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The website InTheWeights.Com rates people on a 0-1000 scale re how well they are known now by LLMs. As I’ll elaborate on below, I seem to be rated crazy high by them, compared to most people I’ve ever known or respected. Why?

My guess: I tend to write on big ambitious topics, the topics on which I’ve written have become more popular over the years, especially in amateur online discussions, and I’ve tended to take clear distinctive positions on such topics, making it relatively cheap for LLMs to remember my name in association. Also, while humans tend to weigh sources heavily based on their prestige, LLM training so far has not emphasized this so much, making recent low status but lengthy online discussions of my ideas count more for LLMs than they do for humans.

Future LLM training may well change this, but much of my current boost may persist as LLM results on many topics are now becoming pretty high status, inducing human writers to now defer to them.

Now for that elaboration of my crazy high rating of 956. To see just how high that is I’ve gone down memory lane to list many folks I’ve been near, and to collect their weights ratings.

For each period and group in my life, I now list many of the more prestigious people I was associated with, sorted by increasing rating. I will put the symbol || on each side of the section of people who are within 10 of my rating, i.e., 946-966. The symbol [N] shows that the person won a Nobel prize.

’77-81 I was an undergrad at UCI, and associated with these faculty: 204 William Parker, 566 Gordon Shaw, 809 Riley Newman, 810 Virginia Trimble, 856 Rein Taagepera, || 954 Greg Benford. The department did have a Nobel winner, 970 Frederick Reines [N], but I never interacted with him.

’81-84 I was a grad student at U. Chicago Conceptual Foundations of Science program, associating with these faculty: 112 Howard Stein, 156 Robert Richards, 257 Daniel Garber, 741 William Wimsatt, 854 David Malament, 854 Sahotra Sarkar. Except that last guy was a student in my class.

’81-84 I was also a grad student at U. Chicago Physics. I associated with 735 David Schramm, 863 Robert Wald, 854 James Hartle, 858 Robert Geroch || 961 Lee Smolin, 962 Leo Kadanoff. The department did have two Nobel winners 959 Yoichiro Nambu [N], 986 S. Chandrasekhar [N], but I never met them.

’84-89 I worked at Lockheed AI Center, associating with: 37 Randy Kerber, 58 Steven Vere, 137 Ralph Barletta, 144 Matt Franklin, 617 Tim Bickmore. All of these besides Vere were as junior as I at the time.

’89-93 I worked at NASA Ames AI Research Branch, with: 120 Peter Cheeseman, 152 Peter Friedland, 316 Bob Kanefsky, 697 Pat Langley, 756 Wray Buntine.

’84-93 during the last two jobs, on the side I worked with the Xanadu team: 49 Roger Gregory, 117 Mark Miller, 160 Chris Peterson, 521 Phil Salin, 884 Ted Nelson, 890 Eric Drexler || || 985 Douglas Englebart. I only met Englebart a few times, but he credited me with encouraging him to asset himself more to the world.

’93-97 I was a grad student at Caltech Social Science, associating with these faculty: 91 Lance Davis, 121 John Ledyard, 366 David Porter, 543 Simon Wilkie, 595 Thomas Palfrey, 695 Joel Sobel, 695 Scott Page, 750 Richard McKelvey, 778 Peter Ordeshook, 838 Charles Plott.

’97-99 I was a postdoc at UC Berkeley RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Program, with these faculty and fellow postdocs: 209 Joseph Farrell, 359 Helen Levy, 362 Dan Dohan, 658 Richard Scheffler, 793 Dalton Conley, 853 Michael Greenstone.

‘99+ I’ve been a professor at George Mason University Economics Department, with these colleagues: 197 Daniel Houser, 292 Garett Jones, 302 Ryan Oprea, 307 John Nye, 320 David Levy, 454 James Buchanan [N], 644 Pete Boettke, 684 Mark Koyama, 808 Vincent Jeloso, 828 Tyler Cowen, 848 Walter Williams, 862 Donald Boudreaux, 890 Vernon Smith [N] || 951 Alex Tabarrok, 956 Bryan Caplan.

’05-24 I was an affiliate of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, associating with these folks: 618 Allan Dafoe, 730 William McAskill, 751 Carl Shulman, 799 Paul Christiano, 810 Toby Ord, 822 Katja Grace, 844 Anders Sandberg || 953 Julian Savulescu, 966 Nick Bostrom.

In the last few years, I’ve associated on the side with these UFO related folks: 273 Garry Nolan, 511 Ryan Graves, 665 Nick Pope || 955 Avi Loeb, 964 Michael Shermer.

Over all these years, I’ve also associated to varying degrees with these folks: 587 Charles Bennett, 635 Natasha Vita More, 703 Tim May, 739 David Denkenberger, 742 Esther Dyson, 795 Curtis Yarvin, 814 David Brin, 816 Steve Fuller, 817 Max More, 864 Julian Simon, 868 Agnes Callard, 878 Jaan Tallinn, 887 Joseph Henrich, 888 Hal Varian, 889 Peter Thiel || 958 Nick Szabo, 966 Scott Aaronson || 972 Bram Cohen, 972 Vernor Vinge, 977 Eliezer Yudkowsky, 977 Hal Finney, 977 Lex Fridman, 986 Vitalik Buterin, 992 Elon Musk.

As you can see, until we get to this last section of sometimes weak associations, I was never associated with anyone above the range 946-966. To check further, I collected lists of my heroes of various types, who are not included in the above lists.

Culture/Sociology Heroes: 494 Robert Boyd, 851 Randall Collins, 852 Peter Richerson, 905 Erving Goffman || || 977 Emile Durkheim.

Econ/Polisci Heroes: 598 Duncan Black, 782 Anthony Downs, 812 David Friedman, 875 Arnold Harberger, 887 William Vickrey [N], 892 Paul Milgrom [N], 895 Eric Maskin [N], 898 John Hash [N], 895 Roger Myerson [N], 905 Kenneth Arrow [N], 938 Drew Fudenberg || 962 Mancur Olson, 964 Gordon Tullock, 964 John Harsanyi [N], 966 Al Roth. [N] || 974 Robert Aumann [N], 977 Friedrich Hayek [N], 978 Milton Friedman [N], 983 John Von Neumann.

Physics Heroes: 142 David Wallace, 409 Brandon Carter, 601 John Bell, 727 Wojciech Zurek, 792 Bryce DeWitt, 887 Hendrik Casimir, 892 Hugh Everett, 908 Charles Lineweaver, 941 Edward Fredkin || 952 Rolf Landauer, 960 David Deutsch || 969 Peter Shor, 974 John Wheeler, 976 Kip Thorne, 987 Enrico Fermi, 996 Albert Einstein, 996 Stephen Hawking

My-era AI heroes: 818 Roger Shank, 879 Rodney Brooks, 894 Edward Feigenbaum || 957 John McCarthy, 958 Hans Moravec || 971 Herbert Simon [N], 970 Douglas Lenat, 974 Marvin Minsky.

UFO heroes: 489 John Mack, 781 Leslie Kean, 789 David Fravor, 870 Allen Hynek, 885 Jacques Vallée.

Science Fiction heroes: 790 Robert Forward, 927 Peter Watts || 953 Greg Egan || 967 William Gibson, 973 Neal Stephenson, 974 Andy Weir, 982 Robert Heinlein

Futurist heroes: 886 Herman Kahn, 934 Kevin Kelly || 965 Bill Joy || 973 Ray Kurzweil, 975 Alvin Toffler, 975 Freeman Dyson, 986 Vannevar Bush, 994 Tim Berners Lee.

I hope you can see how crazy high a level is my 956 among these luminaries. Many truly great people are rated well below that level.

Everyone knows SpaceX is making launching to space 100 to 1000 times lower cost with Starship. The volume will also go up by thousands of times. How can people and things get back at high volumes and low cost? SpaceX is solving that as well. SpaceX is making the return from space or from Starships ...

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AI data centers and compute represent a much bigger and faster-growing opportunity for Tesla than robotaxis. AI can generate $50–100 billion in annual revenue per gigawatt of power — dramatically outpacing typical robotaxi economics. Massive Untapped Grid Capacity The U.S. grid can unlock tens to ~100 GW of new AI data center load without building ...

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Every single day, we’re constantly looking at pixels. The tiny elements make up the displays on our phone screens and televisions, and allow us to capture images on digital cameras. Generally, a pixel works by either controlling light (think a computer) or analyzing it (like a camera sensor). Now, researchers writing in the journal Nature say they’ve created a pixel that can do both. 

Called a Fourier pixel, the new pixel tech is based on a fundamental principle of physics: interference. When light is scattered by a surface, the waves can overlap with each other, even if they originated from different points. When two or more light waves overlap, they reinforce each other. If the light waves are out of step, they cancel each other out. 

The new pixels use this phenomenon to control light with wave-shaped sculpted surfaces. The name Fourier pixel  comes from Fourier analysis—a mathematical process that the team used to break down and understand how the waves behaved. Each patterned area, or pixel, turns light into a surface wave that travels along the chip’s surface. Then, in a different place within the pixel, the surface wave is scattered back out as a light wave. These scattered lightwaves can be used to generate colored images. 

In other words, the researchers carved tiny patterns into a chip that allows them to control how light waves combine. These patterns allowed them to create pixels that both steer and analyze light. 

“Thanks to the fact that the relevant surface profiles of the pixels can be determined using Fourier analysis, we can combine the control and analysis of amplitude, phase and polarisation on a single pixel,” said Sander Vonk, a study co-author and postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, in a statement. He added that Fourier analysis is mathematically simple, and does not require complex models.  

The findings could have far-ranging technological applications in the future. “Our new pixels for control and analysis could, therefore, become a useful tool in many areas,” said David Norris, a study co-author and materials engineer at ETH Zurich. 

One day, we might even have pixels that both capture an image and process it without needing a computer.

But in the short term, the team has more practical goals. They want to create a matrix of Fourier pixels that could be used to make more complex camera display devices. Still, you might have a future laptop screen capable of taking your photo. 

The post Researchers in Switzerland invent a new type of pixel appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s difficult to overstate just how much the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has helped advance our understanding of the universe. Since its debut in 2008, the 16.7-mile-wide subatomic smasher buried underneath Switzerland proved the existence of the Higgs boson particle (aka the God particle), highlighted the perplexing nature of muons, and even measured antimatter. Apocalyptic conspiracy theories to the contrary, it expanded on key concepts in quantum physics, while charting a path forward for researchers around the world.

Still, all good things must come to an end. On June 29, CERN announced that the LHC had officially entered “Long Shutdown 3,” thus ceasing operations after 18 years of remarkable work. But in keeping with some of the most mindbending quantum physics concepts, the LHC is technically both dead and not dead at all. 

Instead of a total decommission, the collider is now on schedule to begin receiving upgrades that will transform it into an even more powerful version of itself. The Large Hadron Collider is dead—long live the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HiLumi LHC).

“The LHC has exceeded every expectation,” CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology Oliver Brüning said in a recent statement. “Today we say goodbye to the LHC as we have known it, while preparing to welcome its successor…which will extend this scientific adventure far into the future.”

The LHC went dormant to receive upgrades and recalibrations during two prior Long Shutdowns in 2013–2015 and 2015–2018. However, these upcoming additions are major enough to usher in an entirely new phase of the atom smasher’s existence. Over the next four years, CERN and its collaborators will renovate the entire LHC complex and its facilities. These will include consolidating the North Area’s Super Proton Synchrotron, deconstructing the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso target area, as well as overhauling a section called the Experimental North Cavern 3 into a high-intensity fixed-target section. Researchers estimate that around 0.75 miles of magnets and other components will be removed and replaced entirely with new technology.

“The LS3 represents a huge and complex logistical and engineering undertaking,” said LS3 Coordination Team director Jean-Philippe Tock.

Unsurprisingly, starting up the new HiLumi LHC won’t be as simple as flipping a switch. A gradual reboot will begin in 2028 before becoming fully operational in 2030. As its name implies, the HiLumi LHC will generate a luminosity ten times greater than its predecessor, allowing it to gather data on the subatomic world in much greater detail while investigating subjects like the Higgs boson. From there, the potential for new discoveries is as vast as the universe itself.

The post Farewell, atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider appeared first on Popular Science.

There’s a particular kind of trance that takes hold when you gaze into a glowing, flickering campfire—the kind where you don’t even notice that your marshmallow has gone from toasty treat to active volcano to some kind of science experiment gone horribly wrong, all while you were looking right at it. 

Fire has mesmerized us for as long as we’ve known how to control it. It warms us, feeds us, and lights our homes. But something else is clearly going on: right alongside premium entertainment and live sports, streaming services like Netflix somehow find room in their lineup for hours of fireplace footage.

For humans, anyway, fire is more than just a practicality—it’s closer to a fixation.

Dr. Daniel M.T. Fessler, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has a theory about why. He maintains that kids who grow up building fires out of necessity actually lose interest in fire once they’ve mastered it. The fascination so many of us carry into adulthood, he argues, might just be unfinished business.

“Once people get good at building fire,” Fessler says, “they’re just not as interested in it anymore.”

Master it, and the magic disappears

Fessler’s original research on this dates back more than two decades, when he and his wife, an anthropologist, spent nearly three years conducting ethnographic research in Southwestern Sumatra, a large Indonesian island west of Java. They lived in a community where most households cooked over a wood fire, and only a few had transitioned to kerosene stoves. 

In these communities, Fessler observed, kids were around fire from the time they could walk, and often had more unsupervised free time than most American kids. Six-year-olds scooped embers from the family cooking fire so they could “bake” their mud pies—tiny imitations of the meals they watched the adults cook every day.

By age 10, Fessler says, kids in this community had complete mastery of fire, matching that of “any American outdoor guy.” And that was exactly when the fascination began to wane. 

Mentawai woman cooking in the kitchen of a traditional house in her village on Siberut island in western Sumatra, Indonesia. Children in these rural communities are often exposed to fire at a young age. Image: Getty Images / Nataliia Milko

Fessler sees this as an example of a concept evolutionary psychologists call “prepared learning,” the idea that evolution doesn’t always hardwire us with full instructions for things, but gives us a head start on learning the important stuff fast. In the case of fire, a natural fascination with fire drives the motivation to master it. Once kids master it, it no longer has the same powerful draw.

Conversely, kids whose curiosity about fire never finds a useful outlet may end up spending their adult lives staring into the firepit for hours on end. 

“The idea,” Fessler says, “is that if you don’t have the right developmental experiences, that motivation doesn’t shut off, because you never have enough input into the system for it to say, ‘Okay, we’ve done our job. We can step back now.’”

Not every piece of evidence fits neatly into Fessler’s theory, though. A 2015 study he co-authored tested college students in Anchorage, Alaska, a population with varying levels of fire exposure and mastery, and found something unexpected: People who’d grown up with more fire experience actually reported more enjoyment of it as adults, not less.

Fessler is careful not to overstate the case. “It’s possible that, even in our Anchorage sample, participants did not have sufficiently extensive daily experience with fire as a mundane tool during childhood,” he says. “Or, our hypothesis might just be wrong!”

More than a spark

Fessler’s theory isn’t the only research into the role of fire in the human story. Research led by Christopher Lynn, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama, has explored a related but separate question: Not why we’re drawn to fire, but what it actually does to us once we’re looking at it. 

In one study, he tracked blood pressure while volunteers watched fire under different conditions and found a measurable drop, particularly when the fire included its natural crackling sound. The effect grew stronger the longer people watched.

Lynn’s research also touches on dissociation—not in the clinical sense, but the same everyday kind of “zoning out” you’d experience getting lost in a good book or a movie. Fire, his research suggests, might trigger a mild version of that state, where attention narrows, and the mind quiets down.

The research points to something bigger than personal comfort, too. Evolutionarily, more easygoing people may have had a real advantage around the fire. Calmer group members tend to create less social conflict. They’re more cooperative, more willing to share food, more likely to watch each other’s backs. A fire that helped people relax might have rewarded those who were able to take advantage of that calm, not only in the moment, but in the alliances and solidarity it made possible. 

Fessler, for his part, is not surprised by any of this.

“It’s not surprising to me that we see these relaxation effects,” he says. “Part of it is probably due to the stimulus properties of fire itself, part of it is the emotional attraction to it, and part of it is clearly cultural.”

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Fessler admits he is a bit puzzled that fireplaces continue to be a selling point for modern homes, given their relative inefficiency, cost, and environmental impact.

“If you look at real estate listings, what do they describe? The number of bedrooms, the square footage, the number of bathrooms, whether it has a swimming pool and the number of fireplaces,” he says. “Which is completely absurd.”

Grown-ups may never shake the urge for a fireplace to stare into, irrational as it may seem. But there might be a smarter way to handle that same curiosity about fire in kids. 

Fessler points to fire safety programs in Germany that skip the usual “stay away” warnings American kids grow up hearing. Instead of telling children to avoid fire entirely, the programs teach them how to build and handle it safely. Fessler isn’t sure how the program’s designers arrived at this approach, but says it tracks with everything his research suggests.

“Instead of just saying ‘don’t,’” he says, “they’re saying, ‘here’s how you handle fire safely and responsibly.’”

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 find fire so mesmerizing appeared first on Popular Science.

China cut oil imports hard — and why it is not and may never rush back. China cut crude imports from 11.7 million b/d in February to just under 9 million by late May, and by May imports hit 7.8 million b/d — the lowest since 2018 — with state refinery run rates at 66.3%, ...

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Kilpatrick of Google Deepmoind is claiming what we historically thought of as “the model” is no longer just weights — it’s a sprawling system of tool calling, hosted search, code execution, containers, and an agent harness. The harness is the quintessential current example of scaffolding that the model will “eat” — within roughly 12 months, ...

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What if the AI revolution didn’t just make a handful of companies insanely rich — but actually lifted up young workers, families, and small businesses across America? We need a pro-growth, pro-family, pro-entrepreneur tax plan that puts broad AI participation at the center of a sustainable economic boom. The 5 Pillars of the Plan Keep ...

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After a two week expedition off the coast of Brazil, an international team of researchers discovered 31 new marine species, including a fast-moving gossamer worm, a creepy fish, and other organisms that look straight out of outer space. Take a look and learn more about some of the newly-discovered creatures living deep in the southern Atlantic Ocean.  

This is a new species from the genus Tomopteris, commonly known as gossamer worms. Tomopterids spend their entire lives in the water column, living just below the surface to over 4000 meters. Little is known about their lives despite prior studies of their unusual, brilliant yellow bioluminescence. The expedition science team tested new technology that provides scientists with new, non-invasive ways to study these remarkable animals. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The mission focused on the ocean’s midwater, the part of the ocean below the water’s surface and above the seafloor. It is about 600 to 3,300 feet deep and is the least understood ecosystem on Earth, despite the fact that it’s teeming with life. The immense water pressure makes it extremely hard to study. 

This juvenile glass squid, collected by ROV SuBastian at 779 meters depth in the South Atlantic, was photographed on R/V Falkor (too) using a prototype multiview macro camera system developed through a collaboration between the Dr. Jan Hemmi (University of Western Australia, the Bioinspiration Lab at MBARI and Dr. Karen Osborn (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History). The system allows scientists on the ship to quickly document the finest details of an animal from three directions at once. This data gathering reduces the disturbance to the animal and captures anatomical, color and posture details that are lost within minutes to hours once the animal is collected. Image: Emily Clark / MBARI via Schmidt Ocean Institute Emily Clark / MBARI via Schmidt Ocean Institute

“The largest habitat on Earth, the midwater, is filled with incredible animals we are only just starting to understand,” said Karen Osborn, the expedition’s chief scientist, in a statement. “I continue to be fascinated by the fantastic variety of solutions they have evolved to survive in this formidable environment, and that drives me to keep asking questions about our ocean.”

The science team documented this larval fish at a depth of 966 meters during a dive with the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian. Dr. Marcelo Melo of the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo in Brazil specializes in the taxonomy and evolution of deep-sea fishes; he will try to match this baby form with the adult form the animal will eventually grow into. Image ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

The Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel (R/V) Falkor (too) tackled the problem with an array of high-tech tools: an underwater robot named SuBastian, a virtual reality chamber, and a gravity machine—a tracking microscope that studies microbes in a rotating wheel. They also used a spinning wheel confocal microscope nicknamed “the Squid” to image living cellular structures inside organisms for the first time. 

A female octopus (Haliphron atlanticus) consumes a jellyfish at 800 meters depth. This large pelagic octopus (her mantle is 40 to 50 cm long) spends her entire life in the open ocean. Males of this species only grow to 30 centimeters (approximately 12 inches). Females can grow up to four meters (13 feet) and weigh 75 kilograms (165 pounds). This species is rarely seen alive, and most of what is known about it has been determined from specimens caught in trawl nets. 
Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

“This opens a new door for researching deep-sea physiology, linking cellular architectures to organism function. We can now witness live internal processes within these extreme organisms adapted to withstand immense pressure and darkness,” Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University, said in a statement. 

This is a new species of lobed comb jelly, as identified by Dr. Dhugal Lindsay (JAMSTEC). These ctenophores are unlike comb jellies that trail long, sticky tentacles behind them to catch prey; lobates are characterized by two large, muscular oral lobes that extend beyond their mouths and are used to trap prey. ROV SuBastian pilots recorded this observation at a depth of 560 meters. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

These technologies allowed the researchers to rapidly identify new species onboard the vessel. Among them are a funky-looking glass squid, ethereal jellies, and tiny single-celled organisms. 

The team collected footage of this siphonophore at 552 meters depth. The imaging systems tested on R/V Falkor (too) allowed researchers to create millimeter-scale, 3D renderings of the creature in its natural habitat. Most species identifications take place ashore, using samples or small pieces, but these systems allow scientists to see and study the entire animal as it lives in the water. Based on images and measurements collected at sea, Dr. Dhugal Lindsay of JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) is confident that this animal belongs to an undescribed genus, perhaps even a new family of physonect siphonophores. Based on the detailed anatomical and genetic data collected in the water and on board, scientists will be able to compare this animal to those collected elsewhere around the globe and give this physonect a name. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute.

“The novel suite of technologies on this cruise is a glimpse into the future of marine biological science,” added Jyotika Virmani, the executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute. “We look forward to a future in which scientists study marine life as elegantly as this team did—and in virtual reality.” 

A Solmissus, or dinner plate jellyfish, preys upon a ctenophore, commonly known as a comb jelly. Unlike most jellyfish that passively drag their tentacles behind them, Solmissus swims with their tentacles extended in front of their body to snare ctenophores before vibrations alert the prey. They are believed to be gelatinous apex predators that play a major role in regulating comb jelly populations in the Ocean’s twilight and midnight zones. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

The post 31 alien-like marine species discovered off the coast of Brazil appeared first on Popular Science.

Today, we celebrate the United States’ semiquincentennial, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. During reflective national moments like these, we tend to focus on the political ambitions and accomplishments of our nation’s founders and those that followed. However, American independence was not won through perseverance and politics alone. Many of our nation’s founders were also practitioners of “natural philosophy” or what we call science today. 

“America is America because of our prowess in science and innovation,” Darryl Williams, Senior Vice President of Science Education at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, tells Popular Science. “Benajamin Franklin [along with our other founders] saw the opportunity for this new nation to really have as part of its fabric this focus on science to enhance and improve the human condition.”

The need to create a distinct intellectual identity was not just appealing for the nation’s founders, but undoubtedly crucial for independence from England.

“I think the economic piece of it is really critical. The very practical need to assert economic independence from England really drove a lot of the early conversations,” Adrianna Link, Curator of History of Science at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, tells Popular Science.  “Questions like how could we increase crop efficiency or deal with agricultural pests [including the Hessian fly] were fundamental to our survival.”

Whether a purely intellectual or economic pursuit, science was not only fundamental to our independence and ability to thrive as a nation in 1776,  but remains so in 2026.

Ben Franklin with a key and a kite (and much more) 

Benjamin Franklin’s contributions to early American science are arguably the most widely known and celebrated. His numerous inventions included the odometer, the lightning rod, the flexible catheter, and bifocals, but Franklin also considered the very act of accumulating knowledge and sharing information to be the noblest of pursuits. In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks dated July 27, 1783, he wrote  “I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.”

To support this effort in the then American colonies, Franklin founded the The American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia in 1743. Its purpose was simply stated as“promoting useful knowledge.” APS is not only the oldest learned society in the United States,  but also the longest continually operating press in the country. APS’s flagship journal Transactions of the American Philosophical Society was first published in 1771 and continues through today.  

“Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky,” an artistic rendition of Franklin’s kite experiment painted by Benjamin West, c. 1816. Image: Public Domain via Google Art Project

“Franklin thought a lot about how best to allow people to have access to and share information,” says Williams. Franklin had previously founded the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1731, and donated books from his personal collection to what would become the Franklin Public Library. The library remains the oldest public lending library in the U.S.

Franklin was also one of our earliest and brightest science communicators. In 1752, he successfully demonstrated the electrical nature of lightning with his famed kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment. Franklin recounted the event in the Pennsylvania Gazette on October 19, 1752, providing detailed instructions for, “drawing electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron,” so that others could replicate his experiment. His experiment was reproduced by many including an account published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in July 26, 1753. His findings were also celebrated across Europe. 

“Benjamin Franklin had all these incredible inventions that, again, have impacted society even through today, but I think his biggest legacy is really this idea around participatory science,” adds Williams.

David Rittenhouse and the Transit of Venus

By the 1760’s, the stars and planets literally and figuratively aligned for Franklin’s APS.  On June 3, 1769, Venus passed directly between the sun and the Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. Called the Transit of Venus, the celestial event had also occurred in 1761, but attempts by the global scientific community to directly observe and document it were unsuccessful.

David Rittenhouse, astronomer, surveyor and inventor, joined APS in 1768, and used his skills to lead the American efforts to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus. Armed with his own homemade telescope, his team’s observations and measurements were later published in The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions and helped French astronomer Jérôme Lalande accurately determine the precise distance between the Sun and the Earth. That measurement is still used today and called the astronomical unit (AU).

Under Franklin and later Rittenhouse and Thomas Jefferson’s leadership, APS showed how to mobilize a network of well-educated individuals and share their observations and data with counterparts across the colonies and Europe. 

“This kind of transatlantic exchange was as much part of the early identity of the APS as was the formation of something that one might think of as distinctly American science,” says Link.“If you think of Franklin as kind of creating the preconditions for America’s scientific success, it’s really Jefferson who establishes that close connection between the APS and the New Republic’s commitment to doing science.”

An account of the Transit of Venus over the sun, published in the APS Transactions (Vol. 1). This account was made by Reverend John Ewing in 1771. Image APS. Magnificent megafauna and America’s first science museums

To further promote and popularize science in the newly formed United States, public-facing natural history museums formed in the later 1700s. Early curators first had to establish and build natural history collections almost completely from scratch, while also improvising and experimenting with how to exhibit the scientific discoveries of the day. 

“It was very minimal storytelling [at first]. It was more along the lines of, this is what we have…very curiosity cabinet-style presentation,” Matt Gibson, Curator of Natural History at the Charleston Museum, tells Popular Science.

The Charleston Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, considered America’s First Museum, was founded by the Charleston Library Society at the eve of the American Revolution in 1773. Its early founders and contributors included distinguished South Carolinian Thomas Heyward Jr., a member of the Second Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

At first, the museum was open only for Charleston’s Elite. After a major fire in 1778 and dwindling funds in the decades that followed, the Library Society transferred all of its collections to the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina in 1815. They opened to the general public in 1824, charging 25 cents for adult admission.

“When they opened, they had some 4,000 minerals [on display], prints and paintings, and numerous natural history specimens,” Jennifer McCormick, Chief Curator at The Charleston Museum, tells Popular Science. “We still have three objects from the [18th century collection] that includes a crested chief’s helmet from the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), a Cassava strainer, and three spears from Suriname.” 

Peale’s Museum opened in Philadelphia in 1784. Its founder Charles Wilson Peale was a painter, Revolutionary War officer, state assemblyman, scientist, and naturalist. His first exhibition was 44 portraits that he painted of early American heroes including Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In 1786, his museum began showcasing natural curiosities alongside his portraits. In 1794, Peale accepted the role of APS librarian and moved the museum to their building. Rittenhouse’s famed telescope is among the surviving artifacts at APS.

“One of the things that Peale did very deliberately was thinking about this [connection] between science and American identity. He paired natural history specimens with portraiture. You’d have George Washington’s portrait alongside the mounted mastodon skeleton, which was a huge kind of wonder in the American imagination [at the time],” says Link. 

During the Pliocene, this region’s forests and waterways would have provided lush habitat for herds of mastodon. Image: Mural by Jay Matternes. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

This push to showcase the biggest and fiercest animals that once roamed the continent, was not just about generating business or buzz. It was politically motivated as well. “After the revolution, there was all that conversation about how American flora and fauna were inferior to those found in Europe” says Link. “That’s why the mastodon discovery is such a critical one for [America] and the APS, too because that was an example of America actually having impressive megafauna.” 

The Charleston Museum maintained its own impressive collection of  extinct American megafauna over the centuries including the estuarine crocodile (Gavialosuchus carolinensis), a giant ground sloth (Eremotherium laurillardi), Jefferson’s ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii), and the false-toothed bird Pelagornis sandersi, a bird species with a wingspan somewhere between 21 to 24 feet.

These early museums and their natural history displays not only captured the public’s imagination, but likely served as inspiration for countless 19th century natural history museums that followed, including The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia (1812), The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. (1846), and The Field Museum in Chicago (1894). 

Us and the state of American science today 

Science has come a long way since the American Revolution—thank you, germ theory and vaccines. But the dogged pursuit of knowledge and scientific integrity that was among the earliest preoccupations of our nation’s founders remains vital to the continued success of our science and nation. 

Acquiring knowledge and using it to improve our new nation and the lives of its citizens remains something that we experience every day, through the use of weather and crop disease forecasting tools that saves lives, genetic research to improve and personalize medicine, and advanced computing and instrumentation to help decipher the complicated history of our planet and universe.  

While 18th Century practitioners of natural philosophy did not need the specialized skills, multimillion dollar instruments or the advanced degrees required of today’s scientists, science, at its very core, is still achieved through careful observation and critical thinking. And that’s something Franklin, Jefferson and other early scientific revolutionaries hoped to instill in every American.

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The post The American revolutionaries who popularized science in the early United States appeared first on Popular Science.

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A juvenile humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) entangled in the opening to Alaska’s Endicott Arm was successfully freed after a multi-agency rescue mission. Endicott Arm is a narrow fjord located about 50 miles southeast of Juneau. While remote, it’s a major destination for cruise ships and commercial fishing vessels that can be a risk to whales and other marine wildlife. 

According to a statement from NOAA on June 24, several mariners noticed the entangled juvenile whale on the evening of May 10 and reported the sighting to the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network 24-hour hotline. The whale was caught in lines from two commercial Tanner crab pots. Since each pot weighs around 800 pounds, they essentially acted as anchors on the animal, making it unable to move. 

The mariners’ alert allowed regional coordinators to develop their response plan in a timely manner. “We formed a network of eyes on the water—vessel crews coordinating real-time updates between one another and relaying them to us,” said NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Specialist Suzie Teerlink in a statement. “That communication was critical. It gave us insight into the nature of the entanglement, helped us build a safe response plan, and gave us confidence that we could relocate the whale.” 

A response team made up of biologists from NOAA Fisheries, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Marine Mammal program, and local partners from Alaska Sea to Shore mobilized the very next day. They worked over five hours to make four precise cuts that freed the whale from the pots and most of the entangling lines. 

“Cutting gear off an animal of this size can be dangerous,” said John Moran, a NOAA research fisheries biologist and advanced responder on the team. “We use long poles fitted with specialized knives to extend our reach. That allows us to cut lines while reducing the risk of being injured by a 40-ton animal.”

The responders are hopeful the remaining will eventually fall off the whale.  

Entanglements are a major problem in Alaska. Since 1998, there have been more than 140 confirmed reports of entangled large whales. That number is likely far greater, since many entanglements go unreported. Unable to move, the animals can drown or starve, develop life-threatening infections, and may be hit by vessels.  

“We are incredibly grateful to the whale watch community and everyone who reported this entangled whale to the NOAA Fisheries hotline,” said Sadie Wright, Large Whale Entanglement Response Coordinator for the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region. “The details provided by the public enabled our response team to prepare and execute a safe response to this life-threatening entanglement, leading to a successful outcome.” 

The post Young humpback whale freed from a death trap in Alaska appeared first on Popular Science.

With the United States’ 250th birthday coming up on July Fourth, it may seem like George Washington is everywhere, from a live PBS broadcast featuring Ken Burns at Colonial Williamsburg to two-part screenings of the musical Hamilton where actor Christopher Jackson plays the Revolutionary War hero.

But at the Morristown National Historical Park in New Jersey, visitors can almost touch the first president of the United States—or at least part of his jacket. In honor of the country’s semiquincentennial, the park that commemorates the Continental Army’s encampment from December 1779 to June 1780 has put together a special exhibit displaying items from early American history. George Washington’s very own overcoat is included, but this isn’t any ordinary suit jacket, though. It’s the overcoat that George Washington wore to the ball on his inauguration night in 1789. 

Originally known as his “golden suit” because of its bright gold-yellow color, a careful analysis of the garment conducted by the Smithsonian and Morristown National Historical Park revealed that it wasn’t golden at all.

Dr. Asher Newsome, a physical chemist at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, used a special technique known as mass spectrometry to analyze a tiny amount of fibers from the coat. 

Smithsonian experts analyzed a tiny amount of fibers from the historic coat, but—don’t worry—the garment wasn’t harmed. Image: Asher Newsome, Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute

Don’t worry, the Founding Father’s priceless suit wasn’t touched. The fibers Newsome analyzed had just fallen off the coat thanks to Father Time. Curators usually refer to these types of specimens as “self-sampled.”

Once Newsome received these self-sampled fibers in the mail from Morristown, he got to work. Using a technique called Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectrometry (or DART-MS), Newsome was able to figure out the exact natural dyes used in the famous coat. 

“Nowadays, there are untold thousands of synthetic dyes, but there’s a very small number, relatively, of natural dyes,” Newsome tells Popular Science.

After running a DART-MS analysis, Newsome could look at the chemical signatures present in the fibers. He then matched those signatures to the known chemical signatures of different natural dyes to figure exactly which dyes were present in Washington’s suit.

And Newsome didn’t just find one dye: He found a range of different natural dyes from across the colonial world. “There’s shellac, which comes from an insect. There’s madder,” he says, “that comes from a root. There’s Brazil wood, walnut, logwood. Those all are dyes that were identified positively.”

Each of these dyes create a range of different colors. Shellac, which comes from an insect Kerria lacca native to India and Southeast Asia, creates a crimson to deep purple color. Madder comes from the roots of flowering shrubs in the genus rubiaceae, and creates a strong red color. Similar to shellac, Brazil wood can create a red or purple color. Walnut creates browns and tans. And, finally, logwood produces a rich royal purple color.

Based on Newsome’s analysis, curators at Morristown National Historical Park created a replica of Washington’s suit using the exact natural dyes present in the original. The replica wasn’t a golden color at all, but a rich, vibrant plum color. 

In fact, when a patch of the dyed plum-colored silk was left in the sun, it turned a yellow-golden color. That might explain how Washington’s famous overcoat turned golden in the centuries since he partied on his inauguration.

Behold what George Washington partied in! Get down, Mr. President. Image: Philip DePaola

The post George Washington’s famous ‘golden suit’ was actually purple appeared first on Popular Science.

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America’s Time Capsule is about to go underground until 2276. In honor of the United States’ 250th birthday, America250 will bury the zombie-proof historical repository this Fourth of July at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And you do not need to be in the City of Brotherly Love to watch. A livestream of the event will begin on July 4 at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Speakers will include Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, U.S. Semiquincentennial Commissioners Reginald Browne and Cathy Gillespie, America250 Executive Vice President Jennifer Condon,and Independence National Historical Park Superintendent Thomas Caramanico.

All 50 states, Washington, D.C., and five U.S. territories contributed items to the time capsule. Some notable objects include fabric from the Wright Brother’s plane, a North Atlantic right whale bone, a feather from a bald eagle that served in the Civil War, an Olympic gold medal, and an Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max. 

The time capsule is a multi-year collaboration among America250, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Library of Congress, the National Park Service, Independence Historical Trust, and additional project partners. The stainless steel capsule was built to withstand 250 years of water, and mainly consists of two sections. A tube-shaped container holds the capsule’s precious cargo, while a larger bell jar-like device seals it with an air pocket. That jar works similarly to pushing an upside-down bucket in a pool of water. 

The high-tech box will remain buried within Independence National Historical Park, the site where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and signed. It will remain sealed until July 4, 2276.

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NASA is ringing in the country’s 250th anniversary with a collection of Fourth of July themed images and videos highlighting cosmic wonders far beyond the United States. Researchers recently visualized a set of images across a spectrum of red, white, and blue hues compiled by the Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). To compliment the sights, NASA also produced new sonifications—a method to transform astronomical information into often ethereal soundscapes.

About 11,000 light-years away from Earth, the supernova Cassiopeia A’s X-rays (seen above) are rendered in blue and purple, while infrared wavelengths are shown in red and white using data from JWST. The X-ray overlays capture the destroyed star’s expansive blast wave of elements including calcium, iron, and oxygen. Meanwhile, the infrared components illustrate the explosion’s growing shell filled with cosmic dust.

NCG 3603, which contains a massive cluster of stars on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

The gigantic star cluster inside the nebula NGC 3603 (about 20,000 light-years away) shines in a second image. 

The spiral galaxy is seen face on, with concentric pale violet cloud rings flecked with scores of stars in white, pale blue, soft red, and golden yellow. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

The third showcases the Messier 94 spiral galaxy. The luminous formation about 16 million light-years away visible around the galaxy is called a starburst ring, home to new stars. The new sonification subjects include Messier 94, with various pitched tones mapped to a glass marimba representing objects like neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes.

For the nebula NGC 3603, piano notes serve as stand ins for objects depending on their brightness.

To see and hear all of the seasonally appropriate offerings, click here.

The post NASA celebrates Fourth of July with some cosmic fireworks appeared first on Popular Science.

Viewers tuning into the 2026 World Cup may not realize it, but they are staring at a piece of high-tech equipment hundreds of years in the making with every single kick. The seemingly simple soccer cleat has progressed from a chunky leather work boot worn in factories to a marvel of modern engineering made with advanced synthetic materials and composites. Some of today’s cleats even weigh in at less than a pack of playing cards. The evolution of these soccer cleats, or “football boots,” as they’re often called, mirrors the evolution of the beautiful game and its players over time.

That progression essentially breaks down to a few key components: the shoe upper, the sole and toe guard, and, of course, the cleats. Each part looks radically different today than when players first started knocking balls around hundreds of years ago. The leather for the upper of the shoe once came from kangaroo hide (not cowhide). The cleats, now scrupulously modeled in 3D simulations, originated as sharp metal nails, the kind sold at a local hardware store. These changes are the result of fierce competition between a handful of major brands, each pushing the game, and the athletes’ speed, power, and physics-defying spin, forward.

The early years: leather work boots with sharp metal nails

Modern soccer as we know it began somewhere between the 18th and 19th centuries. Those first few hundred years were far less organized than the game millions around the world view on their screens today. People (most often middle- or lower-class workers) played for leisure, without formal leagues or professional teams. As a result, those hobbyists typically played with whatever equipment they had lying around. That often meant leather work boots or even their bare feet. Those early days are how soccer footwear earned the moniker it has almost everywhere outside the United States: football boots. The name certainly fits. Soccer shoes in the late 1800s and early 1900s were indistinguishable from the rugged, high leather boots seen on factory floors.

Vintage soccer boots and ball at the Beamish Open Air Museum in County Durham, England. Image: Dea/S. Vannini/Contributor via Getty Images.

But players started making modifications pretty quickly. Work boots lacked traction, which isn’t ideal when playing on British turf often muddied by rain or slicked by winter frosts. To compensate, early soccer players would hammer nails into the soles of their shoes, which would dig down into the grass and provide at least a bit more stability. That slight improvement came at a cost. Anyone caught on the receiving end of a DIY soccer cleat loaded with sharp, likely rusting metal nails probably wasn’t getting back up to finish the game.

Designs started to change in the late 1800s, as organizers attempted to standardize more parts of the game. In 1886, the then-newly formed Football Association in England released a document laying out a handful of equipment guidelines intended to make the game marginally safer. Importantly, shoes of some kind were now mandatory. The document also banned the use of nails in shoe soles, unless their edges were covered with leather. Relatively quickly, a new basic standard was formed: an all-leather, lace-up boot with six studs spread out along the sole. That stud layout would mutate into the cleats of today.

How a pair of German brothers changed the game

Soccer cleats saw occasional iteration during the early 20th century. However, a real turning point that would define the future of both the shoe’s sole and its support is the work of two brothers from a small German town. Rudolf and Adolf Dassler from Herzogenaurach (often referred to as Herzo) created the first fully specialized soccer shoes. Their company’s name, Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, translates to Brothers Dassler Shoe Factory in English.

Theirs was the first company to specialize in optimizing design for performance, in both soccer and running. According to the Hulu documentary series Sneaker Wars, a series of odd events led the Dassler brothers to provide backup shoes for American sprinter Jesse Owens during his historic performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The ensuing name recognition would make them the most sought-after athletic shoe, but it would also drive a wedge between the brothers. They eventually split and created two of the most important brands in soccer footwear: Adidas and Puma. More than a century later, both of those now-international companies still have their headquarters in the tiny German shoemaking town.

Not long after the company’s formation, Puma moved footwear forward by introducing the first boot with an interchangeable stud. That single part was important because it meant demanding players could swap out different-sized plastic and rubber studs to best suit different pitches and weather conditions. Meanwhile, shoe designs started becoming lower cut, resembling a modern sneaker more and more. Aside from aesthetics, this design change allowed for better player movement and agility. Players could run faster and change direction more quickly, which translated to better performance on the pitch.

The soccer cleat also had to adapt to changes in the way the game was played. By the 1960s, an increasing number of teams were adopting artificial grass. The longer, more traditional studs struggled to grip properly on the slicker surface, so shoe makers began using shorter, rubber cleats. Around the same time, in 1966, Puma introduced its Puma King model, which connected the upper part of the shoe to the sole. This design would go on to be copied by others for years.

George Cohen, right back for Fulham Football Club, sorting out a pair of football boots during a training session on July 26, 1967, at the Fulham training ground in Ewell, Surrey, England. Cohen was a squad member of the England team that won the 1966 World Cup. Image:  William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. William Vanderson About that kangaroo leather…

About a decade later, Adidas made the more controversial design decision to use kangaroo leather in its 1979 Adidas Copa Mundial. The material was prized for its lightweight, uniquely soft texture, and durability. It was a big hit. 

That model would go on to become one of the best-selling shoes of all time. The kangaroo-based material came to be known as “K-leather” and became a gold standard in the industry. That’s only recently started to change. ESPN estimates the global commercial kangaroo product industry was worth $200 million in 2021, a figure propped up by K-leather shoes.

In 2023, both Puma and Nike announced they would cease production of any product made with kangaroo leather by the end of the year. That decision came on the heels of a handful of proposed state and federal bills in the U.S. aiming to make it illegal to sell kangaroo-based products. At the same time, advances in synthetic leathers were increasingly becoming more attractive for shoe makers in terms of both performance and production cost.

Cleats enter the television era

Since the 1990s and 2000s, soccer shoe design has iterated more rapidly. This breakneck pace of innovation is attributed to both rising viewership and participation among players around the world and to the rise of American shoe maker Nike as one of the biggest brands in the sport. Several models stand out during that period for advancing the shoe’s tech and science. Adidas’s 1994 Predator added strips of rubber on the shoe’s toe, which provided extra grip that the company and players say translated to bigger, curvier bends on the ball. Though the degree to which that was the shoe’s doing or the player’s skills remains up for debate.

In 1998, Nike’s Mercurial became one of the more influential shoes to use synthetic leather instead of the real thing. Fast forward 16 years, and Nike would go on to release its Magista line, crafted out of a single piece of fabric, which meant it essentially fit more like a sock than a shoe. Magista would go on to influence a number of other models, some of which are still trying to emulate that sock-like look. It took less than 100 years for the soccer shoe to evolve from a heavy leather work boot to a nearly weightless piece of synthetic fabric some might mistake for loungewear.

United States Women’s National Team striker Mia Hamm in action against Brazil during the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup semifinals on July 4. Image: Peter Read Miller /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images. Peter Read Miller The modern era: computer model, ultralightweight material, and bright colors 

Instead of cobblers working in dark rooms, making soccer shoes now is more likely to involve a team of engineers comfortable with 3D computer models. Today’s major manufacturers turn out new ideas in computer simulations and make fine adjustments to every part of the shoe, from upper size to cleat shape and positioning, to try to give players an edge.

Nike reportedly uses a tool called Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to test out plate positioning digitally prior to real-world testing. In a 2016 interview with Popular Mechanics, a Nike executive said data gleaned from FEA revealed that new chevron-shaped studs improved propulsion and multidirectional movement over previous blade-shaped studs. 3D modeling has also helped make overall shoe designs even lighter and better at gripping than before. This reduced weight and added grip complement the modern game, which often prioritizes outright speed and power above all else. Exemplifying that, Adidas made the world’s first soccer cleat weighing less than 100 grams in 2015. To put that in perspective, that’s about the same weight as a four-pack of AA batteries.

Cleat makers are also embracing new types of polymers and synthetic materials that early shoemakers couldn’t have dreamed of. Nike introduced what it calls Anti-Clogging Tech, which uses an adaptive polymer and hydrophobic solution that keep mud from getting stuck in plates, which can reduce grip and traction. Doing this reportedly required understanding the molecular structure of mud. More recently, the company has also introduced adaptive traction technology, which lets pegs in cleats automatically adjust to varying turf conditions, extending deeper into the ground on softer grass and acting more like a stable stud on harder pitches.

Nike boots with the flag of Brazil during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match between Brazil and Japan at Houston Stadium on June 29, 2026. Image: Hugo Rivera/Jam Media/Getty Images.

But maybe the most noticeable innovation in shoe tech that most fans will notice during matches at this year’s World Cup has little to do with tech at all. It’s the colors. For decades, soccer cleats were almost exclusively monochrome white or black. That’s certainly not the case today. The field is inundated with a full panorama of bright, bold colors, with hot pink being particularly popular. This shift to brighter colors is partly so T.V. viewers can more clearly spot the shoes at home, but it also has a more strategic, psychological component. It apparently makes elite players feel like they have an edge.

“What we’ve been hearing consistently from the athlete and the consumer, especially when it comes to big moments, is that bright colors give them confidence,” Nike Global Footwear Product Line Manager Odinga Nimako said in a recent interview with The Athletic. 

While the game’s massive stadiums and even bigger player personalities may attract the bulk of attention during this year’s World Cup, it might be worth taking a moment to look down and appreciate just how far those boots have traveled.

In The History of Every Thing, Popular Science uncovers the hidden stories and surprising origins behind everyday things.

The post From real nails to kangaroo leather: Soccer cleats went on a wild journey appeared first on Popular Science.

A new study by the European Southern Observatory warns that plans to launch more than 1.7 million satellites into orbit could have “devastating consequences for astronomy,” making the night sky brighter and reducing scientists’ ability to observe the galaxy and the universe beyond. Ground Telescope astronomers on Earth can forget about issues looking through millions ...

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