May 21 Kilauea’s lava is now spilling into the ocean. Here’s why that’s dangerous By Nsikan Akpan Late Saturday, Kilauea’s lava began oozing into the Pacific Ocean, creating a plume of acid and glass shards. As bad as it sounds, this poisonous haze may not be the most hazardous part. Continue reading
May 16 Watch 2:22 Yanny vs. Laurel spotlights our brains’ desire to fill in the gaps By Julia Griffin, Nsikan Akpan It's the auditory debate taking the internet by storm. The PBS NewsHour's Nsikan Akpan and Julia Griffin explain how one sound can create two different experiences. Continue watching
May 16 Analysis: Yanny, Laurel and why our brains struggle with ‘ambiguity illusions’ By Stephen L. Macknik, Scientific American On Tuesday, the "Yanny-Laurel" auditory illusion took the internet by storm. A neuroscientist explains why listening to a single sound clip can yield different perceptions. Continue reading
May 14 What Kilauea’s eruption can reveal about volcanoes on other worlds—and possibly, alien life By Fedor Kossakovski The Kilauea volcano provides a natural laboratory on Earth to study volcanoes found on other planets and moons in our solar system. Continue reading
May 10 5 things you never knew about the New Horizons mission to Pluto By Rashmi Shivni NASA New Horizons mission leader Alan Stern and astrobiologist David Grinspoon divulge the most intimate accounts of the decades of planning needed for the Pluto probe in the new book “Chasing New Horizons.”… Continue reading
May 07 Watch 5:52 The science behind Hawaii’s bubbling lava Hawaii emergency crews continue to battle lava flow and hazardous sulfur dioxide fumes, four days after the Kilauea volcano erupted on the big island. The slow-moving lava has destroyed 35 structures so far, including at least 26 homes; no fatalities… Continue watching
May 05 Photos: Why did the Kilauea volcano make a pink plume? By Nsikan Akpan Hours before the volcano erupted, it spewed a plume of pink ash hundreds of feet into the air. How come?… Continue reading
May 03 Read Stephen Hawking’s final theory on the Big Bang By Nsikan Akpan Stephen Hawking's final theory challenges the existence of the multiverse and argues the Big Bang had a finite boundary, defined by string theory and holograms. Continue reading
May 02 Watch 3:33 Old buried ships unearth this city’s seafaring past In our NewsHour Shares moment of the day, as the city of Alexandria, Virginia, develops new construction projects, a team of archaeologists is on hand to help preserve a particularly remarkable discovery: three ships from the 1700s hidden in the… Continue watching
May 02 This fragile glacier could help predict how sea level rise will affect you By Fedor Kossakovski The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration — a new $25 million mission of a breadth and depth rarely seen in climate science research — wants to nail down a much better estimate of global sea level rise. Continue reading