Popular Science

Before she became a freelance journalist, Mallory Pickett earned a Master’s degree in the chemistry of climate change. She’s captivated by the idea that our actions today will affect the Earth we’ll live on tomorrow—specifically, a warmer one. With a

WHEN I WAS A KID, THE water cycle blew my mind. I think it was fifth grade science when I learned about the phenomenon through song (perhaps you did too), a musical description of how our planet turns moisture from everywhere into the water we drink.

MOST OF THE HUES WE LOOK AT THESE DAYS COME courtesy of 16,777,216 alphanumeric keys called Hex codes; tinting your technicolor digital life is as simple as copying a string of characters. But the shades on this page—and all your off-screen belonging

THE EPA’S MOST RECENT census of U.S. waste tallied 262.4 million tons of new junk in 2015—the weight of about 40 Pyramids of Giza, or 4.5 pounds per person per day. We can recycle about one-quarter of what we toss, but rising costs and trade issues m

GLOBAL CLEANUPS PULL PLASTIC FROM OCEANS and pledge drives guard rainforests, but grasslands get very little love. Only 5 percent of Earth’s remaining meadows are preserved, making them the least-protected biome. Humans have already destroyed more th

ONLY 60 PERCENT OF THE FOOD WE GROW IN THE UNITED STATES makes it into our mouths. The rest drops out of the supply chain, bit by bit, as grub wends its way to our plates. Pests chomp some in the field and vittles inevitably spoil on their way to the

STORAGE IS HARD TO come by aboard the International Space Station. Even if a rocket had room to ferry thousands of pounds of water and oxygen to supply a six-month mission, you’d struggle to find anywhere to stash it. So engineers have devised creati

DEATH MIGHT BE LIFE’S NATURAL AND unavoidable conclusion, but humans have ensured that what happens to our bodies afterward is anything but. For more than a century, the circle of life in the United States has looked more like a horseshoe, with buria

ON THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII, A FUNGUS CALLED CERATOCYSTIS is murdering ‘Ōhi‘a trees—at least 1 million in the past eight years. Local forest experts had no idea how to contain the quick-killing pathogen, until an aerial survey from ecologist Greg Asn

YOUR MONTHLY UTILITY BILLS GIVE A BIG-PICTURE LOOK AT the resources your home drinks up. They won’t tell you, though, that a leaky toilet is hemorrhaging water or your “sleeping” cable box is still sucking up electricity. Obsessive monitoring types c

BRINGING YOUR LEFTOVER LASAGNA TO WORK IS GOOD FOR both the environment and your budget. Brown-bagging it keeps food waste out of landfills, but you should actually avoid the brown bag too—as well as utensils like plastic forks and knives that will e

IT’S EASY TO GET SPOILED WHEN there’s always an outlet waiting to pump electrons into your phone. But when you’re off the grid (either by choice or by blackout), there are alternative ways to snag a power-up from readily available resources. Though n

YOU CAN MEASURE BAMBOO’S GROWTH SPURTS IN FEET PER day. That rapid expansion makes it a sustainable substitute for the less-earth-friendly materials such as the plastic, metal, and wood we buy every day. Even growing the stuff is a help: The grass’s

WE’RE PRETTY QUICK TO SEND BROKEN HOUSEHOLD STUFF TO THE LANDFILL in favor of something new and shiny. Simple repairs and basic maintenance, however, can make your items last longer—and avoid creating more waste. But even a simple task like securing

IN 1798, ENGLISH CLERGYMAN THOMAS Malthus published a slim but provocative volume titled An Essay on the Principle of Population. The book went viral (by 18th-century standards) for its stunning conclusion that “the power of population is indefinitel

MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST Christopher Johnson was schmoozing at a party not long ago, talking with another guest about his research, as scientists often do. Johnson works on breaking down plastics, which tend to be highly resistant to such things. The woma

One morning in August 2018, a man named Ralph Breeden telephoned the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to report that a dead manatee was bobbing in the bay behind his house in a quiet Saratoga suburb. Soon, two biologists, Gretchen Lo

Overconsumption, pollution, climate change, and the increasing demands of a swelling population are drying out key agricultural regions like California, the Mediterranean, and Central America. PROBLEM: regular droughts SOLUTION: early-rising plants S

Amid the faded photographs and yellowed clippings in the attic box that holds the sum record of my ancestors, one item stands out. It’s a short article from The Wichita Weekly Eagle, boldly headlined: “Sam Genoway’s Farm Tractor.” Sam, a distant cous

WALK THROUGH BALTIMORE’S NEIGHBORHOODS, AND LOOK UP. THE FAN-SHAPED GINKGO LEAVES AND RUBY-RED PEARLS DANGLING FROM CHERRY BRANCHES ARE THE LITERAL FRUITS OF HOW GENE DESANTIS HAS SPENT THE PREDOMINANT PART OF HIS LIFE. ON SATURDAYS, THE SLIGHT, CAP-

It has become increasingly difficult to fix the things you own. Tinkering with your gear or taking it to an independent repair shop—assuming you can find one—often voids the warranty. But device rehab wasn’t always verboten. Communities of fixers sti

Earth’s companion is a hot commodity. Teams from China, Israel, India, and NASA all want fresh slices of moon cheese—as do private companies such as Cape Canaveral’s Moon Express. Some of this off-world transit hype is about bragging rights, and some

For decades after they belched their last coal fumes, the cooling towers of the Richborough Power Station loomed over the low landscape of Kent, in the southeast of England, guiding fishing boats into the English Channel. That all ended on the mornin

IN THE LATE WINTER SUN, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK’S BLANKET OF SNOW IS BLINDINGLY WHITE. THE GREAT SHAGGY BEASTS—BISON, IN THEIR THICK, BURNISHED WINTER COATS—THRIVE IN THE GLARE. A FEW YARDS FROM WHERE I STAND ON THE ROAD, a small group is gathered,

Helium is a little bit sexy, you know? If you immerse some solid objects into a vat of the element, the submersible becomes superconductive—electricity flows indefinitely without generating heat. That’s why helium is great for more than just making b

In 2010, a friend and I started the Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library. It’s a lot like a regular library, but instead of books, we lend packets of seeds. You can check them out, plant them at home, and harvest new ones that you’re welcome to return

VICTOR W. WEEDN, FORENSIC SCIENTIST AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Sperm are hard to find under a microscope, so we use a special dye to turn the heads red and tails green. But the tails often break off, leaving the heads, which, unless carefully ex

Leather is difficult to mimic without animals, which use up lots of land and water. Instead, we engineer yeast cells that produce collagen proteins as they ferment. We purify what comes out and turn it into a material that tries to imitate a hide. Ou

EDGES DEFINE AN OBJECT’S SHAPE. Without them, we wouldn’t know a square from a circle. But we don’t need a complete mold for a figure to take form. A prime example? The eerily vibrant triangle above. In reality, no polygon exists. There aren’t any co

THESE STRAWBERRIES LOOK RED (almost), like fresh fruit should. But this tasty image doesn’t have any rosy hues in it at all. Zoom way in, and you’ll find that the pixels that make up this snack are actually gray. You’re seeing scarlet because of a vi

FANS OF DIE HARD WITH A Vengeance will remember this one: To disable a bomb, Detective John McClane must measure out exactly 4 gallons of water, and place the resulting weight on a scale. His tools are yours: a 3-gallon and a 5-gallon jug—and a singl

CLAIRE MALDARELLI IN THE OFFICE COMPRESSING AN ENTIRE GROVE’S WORTH OF fruit into a compact space is difficult, but artist Sam Van Aken has proved it’s possible. Using grafting techniques that date back as early as 1400 B.C., he can grow up to 40 dif