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Few cultures exist in a vacuum, even those separated from others by hundreds of miles of open sea like the island nation of Japan. Nearly 70 years ago, archaeologists discovered an ancient suit of armor beneath one of the island nation’s most prominent historical sites. Now, researchers can finally trace the 1,400-year-old armor’s telltale artisanry back to Korea. Specifically, to the Baejke Kingdom—one of Korea’s three major empires dating back to the 18th century BCE.

Buddhism truly began to flourish in Japan beginning in the sixth century CE after monks arrived from mainland China and Korea. Few places represent this monumental cultural shift more than the Asuka-dera Temple complex, located about 23 miles southeast of Osaka. 

Asuka-Dera’s establishment near the start of the seventh century marked the first full-scale Buddhist temple on the island archipelago.

According to ancient documents including the second-oldest history of Japan, Nihon Shoki, craftsmen and monks from the Baekje Kingdom helped build the temple complex. Baekje was one of the “Three Kingdoms of Korea” that flourished between the 18th century BCE and 660 CE.

Archaeologists from the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties originally located the armor fragments beneath a pagoda’s foundation during 1957 excavation work. While its construction resembled armor previously linked to Baekje royal sites in Korea, technology at the time wasn’t advanced enough to supply a definitive answer.

In 2015, however, equipment like X-ray and 3D imaging finally allowed researchers to further examine the Asuka-dera armor. They discovered that, like Baekje armor, the Japanese monastery finds were crafted by interlacing small iron plates with cords into what’s known as a lamellar structure. This approach provided wearers with solid protection without sacrificing flexibility, especially because the torso, upper arm, and shoulder segments were all connected into a single shirt-like piece of armor.

Similar armor excavated between 2011 and 2014 at Gongsanseong Fortress, a historic Baekje compound located about 50 miles southeast of Seoul, also supports this. At the fortress, researchers identified inscriptions on the plating that date to 645 CE—around the exact same era as Asuka-Dera’s construction. In 2024, archaeologist Takehiro Hasumura confirmed the overlaps after examining the Gongsanseong specimens firsthand.

By the 7th century, elite Japanese warriors began to adopt keiko-style armor. Like the Baejke design, keiko armor consists of interwoven and flexible lamellar iron scales. Keiko’s adoption—along with its design—now makes it clearer than ever that Baekje artisans, specifically armorers, traveled alongside mainland Buddhist monks and emissaries. 

With additional excavation projects, archaeologists hope to further contextualize other pivotal cultural exchanges between these and other East Asian kingdoms.

The post Armor buried under Japanese temple linked to ancient Korean kingdom appeared first on Popular Science.

\Demis Hassabis (DeepMind CEO) and other AI leaders sees the next big AI gains—and the path to AGI—will come from targeted algorithmic breakthroughs in areas like continual learning, memory architectures, world models, reasoning/planning, and hybrid systems. Demis talked in a 20VC podcast with Harry Stebbings. Here’s a structured summary drawn from that interview, his other ...

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Spring is here, and that can only mean one thing: the return of robot birds. In Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, rangers and conservationists are once again deploying specially designed robotic decoys of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in a bid to encourage breeding. Although they may not exactly look like the real thing to human park visitors, ecologists hope the robo-birds can convince the region’s dwindling grouse population to start reproducing. .

The greater sage-grouse is a prime example of the consequences of habitat loss. Around 16 million of the chicken-sized birds lived across North America at the beginning of the 20th century. Ecological surveys now indicate that by the late 1960s, grouse populations in the West began to decline an average of 2.3 percent every year. While the species as a whole isn’t endangered, populations in areas like Grand Teton National Park are at serious risk of completely disappearing. At one of the park’s breeding sites—known as leks—conservationists only tallied three male grouses last year.

A major reason for Grand Teton’s declining population is owed to years of grazing cows destroying their typical food supplies and hiding spots. Although it’s been decades since the last cattle herds trampled over the region, grouse numbers have yet to improve. Part of this is also due to the nearby Jackson Hole Airport. As the only airport inside the national park, plane traffic has further disrupted the birds’ lives. In some cases, aircraft have even struck and killed unlucky grouse.

Over the last eight years, Grand Teton staff have partnered with various community organizations and local schools to restore around 100 acres of pasture near the airport. They have particularly focused on reintroducing native plants and maintaining leks for grouse breeding. But building up the space is only one part of the battle.

“One of the challenges with restoration is that even when you create great habitat, wildlife doesn’t always show up right away,” Grand Teton Park spokesperson Emily Davis explained in a recent SFGATE profile.

Like a similar project last year, rangers tasked local high schoolers to help bring back the grouse. For 2026, they enlisted the RoboBroncs—Jackson Hole High School’s robotics team—to design and build mechanical grouse decoys. While the bodies are largely composed of repurposed materials like blankets and packing foam, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department supplied actual pointy tail feathers.

There are two types of robo-grouse installed at Grand Teton Park—stationary mounts, as well as automated models built to move and dance like the actual birds during mating rituals. Some of them are even capable of puffing their chests like a male grouse. To boost the realism, recorded breeding calls are also played every day beginning at 5 a.m. on nearby concealed speakers.

“The idea is to encourage birds to begin displaying and mating at the restored site,” Davis explained. “Because brood-rearing happens near the lek, this can help draw more sage-grouse to the area over time.”

With any luck, the robotic assistants will help steer sage-grouse away from the airport towards restored habitats, where they will meet mates and breed. The standard courtship season lasts through mid-May, and rangers will be monitoring each step of the way using a trail camera.

The post Robot birds deployed in Grand Teton National Park for sexy time appeared first on Popular Science.

Many of the animals we know and love today have tails, from the littlest kitten to the largest whale. These tails vary widely by anatomy and purpose—from the grippy tails of opossums to the balancing tails of kangaroos to the swimming tails of fish. Others tell us how an animal is feeling, like a happy puppy with a wiggly butt. 

Having a tail that extends beyond the anal opening is a requirement of membership in the phylum Chordata, where humans and all other vertebrates reside. But us humans don’t really have a “tail” in the same way most creatures do, at least past eight weeks in the womb. Neither do our closest primate relatives. 

For humans, the story of losing our tails goes way back in the evolutionary timeline. “The reason that humans don’t have tails is that our ancestors didn’t have tails,” says Carol Ward, a distinguished professor in the integrative anatomy program at the University of Missouri. But how we lost tails is a story that goes back at least 20 million years into human—and ape—geneological history. 

One tail of a mystery

In the heart of the Miocene, land-dwelling animals were starting to look more and more like the fauna of today. During this era, which lasted from around 23 million years ago to five million years ago, the first dog-bears appeared, primitive giraffes frolicked through Eurasia, and dog-sized three-toed horse ancestors lived in Florida. 

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Humans, on the other hand, weren’t exactly humans yet. Human evolution is a story of divergence that goes back to the Miocene when African apes split off from orangutans. Recent research estimates that the last common ancestor between humans, chimps, and bonobos split off around five to six million years ago, and evidence for early members of the Homo genus didn’t appear in the fossil record until around 2.8 million years ago. 

The trouble here is that these evolutionary cousins of ours are also tailless. So to find a tailed relative, we have to go back even further. Around 25 to 30 million years ago, our ape ancestors branched off from tailed monkeys. Once that split happened, many species of tailless apes started popping up in the millions of years that followed. This makes it pretty much impossible to determine which exact tailless species would go on to evolve into us, says Ward. 

The fossil record only offers us limited glimpses of what was happening, but even those snippets are enlightening. One such glimpse is the Ekembo, a genus with specimens dating back 17 to 20 million years ago that have been found in Kenya. Fossils of one species in this genus, the Ekembo heseloni, offer up a pretty good look at the relationship between apes and tails at the time, says Ward. These guys probably looked like chimps with legs and arms of the same length, adds Ward, and fossil evidence suggests that these creatures climbed on tree branches on all fours and kept the long, bendy lower backs that modern apes eventually lost. But what they were missing was the key components necessary for a tail. 

When it comes to pinpointing when ape tails disappeared, we have to look to the sacrum fossil, the bony structure at the base of our lumbar vertebrae. Sacrum fossils for say, cats and other tailed mammals, lead into a bunch of tail vertebrae. For apes and humans, the sacrum ends with just a small tip. 

“We have that small tippy point for Ekembo heseloni,” Ward says, “We know that sacrum could not have supported a tail, and that animal didn’t have one.”

The above skeleton belongs to an ancient ape, Ekembo nyanzae, dating back 17 to 20 million years ago that have been found in Kenya. Image: Ghedoghedo / CC BY-SA 3.0

But Ekembo isn’t the only example of a tailless primate from around this time. Another Miocene-era ape dubbed Nacholapithecus appears in Kenya’s fossil record about 15 million years ago. Fossils of these creatures’ sacrums demonstrate that they too wouldn’t have been able to support a tail, adds Ward.

While it’s not clear which exact ape goes on to become a hominid millions of years down the line, the evidence shows that apes had evolved to be tailless in this time period. And if our ancient ape ancestors didn’t have tails, homidis—and, in turn, humans—won’t either. 

Why hominid (and ape) tails disappeared

So we know pretty certainly that the “human” tail went the way of the dinosaurs long before humans were a twinkle in evolution’s eye. But why? There are a bunch of theories, but it may have to do with movement and motion, Ward suggests. 

Even though we, and our tailless brethren like gorillas, chimps, and gibbons, are related to these 20-million-year-old apes in some capacity, they likely looked very different from their modern counterparts. 

“Modern chimps and gorillas have really long forelimbs, really long hands and fingers, short hind limbs, and a bunch of other features for hanging below branches,” says Ward. “But millions of years ago, that wasn’t the case. [Early apes] had arms and legs that are about the same length, so we’re pretty sure they walked on all fours.” 

These strategies are intertwined with taillessness. While many animals use their tails to help maintain balance while in motion, they are especially useful if that movement is swift—think a running cheetah or a swinging monkey. 

Miocene apes were eating fruit out of trees, explains Ward. Getting to the good stuff on the edge of a fruit tree branch requires supporting their weight on multiple branches, moving slowly and carefully so as to not lose balance. 

For our slow-moving ape ancestors, a tail may have been a waste of energy to grow, or a potential liability waiting to be yanked by a predator. “They were climbing, but they were doing it deliberately,” Ward says. “The tail just didn’t offer an advantage.”

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Why humans don’t have tails appeared first on Popular Science.

SpaceX Starlink alone will generate $20 billion in revenue this year, almost doubling the estimated $11.8 billion it made in 2025. SpaceX will also have more launch revenue. Starlink has subscriber growth going from adding 750,000 per month to 1.5 million per month. A fundamental shift in revenue mix, pricing dynamics, and the growing role ...

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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy released the annual shareholder letter. • AWS AI revenue is running above $15 Billion annually • Amazon expects around $200 Billion of 2026 capex mostly tied to AI infra • Project Leo already has 200+ satellites in orbit ahead of launch. • $4 Billion+ is going toward rural delivery expansion while ...

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The next launch of the Blue Origin has been delayed from April 14 to April 16. The rocket sections are still in the Bay and have not been moved out to the launch pad. This is another important Blue Origin launch. It will be the third New Glenn launch. AST Space Mobile is launching BlueBird ...

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The next launch of the Blue Origin has been delayed from April 14 to April 16. The rocket sections are still in the Bay and have not been moved out to the launch pad. This is another important Blue Origin launch. It will be the third New Glenn launch. AST Space Mobile is launching BlueBird ...

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Elon Musk says that Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model has 1 trillion parameters and Claude Opus has 5 trillion parameters. XAI’s Grok 4.20, which has 0.5 trillion parameters and there are seven larger models being trained at XAI. Grok Imagine V2 2 variants of 1-trillion-parameter models 2 variants of 1.5-trillion-parameter models 1 variant of a 6-trillion-parameter ...

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Every mammal gives birth to live young, except for a handful of egg-laying monotremes like the platypus. But did the earliest ancestors of mammals also reproduce through eggs? It’s a question that’s stumped evolutionary biologists for decades, but researchers finally have a definitive answer. Published on April 9 in the journal PLOS One, their findings rely on a 250-million-year-old fossilized egg, sophisticated technological advances, and a lot of patience.

Paleontologists discovered the specimen in question almost 17 years ago during an excavation in South Africa’s Karoo Basin. The arid region located over 200 miles northeast of Cape Town is particularly well known for its vast troves of ancient fossils.

“My preparator and exceptional fossil finder, John Nyaphuli, identified a small nodule that at first revealed only tiny flecks of bone. As he carefully prepared the specimen, it became clear that it was a perfectly curled-up Lystrosaurus hatchling,” University of the Witwatersrand paleobiologist Jennifer Botha said in a statement. 

The fossilized egg photographed in the control room of the ESRF in France. Credit: Julien Benoit

Lystrosaurus was a pivotal species in the evolutionary journey of mammals. The herbivores arrived on the planet during the aftermath of the End-Permian Mass Extinction about 252 million years ago. Likely caused by volcanic eruptions in present-day Siberia, the End-Permian cataclysm eventually wiped out around 57 percent of all biological life, including 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrates. Lystrosaurus managed to thrive despite the era’s volatile climate, warm temperatures, and frequent droughts. Although Botha and her colleagues suspected their discovery showcased the remains of a hatchling inside its shell, the required imaging technology to assess their theory did not exist in 2008.

Within a few years, however, the development of advanced synchrotron X-ray CT scanning allowed a path forward. Botha brought the fossil to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France, where collaborators could finally examine it under the proper conditions. Only then could they identify a key piece of evidence—an incomplete mandibular symphysis. This section of lower jaw is crucial for an animal to eat, but only after its two halves fuse during gestation.

“I was genuinely excited,” recalled University of Witwatersrand paleobiologist Julien Benoit. “The fact that this fusion had not yet occurred shows that the individual would have been incapable of feeding itself.”

This means their Lystrosaurus wasn’t fully developed when it died, and its positioning could only mean one thing: it was still inside an egg. More specifically, the team believes Lystrosaurus laid soft-shelled eggs, which explains why fossilized evidence is so difficult to find.

A 3D reconstruction of the skeleton. Credit: Julien Benoit

Although small, the egg is large compared to the mammal ancestor’s body size. Today, larger eggs usually contain more yolk, which include all the nutrients needed for an embryo to develop without a parent feeding it. The bigger eggs are also much more resistant to drying—a vital strength during the harsh climate following the extinction event. Taken altogether, it appears that Lystrosaurus was already highly developed when it hatched. This made them able to evade predators, take care of themselves, and quickly begin reproducing.

Beyond filling in a major gap in mammalian evolution, Lystrosaurus can help biologists understand how species might continue to adapt to an increasingly chaotic ecosystem.

“This work is highly impactful because it offers a deep-time perspective on resilience and adaptability in the face of rapid climate change and ecological crisis,” said Benoit, adding, “This discovery [is] not just a breakthrough in paleontology, but also highly relevant to current biodiversity and climate challenges.”

The post Proto-mammals laid eggs, paleontologists finally confirm appeared first on Popular Science.

Starship FCC licenses for Flight 12 and 13 have been modified. Starship Flight 12’s license includes a suborbital first and second stage. Currently, SpaceX is looking at a late April or early May launch for Starship 12. Starship Flight 13’s now says suborbital first stage and ORBITAL second stage. Starship 13 is looking at an ...

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Travel is notoriously hard on your digestion. Jet lag, dehydration, stress, and even slight disruptions to a regular meal schedule can result in unpleasant bathroom difficulties. But the next time you’re struggling with toilet troubles away from home, try to remember: At least you’re not dealing with it in outer space.

“I was thinking about how even on Earth, travel is one of the biggest constipation triggers,” Sarah Jane Bunger tells Popular Science. “[It’s] always going to make this perfect storm of constipation while on Earth. So it’s only going to be more and more exacerbated once you go outside Earth.”

It’s Bunger’s job to think about these things. She’s the global research and development lead for Dulcolax, where she oversees anything and everything tied to new formulas and clinical activities for the laxative and stool softener. But even after more than 13 years in the business, she was honored to learn the medication was available to a new demographic: the astronauts aboard Artemis II.

“We weren’t propositioned ahead of time. It was a lovely surprise for us that we were included,” she says of Dulcolax’s inclusion in NASA’s official Formulary and First Aid Kit.

Supplements like Dulcolax—specifically bisacodyl—are included on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medications, something keenly monitored by NASA’s medical team. At the same time, spacecraft cargo storage is always at a premium, so astronauts need meds that both get the job done and take up as little room as possible.

“I always think of the infamous example of sending a female astronaut up with, like, 100 tampons,” says Bunger, referring to Sally Ride’s historic first mission. “They want to make sure that they’re not overpacking, but that they have everything on hand that the astronauts might need to treat themselves while they’re up there.”

Bunger explains that constipation can be particularly troublesome for astronauts during the first few days in space while their bodies adjust. Eating is predictably difficult in space, although not necessarily for the reasons you think. Zero gravity makes digestion harder on an astronaut’s body because their organs and musculature must work in conditions they’re not evolved to handle. Bunger likens the digestive tract to an elastic material like leggings. While peristalsis—a muscle’s ability to contract and produce wavelike motions—helps move an object through the stretchy passageway, gravity is always lending a hand. Remove the earthbound physics altogether, and all that’s left is the peristalsis.

“That’s why they’re still able to swallow, even without the help of gravity. So there is some impact from the lack of gravity up there,” Bunger says.

Luckily, laxatives like Dulcolax are engineered to work both on- and off-world. The medication aboard Artemis II is the same as the types found in grocery stores, and features a protective coating that guards it against corrosive stomach acid. This allows it to delay dissolving until it reaches the lower GI tract. Bisacodyl also works on contact, so it doesn’t need to be metabolized by the kidneys or liver.

As helpful as the laxatives may be during the Artemis II mission, Bunger hopes their inclusion in the first aid kit has wider ramifications for everyone, not only astronauts.

“Honestly, if I could pick a benefit coming out of this, it would be that it helps address the stigma [of constipation] for some consumers,” she says. “If even astronauts are dealing with this, then you shouldn’t feel bad about the fact that maybe your GI tract is a little bit off, too.”

While not on the official list of mission experiments, there is also the possibility of real scientific progress thanks to laxatives in space. Bunger points out that no one has yet to study the effects of taking them while traveling to the moon.

“I would settle for a stock report,” she suggests. “I don’t need to know who took it and I don’t need to know when. I just want to know that it was taken.”

The post Even astronauts get constipated in space appeared first on Popular Science.

Anthropic Mythos is Anthropic’s newest frontier AI model tier, announced in early April 2026. It will be a step-change in capabilities over their previous top model (Claude Opus 4.6). Mythos is entire higher tier of models that Anthropic says is larger and more intelligent than our Opus models. Why Mythos Is a Big Deal Anthropic ...

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In March, NASA released a broad overview of the Artemis II mission menu accompanying astronauts on their historic, 10-day lunar flyby mission. The rundown was relatively comprehensive, but it lacked a crucial bit of information: Which specific five hot sauces have now traveled farther than any other condiment in human history?

After much anticipation, answers have finally arrived. Speaking with Axios, Johnson Space Center public affairs specialist Victoria Segovia confirmed the astronauts brought along Tabasco, Cholulu, Frank’s RedHot, Heinz Hot Taco Sauce, and Sriracha.

At the risk of sounding biased, the list isn’t exactly the spiciest of revelations. In terms of Scoville rating (the widely utilized hotness assessment based on capsaicinoid levels), the most mouth-burning sauce aboard Artemis II is Cholula with around 3,600 Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). The aficionados at PepperGeek.com deem this a “respectable heat” with a “decent bite,” but that’s about it. Second place is a tossup between Tabasco and Sriracha, each possessing around 2,500 SHUs. Meanwhile, Frank’s RedHot sits in last place with 450 SHUs.

This isn’t a knock on any of the hot sauces’ flavors, of course. If anything, their inclusion speaks to their appeal. Eating is difficult in space, although not necessarily for the reasons you think. Many astronauts have reported odd sensory shifts while traveling beyond Earth. Former NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelan once recalled that strawberries tasted sickeningly sweet and green beans had a grassy flavor during his 178-day tenure aboard the International Space Station.

Others have reported food simply tasting blander. This is largely due to how bodily fluids behave and realign in microgravity, which frequently causes swelling in the nasal passages. Much like having a cold, the subsequent congestion can then block odor molecules from reaching olfactory receptors. Knowing all this, astronauts routinely pack condiments to alleviate at least some of the mealtime weirdness. The hot sauces on the Artemis II mission probably won’t destroy anyone’s tastebuds, but that’s totally fine. Simply being in outer space does a decent job of that on its own.

The post The 5 hot sauces aboard Artemis II are kinda weak appeared first on Popular Science.

xAI’s Colossus 2 (MACROHARD) now has 7 models in training at once. Grok Imagine V2 2 variants of 1-trillion-parameter models 2 variants of 1.5-trillion-parameter models 1 variant of a 6-trillion-parameter model 1 variant of a 10-trillion-parameter model SpaceXAI Colossus 2 now has 7 models in training: – Imagine V2– 2 variants of 1T– 2 variants ...

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Tesla is supposed to be starting some mass production of Cybercabs in April. There were 60 Tesla Cybercabs in outbound lots in Texas. If Tesla makes an average 40 per day in April then there would be 1000+ Cybercabs in April. I think this is more likely for May.

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I have a confession to make: In my late teens, my car ran out of gas along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Rather than pump my own gas in PA, I’d been trying to make it across to neighboring New Jersey—a state that’s notoriously known for prohibiting self-service at gas stations—on an almost-empty tank. The truth is, I had no idea how to fill a tank on my own.

Since Oregon softened its laws back in 2023, New Jersey remains the only U.S. state in which drivers are not allowed to pump their own gas. Those of us from the Garden State often find the entire process of fueling up intimidating: so much so that we’re willing to run on fumes rather than work the pumps ourselves. My experience on the PA Turnpike was a learning one, for sure. But it left me with questions. 

In order to tackle some of those questions, we at Popular Science asked both Dr. Michael Jerrett, a professor at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA, and Thomas Wright, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, to weigh in on New Jersey’s unusual law and the science behind it. 

The origins of New Jersey’s ban on self-service

While the first dedicated, drive-in gas station opened in Missouri in 1905, it took until the 1970s for most states to switch over to self-service. They did so in part due to rising gas costs resulting from the 1973 energy crisis. Facing tight margins, gas stations realized they could lower their overhead by reducing staff and then pass that savings on to customers. In short, having patrons pump their own gas allowed gas stations to remain competitive.

To make the switch, these states had to modify their fire codes. This included installing emergency cut-off switches for all pump stations and heavily regulated latch-open nozzles (those notches that allow you to keep gas flowing without having to hold the nozzle yourself). 

Two states held out: New Jersey and Oregon, primarily due to laws they enacted during the mid-20th century citing safety concerns, such as high fire risks and health-safety hazards, including exposure to toxic fumes. 

New Jersey’s legislation prohibiting customers from pumping their own gas dates back to 1949. It’s known as the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act. Under New Jersey’s law, “trained attendants—rather than customers—handle the dispensing of fuel as they are required to know where emergency shutoffs are, recognize potentially unsafe conditions, and ensure that only approved containers are filled,” says Wright. 

New Jersey gasoline attendant posts a new price low of 15.50 cents per gallon in October 1951. Image: Contributor / Getty Images / Bettmann The health risks associated with pumping gas

While pumping gas is an act that most people (New Jerseyans excluded) do without thinking, there are health hazards associated with it. 

“Basically, gasoline vapors include benzene,” a colorless, sweet-smelling chemical that’s highly flammable, says Jerrett, “as well as other volatile organic compounds,” which are carbon-based chemicals that evaporate into the air at room temperature. 

These include toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene—all used to help improve a fuel’s efficiency and stability as well as an engine’s performance. All of these flammable, colorless liquids are considered neurotoxic, meaning being exposed to them in large doses can cause headaches, fatigue, and even more severe symptoms like death. 

But don’t get too worried, says Jerrett, since it’s the dose that makes the poison. Gas stations nationwide have gone to great lengths to limit our exposure to vapors at the pumps. “California, for example, uses rubber sealers around the nozzle for fueling,” says Jeffett. These prevent harmful gasoline vapors from escaping into the atmosphere during refueling, which protects not only the people at the gas tank but also the environment. 

Wright says that prohibiting self-service also helps with overall general safety measures. “When customers pump their own gas, it’s simply harder to enforce basic rules like turning off engines or not smoking.” 

Indeed, smoking or vaping both provide ignition sources that can be highly flammable at a gas station. It’s the same for vehicles that are left running. Turning off your car’s engine prevents heat from the vehicle’s exhaust inadvertently igniting gasoline vapors. 

There’s also static electricity. This build-up of electrical charge (we’ve all felt that zap!) on the surface of an object often happens when you slide onto and off of your car seat. This can generate high-voltage sparks exceeding 1500 volts, which can easily spark a fire. 

The best ways to avoid a zap are to not get back into your vehicle while you’re filling up and to ground yourself (try touching a metal part of the car away from the nozzle) if you feel a static charge. 

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Limiting your own exposure 

For self-service patrons, there are things you can do to limit your exposure at the pump, says Jerrett. Avoid standing over the nozzle while filling your tank, or use the latch-open if it’s available and simply walk away. Higher wind speeds can disperse vapors more readily, so avoid pumping gas until the weather calms. 

While fires at gas stations do occur, roughly three-quarters of them result from mechanical or electrical malfunctions—not from pumping gas. In fact, only about four percent of them begin with gasoline igniting, so the chances of starting a fire at the gas station are extremely slim. 

Still, having a trained attendant pumped your gas is generally considered a safer option, since it reduces the risks of vehicles left running, static electricity, and consumers lighting up. It also keeps people who may be at higher risk for health complications—such as senior citizens and pregnant women—away from toxic fumes. 

The benefits of full-service 

In 2025, New Jersey had more than 1,900 gas stations and roughly 10,000 workers in the Auto & Watercraft Service Attendant category, which includes gas station attendants. “The law we’re tasked with enforcing prioritizes safety, accountability, and job creation,” says Wright. “Plus, the temperature is better in the car.”

Now, if they could just arrange a course in how to pump your own gas for those traveling out of state…

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post It’s illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey. But why? appeared first on Popular Science.

Austin, Texas, United States, 9th April 2026, CyberNewswire

Christina Koch made history this week, becoming the first woman to travel around the moon. The NASA astronaut’s lunar flyby wasn’t her first groundbreaking moment: Koch also holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman and took part in the first all-female spacewalk.

Despite being a seasoned space explorer, the impact of seeing Earth as a small dot in vast blackness still astonishes Koch. In a post shared by NASA on Instagram, Koch poignantly reflected on the Artemis II mission:

The thing that changed for me, looking back at Earth, was that I found myself noticing not only the beauty of Earth, but how much blackness there was around it and how it just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive. We evolved on the same planet, and we have some shared things about how we love and live that are just universal. And the specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized when you notice how much else there is around it.

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Koch, along with the rest of the Artemis II crew, return to Earth on April 10.

The post Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch: ‘Looking back at Earth…it truly emphasized how alike we are’ appeared first on Popular Science.