the Middle Class
Melanie Zaber studies everything from the rise of artificial intelligence to apprenticeship programs in rural Appalachia. Her goal is straightforward: to help more Americans find meaningful work and a path to the middle class. Her latest projects have taken her to West Virginia. She’s working with state leaders there to shape new training programs, new… Continue reading Five Questions: Melanie Zaber on Making It in the Middle Class
Want to Get Away? NASA Now Offers More Than 6,000 Alien Worlds to Daydream About
September 19, 2025 3 min read Astronomers’ Exoplanet Haul Tops 6,000 Alien Worlds It’s a crowded galaxy, the latest exoplanet tally shows By Sarah Lewin Frasier edited by Clara Moskowitz Scientists have found thousands of planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets, throughout the galaxy. This artist’s concept shows how they range in size and… Continue reading Want to Get Away? NASA Now Offers More Than 6,000 Alien Worlds to Daydream About
To Meet AI Energy Demands, Start with Maximizing the Power Grid
This commentary was originally published by The National Interest on September 17, 2025. As the United States races to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and accelerate electrification, the nation faces a significant challenge: ensuring its aging power grid can keep pace with rapidly escalating energy demands. To respond to this challenge, incentives are needed… Continue reading To Meet AI Energy Demands, Start with Maximizing the Power Grid
The TikTok Trend of Writing in Margins Is Based on Real Neuroscience
September 19, 2025 3 min read Writing in Your Books Is Good for Your Brain—Here’s Why Annotating the margins of books is an important part of deep reading and has a long legacy of merit in both science and literature By Brianne Kane edited by Jeanna Bryner Readers on TikTok and Instagram are making the aesthetics… Continue reading The TikTok Trend of Writing in Margins Is Based on Real Neuroscience
The Missing Piece: Minerals Processing and Deep Sea Mining
This commentary was originally published by Modern Diplomacy on September 18, 2025. The world’s oceans have long been a source of riches that help sustain human civilization. Since antiquity, fishing has played an essential role in global food security, and over 3 billion individuals today derive a significant amount of their animal protein intake from… Continue reading The Missing Piece: Minerals Processing and Deep Sea Mining
Tipsy Bats and Perfect Pasta Win Ig Nobel Prizes for Weird Science Research
Many scientists dream of winning a Nobel Prize, an accolade that brings worldwide recognition, prestige and a place in the pantheon of greatness alongside the likes of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Francis Crick. Then there are the other awards — the Ig Nobel prizes, which were devised to highlight research that makes people laugh,… Continue reading Tipsy Bats and Perfect Pasta Win Ig Nobel Prizes for Weird Science Research
Could AI Help Improve How Public Policy Is Made?
The public’s lack of trust in government and the continuing rise of AI are two persistent stories in the news this year. In a March 2025 survey (PDF), trust in the U.S. government was down to 4 percent and only 11 percent said America is a mostly fair society. In another survey less than 40… Continue reading Could AI Help Improve How Public Policy Is Made?
How Climate Scientists Saw the Future Before It Arrived
In May, the Trump administration released its fiscal 2026 budget request, which called for cutting National Science Foundation and NASA science budgets by more than half. The administration’s proposed NOAA budget, released a few weeks later, proposes eliminating the agency’s scientific research arm altogether, terminating over 1,000 additional employees and shuttering around a dozen institutes,… Continue reading How Climate Scientists Saw the Future Before It Arrived
Governing at the Speed of Change: An AI-Enabled Adaptive Framework for Complex Challenges
State and local governments face increasing—and increasingly complex—economic and social problems that require more agile decisionmaking with less certainty than ever before, as RAND describes in its Social and Economic Policy Rethink Initiative. However, there may be new solutions that can support government officials as they face the future. AI technology is rapidly advancing, offering… Continue reading Governing at the Speed of Change: An AI-Enabled Adaptive Framework for Complex Challenges