Only about 600 people have ever traveled to space. The vast majority of astronauts over the past six decades have been middle-aged men on short-duration missions of fewer than 20 days. Today, with private, commercial and multinational spaceflight providers and flyers entering the market, we are witnessing a new era of human spaceflight. Missions have … Read more
Humans have shared stories about giants for thousands of years, from the cyclopes of Greek mythology to the biblical Goliath. But are these just tall tales, or have giant humans really walked this Earth? If you consider a nearly 9-foot-tall human a giant, then yes. Robert Wadlow, the tallest person on record, grew to 8 … Read more
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and is improving at an unprecedented pace. Now we are edging closer to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) — where AI is smarter than humans across multiple disciplines and can reason generally — which scientists and experts predict could happen as soon as the next few years. We … Read more
Approximately 25 million years ago, an ancestor of both humans and apes genetically diverged from monkeys and lost its tail. No one had identified the genetic mutation responsible for this dramatic change in our physiology — until now. In a new study published Wednesday (Feb. 28) in the journal Nature, researchers identified a unique DNA … Read more
A new geological epoch has begun on the moon, which reflects the fact that humans are now the biggest influence on the lunar surface, a group of scientists suggest. The researchers named the moon’s new epoch the “Lunar Anthropocene.” “Cultural processes are starting to outstrip the natural background of geological processes on the moon,” Justin … Read more
Mysterious, spiral signals have been discovered in the human brain, and the scientists who found the swirls think they could help to organize complex brain activity. The signals, which appeared as swirling spirals of brain waves across the outer layer of the brain, were discovered in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans of 100 … Read more
The guy who bought Twitter wants to have a city of a million people on Mars by 2050. That may sound astronomically ambitious considering humans have never set foot on the Martian surface. But is it feasible? How long would it take for humans to colonize another planet? And could it ever be possible for … Read more
Crop circles are a very straightforward phenomenon: They are a type of landscape art made by humans. Despite evidence to the contrary, some people remain convinced that crop circles were made by aliens brought by UFOs. But how did unidentified flying objects come to be linked with flattened expanses of cereal grains? And why have … Read more
Michael G. Williams has a new gay sci-fi mystery out, Books of Autumn book 2: A New Life in Autumn. And there’s a giveaway! THE HARDEST PART OF DYING IS DECIDING HOW TO PASS THE TIME Valerius Bakhoum died and kept no living. Now he can walk the streets of his city with a new … Read more
A new, enormous family tree for all of humanity attempts to summarize how all humans alive today relate both to one another and to our ancient ancestors. To build this family tree, or genealogy, researchers sifted through thousands of genome sequences collected from both modern and ancient humans, as well as ancient human relatives, according to … Read more
