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Tour the International Space Station in new NASA walkthrough

Popular Science

The new video highlights the (cramped) life aboard the ISS. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. There is nearly 16,700 cubic feet of habitable area aboard the International Space Station (ISS). That makes it larger than a six-bedroom, two-bathroom house,but still small enough for a grand tour that takes less than 15 minutes. Earlier this month, NASA released a high-definition video showcase of the ISS, its facilities, and its crew recorded during the Crew-4 and Crew-5 missions in October 2022.


Donated Christmas trees get a second life at the zoo

Popular Science

The evergreen trees give kangaroos, bison, lions, and more extra shelter and fun. Capybaras use donated Christmas trees as wind breaks to protect their habitats. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The presents are unwrapped, the cookies are crumbs, and that real Christmas tree will become a fire hazard soon enough. Most of us haul it out to the curb for our local sanitation departments to take care of, but some lucky trees make it into the paws of animals living in zoos.


Giving a 140 pound stingray a check up requires 8 people

Popular Science

The male leopard whiptail ray also boasts a four-foot-three-inch wingspan. Leopard whiptail rays have spotted skin and a long, thin tail they use for balance, steering, and defense. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Getting that annual check-up can feel daunting for anyone. At the weight of an adult human with a four-foot-three-inch wingspan, just moving the giant fish from its habitat to an exam pool is an exercise in teamwork.


Cozy up (safely) to an e-scooter's lithium battery yule log

Popular Science

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is well known for getting their point across on social media. A seven-minute montage of mannequins succumbing to 4th of July firework injuries may be an unconventional way to warn about the dangers of recreational explosives--but try forgetting those images when lighting your next bottle rocket. In similar pyrotechnic fashion, the CPSC is warning everyone to take extra care during the holidays when it comes to all kinds of combustible, seasonally appropriate objects. On December 22, the commission illustrated how some gifts are far more flammable than others with its 30-minute Escooter Lithium-Ion Battery Yule Log video.


Ditch the antibacterial soap this cold and flu season

Popular Science

You still need to wash your hands with soap and warm water though. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The most dreaded time of year rolls around every winter like clockwork: cold and flu season. The time when hand washing increases, sanitizing surfaces intensifies, and old and young schedule regular seasonal vaccines in an attempt to prevent sickness from descending on their households. But there's one piece of ammunition you should absolutely skip this season--and all year-round--because it does more harm than good: antibacterial hand soap.


Newborn African penguin named after a hot dog

Popular Science

The critically endangered chicks, Oscar and Duffy, were born at a New Jersey aquarium. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. An aquarium in New Jersey welcomed two new residents, just in time for the holidays. On December 20, staff at Adventure Aquarium in Camden revealed the recent births of Duffy and Oscar, a pair of African penguins () and some much needed good news in light of ongoing conservation concerns . "These milestones are incredibly important for the critically endangered African penguin population, and we couldn't be more proud to play a role in their future," the aquarium just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania wrote in a social media post .


9 festive ISS holiday celebrations through the years

Popular Science

Crews living 250 miles above the Earth still keep the holiday spirit alive. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. For the past 25 years, an intrepid group of astronauts have spent the holidays 250 miles above the Earth. The crew living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) get to eat their turkey (but can't drink seltzer or use salt) and open presents while traveling 17,500 miles per hour and circling their home planet every 90 minutes. Despite that unique vantage, the celebrations often look quite similar to how they would here on Earth.


Dive into 2025's most stunning deep-sea wildlife encounters

Popular Science

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. There are plenty of annual recap lists circulating around this time of year, but few of them involve the amount of work put in by California's Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). Over the past year, researchers guided remotely operated vehicles more than 3,000 feet down to survey the vast biodiversity within some of the oceans' deepest and darkest regions. The data and footage collected during these trips will help experts fill in the gaps towards understanding the planet's hardest-to-reach ecosystems. To celebrate the past 12 months of discoveries, MBARI released a video highlighting some of 2025's most stunning, strange, and mysterious creature sightings.


Weak ants conquered Earth using sheer numbers

Popular Science

Ant evolution favored large colonies over individual strength. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Here's a fun (and creepy) fact: The Earth is home to approximately 20 quadrillion ants . To put zeroes on it, that's around 20,000,000,000,000,000 of the six-legged insects living all around us. How did such diminutive creatures attain their prominent--and ecologically vital -role on the planet?


Explore NASA's most detailed map of the night sky yet

Popular Science

'We essentially have 102 new maps of the entire sky.' Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. NASA aimed big for its SPHEREx's first 3D cosmic map . Only six months after starting operations, the orbital space telescope has completed its inaugural infrared scan of the entire sky. Although infrared isn't visible to the human eye, the map's 102 wavelengths remain detectable across the universe--to the right instruments. "It's incredible how much information SPHEREx has collected in just six months--information that will be especially valuable when used alongside our other missions' data to better understand our universe," Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA, said in a statement .