Popular Science

While we have months to wait for the first images from the freshly-launched Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s other incredible observatories do not disappoint. The agency released a new collection of 16 galactic images taken with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. 

Galaxies are separated into three main categories—spirals, ellipticals, and irregulars. Spirals are like our own Milky Way and appear to spin around a central focus. Ellipticals are older galaxies and likely the results of mergers. Irregulars that can encompass a wide range of galactic phenomena. 

Spirals, ellipticals, and irregulars are all represented in this new collection. Each image hasX-ray data from Chandra, combined with data from other telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hubble, IXPE, Swift, and NuSTAR, and others both in space and on the ground. Gaze into the galaxies in the gallery below. (Click to expand images to full screen.)

NGC 16-72 A barred spiral galaxy featuring a prominent central bar or bridge of stars that channels gas toward its core. Chandra X-rays (purple) highlight growing black holes along the bar and core, merged with Hubble optical light (white, yellow and soft blue) and JWST infrared dust filaments (red). Studying barred spirals in action can help reveal how gas in our own Milky Way, which is also a barred spiral, feeds its central black hole and forms new stars. Image X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/Hubble Heritage Team; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/J. Lee and T. Williams; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare, J. Major, K. Arcand. II Zw 096 A chaotic, dust-shrouded system of merging galaxies forming stars at a furious rate. Chandra X-ray data (magenta) pinpoint powerful black hole activity and hot gas, while Hubble optical (blue and white) and Webb infrared (red and grey) data illuminate vast stellar nurseries hidden behind interstellar dust. Systems like II Zw 096 show us how powerful galaxy collisions shaped the early universe. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major. M33 A nearby, face-on spiral galaxy whose clear spiral arms offer an unhindered view of its stellar engine. X-ray data from Chandra (purple) highlights point sources like neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes pulling material off companion stars (systems called X-ray binaries), while optical data from the Very Large Telescope’s MUSE instrument (pink and grey) maps glowing pockets of hydrogen gas. Ultraviolet data from NASA’s Swift telescope (blue) reveals populations of young, massive stars sizzling across the spiral arms. M33’s proximity to us allows astronomers to audit individual high-energy objects and map how stellar feedback affects a galaxy’s ecosystem. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: ESO/VLT; UV: NASA/Swift; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 4258 A spiral galaxy famous for having two extra, “anomalous” spiral arms composed of hot gas. Chandra’s X-rays (royal blue) show superheated shockwaves created by central black hole jets, combined with optical light from Hubble (red, yellow and pale blue) and infrared dust filaments from Webb (bright orange). M106 helps show how supermassive black holes can create structural features that mimic star-bearing spiral arms, influencing a galaxy’s evolution. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 1569 A compact dwarf irregular galaxy undergoing a violent, compact burst of star formation. Chandra and XMM-Newton observations (blue and purple) reveal massive bubbles of million-degree gas inflated by stellar winds, set against a backdrop of optical light (magenta, orange and white) imaged by Adam Block. Dwarf starburst galaxies can serve as local laboratories for studying the conditions of the early universe, where small, primitive galaxies formed stars at frantic rates. Image: X-ray: (XMM):ESA/XMM-Newton, (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Univ.of Arizona/Mt Lemmon SkyCenter/Adam Block/Josep Drudis; Image Processing: NASA?CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. M90 A large spiral galaxy that is being stripped of its gas as it plunges at high speed through hot gas in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Chandra’s X-ray data (magenta) pinpoints high-energy point sources—such as X-ray binaries and supernova remnants—and diffuse hot gas nestled within the spiral disk imaged by Hubble (blue, brown and gold). A ground-based optical light image taken from New Mexico by Timothy Martin reveals red filaments of hydrogen gas streaming over 300,000 light-years behind the galaxy as it falls into the Virgo Cluster. Image: Accidental Astronomers. X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/D. Thilker/J. Lee/PHANGS-HST Team; Full-field: Tim Martin; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. Centaurus A A giant elliptical galaxy undergoing a dusty merger, featuring a powerful jet of particles blasting tens of thousands of light-years into space. Chandra’s X-rays (blue) showcase the high-energy jet, with additional X-rays from IXPE (orange), while Webb infrared (magenta) and optical light (amber and white) from the European Southern Observatory expose a dark, churning dust lane. As one of the closest active galaxies to Earth, Cen A allows astronomers to study the effects of supermassive black hole jets in extraordinary detail. Image: X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO, X-ray (IXPE): NASA/MSFC; Optical: ESO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare, K. Arcand, and J. Major. M104 Famous for its broad central bulge and dark outer dust ring, this galaxy sits at a nearly edge-on tilt to Earth. Chandra X-rays (cyan and orange) isolate compact point sources and hot gas in the galaxy’s sprawling halo, merged with Hubble optical light (warm white) and Webb infrared vision (purple-red dust lane). Studying M104 may help bridge the gap between spirals and ellipticals, helping astronomers better understand how a galaxy’s giant outer cloud of stars grows and ages alongside its inner disk. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical:NASA/Hubble Heritage Team/AURA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. Arp 143 This ring galaxy system formed when a smaller companion galaxy punched straight through its center like a bullseye, creating a powerful cosmic shockwave. Chandra X-rays (purple) uncover bright X-ray binary systems scattered along the collision shock wave, laid over Hubble’s optical image (blue and white) of expanding stellar rings. Such head-on collisions can trigger vast ripple effects, sparking huge waves of star birth across entire galaxies. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/J. Dalcanton; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 4725 A “one-armed” barred spiral galaxy surrounded by a prominent star-forming ring. Chandra’s X-ray data (magenta) pinpoints several bright X-ray sources, likely caused by growing black holes, embedded within the sweeping optical disk (soft blue and white) captured with the Mt. Lemmon Observatory. Galaxies with unusual single arms can offer a window into how the gravity from a passing galaxy can trigger bursts of star formation. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/NAOJ/R. Gendler; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 1385 A barred spiral galaxy packed with regions where stars are actively forming. Chandra X-ray data (magenta) highlights stellar nurseries and X-ray binaries scattered along dusty spiral structures brought to life by Hubble optical (white and grey) and Webb infrared (orange and red) observations. Comparing multiwavelength data of barred spirals containing active star formation helps scientists map how local starbursts build up galactic mass over time. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 660 A rare “polar ring” galaxy where a tilted outer ring of stars and dust rotates over the galaxy’s poles, an unusual structure likely caused by a collision with another galaxy about a billion years ago. Chandra’s X-rays (purple) reveal a possible growing supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy, plus X-ray binaries nestled within the stars and dust captured by the Gemini Observatory in optical light (gold, blue and white). Studying polar rings teaches us about the diverse effects of stellar collisions on the shapes of galaxies. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical:NSF/International Gemini Observatory/AURA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. M82 An irregular galaxy undergoing intense star formation because of a gravitational interaction with a neighboring galaxy hundreds of millions of years ago. Chandra X-rays (blue), supplemented by NuSTAR data, show towering superwinds of million-degree gas blowing thousands of light-years out of the galactic disk, with Hubble optical light (yellow, orange and white) showing the galaxy shape, and Webb and Spitzer detailing infrared dust emission (red). M82 was nicknamed the Cigar Galaxy mostly because of its edge-on angle to Earth, which makes its central disk look like an elongated, cigar-shaped oval with small optical telescopes. The galaxy illustrates how violent galactic “exhaust systems” can regulate a galaxy’s growth by venting gas outwards. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare, J. Major, and K. Arcand. NGC 3256 A pair of colliding, gas-rich spiral galaxies merging into a single massive system. Chandra’s X-ray data (pink) isolates point sources and shock-heated gas, Hubble’s optical light (blue and white) captures tidal tails of stars, and Webb’s infrared vision (red and orange) cuts through the dust to show hidden star formation. Galaxy collisions like this offer a preview of our far future, showing what might happen if our own Milky Way collides and merges with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 3938 A face-on spiral galaxy whose orientation gives us an unobstructed view of its disk. X-ray emissions from Chandra (magenta) detail energetic X-ray binaries and supernova remnants scattered across dust lanes in an optical image (white, blue and gold) from Adam Block with Mt. Lemmon Observatory. Face-on orientations are important for galactic studies because they provide the most unobstructed views of a galaxy’s stars and gas. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare. NGC 4631 A spiral galaxy viewed from its side, featuring a giant halo of hot gas blowing out of its stellar disk. X-rays from Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton (purple and royal blue) trace hot gas driven out by supernovas and black holes and neutron stars pulling gas from their companions, while optical light (light blue, gold and white) from ground-based observer R. Jay GaBany showcases dense dust lanes. Edge-on views of galaxies allow astronomers to study how flat their stellar disks are and provide the clearest views of material located above or below the disk. Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: ©2011-2015 by R Jay GaBany, Cosmotography.com; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare.

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A little less than 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius became the antihero of the ancient world’s most well-known tragedy. The infamous explosion covered Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic debris, immortalizing the final moments of the ancient Roman cities and some of their unfortunate inhabitants in stunning detail. 

Now, however, visitors can witness the glory of Pompeii before it all came crashing down in 79 CE. A former game engineer from Illinois and his team have developed an application that brings sites at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii to unprecedented life via Immersive Extended Reality technology. In other words, you can now stand in the forum alongside other ancient Romans and watch in horror as Mount Vesuvius starts to rumble along the horizon. 

Todd Porter, the former game engineer and now founder of the software company Histoury, went through a different kind of horror to make it happen—walking every inch of the archaeological sites to execute 155 scans under southern Italy’s blazing sun. 

An idea ahead of its time 

Porter founded Histoury less than three years ago, but the lightning bolt of inspiration originally struck him 15 years ago on a visit to Herculaneum, Porter tells Popular Science. It was while wandering around the archaeological sites that he had the idea of using his video game background to reconstruct his surroundings in a virtual world one could visit with their phones. 

Of course, in 2012, smart phones didn’t have enough processing power to support the sort of software required for something like that. “It only took 13 years for phones to catch up to my vision,” Porter jokes. 

But that vision could only manifest with the Pompeii archaeological park’s consent. Thankfully, a member of the team—a former hotel front desk employee who, after learning about the team’s project, offered to quit his job and do their business development—wouldn’t take no for an answer. He knocked on Pompeii’s door every day until, possibly out of exhaustion, the park agreed to a demonstration. 

[ Related: DNA reveals new stories about Pompeii’s victims ]

The scanner looks like a bomb

Histoury’s digital reconstructions start with two different kinds of scans—a high resolution scan and a spatial scan. 

The high resolution scan creates a virtual 3D model of the site with an accuracy range of less than 2 centimeters, and involves walking around the archaeological site with an instrument called a LiDAR scanner. 

“That’s just me walking around with a device that looks like a bomb,” Porter says. “It’s shaped like a giant pill with a light whirling around and it makes a noise. You hold it with one hand and you’re looking at your phone with the other.” 

Todd Porter, the former game engineer and now founder of the software company Histoury, walked around with this scanner capturing every inch of Pompeii. Image: Histoury, Inc.

The resulting 3D model is then converted into 3D mesh—essentially a kind of digital model compatible with the game development software they use. Histoury’s artists then build the reconstruction directly on top of this 3D mesh, in consultation with a team of archaeologists to make sure everything is as historically accurate as possible. 

The other scan—the spatial scan—employs a less powerful instrument called an Xgrid Portalcam, and serves several different purposes. The main one is to secure spatial accuracy. Traditional GPS data is largely inaccurate. Instead, Histoury’s application uses artificial intelligence to determine where the user is standing and which way they are facing within six inches of accuracy. The AI matches the image captured by the smart phone to images of known locations in its data. 

The other purpose of the spatial scan is to allow artists to double check their work without having to visit Pompeii in person. “We blend the two [scans] in our tool set so that the artist can walk around and they can switch back and forth between their recreation and the real world just to triple check that everything is lined up,” Porter explains. “AI is really sloppy with a lot of things. Music, art, but the stuff that it’s really good at is the stuff we use it for, which is number crunching.”

In the final step, the team’s lead AI expert has AI agents that “walk” the entire digital reconstruction, looking in every direction. Simply put, these walk-throughs help check how accurate the spatial aspect of the reconstruction is. 

“If it’s not accurate at all or less than a certain percentage, it sends the team back to the site for another spatial scan,” Porter explains. “It means we don’t have to send people on site to stand in 5,000 different places to figure out our accuracy,” says Porter. “We can do that virtually.”

[ Related: What did Pompeii smell like before it burned? ]

A magical project

The final product is a smart phone or tablet application, Portyl, that shows what Pompeii would have looked like before Mount Vesuvius’ devastating explosion wherever you point your device. The recreation is populated with people, animals, sound effects, and audio explanations. It’s about as close as you can get to strolling through Pompeii before it was demolished. 

The reconstructed sites available for virtual tour currently include Pompeii’s amphitheater, large theater, small theater, quadriporticus (a space turned into a gladiator training school), House of the Citharist (a large aristocratic house), forum, and basilica. The team is also working on additional Pompeii locations. Everything is free until September 1, and the app is accessible even for people who aren’t there in person. 

The amphitheater of Pompeii is one of the oldest Roman amphitheaters in the world. When you download Histoury, you can see what this massive theater would’ve looked like in its prime. Image: Histoury, Inc.

But for those who are in Pompeii, “you hold your phone or iPad up, we recognize where you’re standing usually within six inches and we know exactly where you’re facing and then we basically spawn the recreation right there,” Porter says enthusiastically. 

“Like in the amphitheater, you’re walking around gladiators fighting. There’s 30,000 people in the crowd around you, and you hear the roar, and you hear the clang of the metal. Of all the things I’ve ever done in my life, this is truly one of the most magical things I’ve ever been part of. I think that’s what really gets everybody—it gets you emotionally.” 

Histoury is close to signing a contract with Herculaneum and making moves in other countries, including Egypt. 

The complexities of AI in Pompeii 

This isn’t the first time AI has been put to work at Pompeii. Earlier this year, the archaeological park released an AI-generated video based on archaeological data depicting the final moments of a man whose skeleton was discovered outside of one of Pompeii’s gates. In our article on the subject, we paused to wonder what the victim would have thought about people watching his terrified face to the sound of “Dark Horror Intro” royalty free music. 

Since Histoury’s Portyl users can trigger the explosion of Mount Vesuvius and then watch it erupt to the sound of screams and the sight of people running for their lives, the question perhaps stands in this case, too. 

[ Related: AI makes Pompeii victim’s final moments look shockingly real ]

But they can also simply peer around the basilica or the amphitheater, and there’s something uniquely respectful about paying tribute to Pompeii’s former glory instead of adoring its tragic remains. And more broadly, there’s no denying the fact that a live reconstruction has the potential to make ancient history feel closer than it has ever been before, especially for people who have a hard time imagining the bygone world on their own.  

Virgil once wrote, “fugit irreparabile tempus,” meaning “irretrievable time flies.” The ancient poet may have thus been surprised to learn that today, time is indeed retrievable—at least somewhat. 

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People generally want to spend as little time as possible in a public restroom. The vulnerability, the crass graffiti, the (lack of) cleanliness, uncomfortable toilet seats—the list of reasons is lengthy. But despite their infamy, public bathrooms remain an absolute societal necessity that deserve much more appreciation. At least, that’s what designer Jake Welch believes.

“There is perhaps no space in society which better captures the creativity and impertinence of humans when they know that nobody else is watching,” Welch explains in the description for his ongoing Restroom Archive project.

Although he admits the Restroom Archive started as a joke in 2023, he officially launched the site last year. It already features nearly 100 bathrooms, including amenities found in restaurants, gas stations, coffee shops, and various other public spaces in 36 cities across the United States and Europe.

Welch isn’t a one-man urinal investigation unit, however. Almost 250 archivists have contributed to the project so far, and anyone is welcome to help document this wide and weird subsection of urban planning. As long as you can provide a 3D scan of a bathroom. While scanning a building’s interior may sound technical, Restroom Archive includes a quick how-to section on the website. The easiest way is to download a LIDAR-based smartphone app called Polycam to digitally map each space, but Welch offers a couple alternative routes, as well. Volunteers then tag the bathroom’s location and provide a brief description of the lavatory itself.

“This compact stall has white painted cinder block walls and a speckled tile floor with an open top with a pale yellow door trimmed in a brick red,” reads one entry for a graffiti-covered faculty bathroom in the Fine Arts building at Spain’s University of the Basque Country.

“A sign in the back left of the stall encourages users in Spanish and Basque to ‘not leave evidence’ on the toilet seat,” the uploader added.

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A rare dime that inadvertently launched one of most successful coin collecting careers in history has sold for an astounding $1.25 million. The coveted 1894 S-Dime was auctioned during Stack’s Bowers Galleries “Rarities Night” on September 1, and was this particular coin’s fourth auction appearance. Known as a Barber Dime for its designer, United States Bureau of the Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, only 24 of the 10-cent pieces were ever manufactured. Of those, just nine are known to still exist, making them exceptionally coveted by collectors. The Barber Dime is also ranked fourth in the widely used 100 Greatest U.S. Coins reference guide.

Coincidentally, Stack’s Bowers is named after one of those very collectors. In 1957, a 19-year-old Dave Bowers successfully bid on the same Barber Dime auctioned earlier this month. Bowers made international headlines given his age, and the idea that anyone would pay $4,750 for a dime. He soon leveraged both to help launch his own career in numismatism. Bowers resold the 1894 S-Dime for $6,000 in 1960, before later moving between a handful of other collectors.

There are multiple conflicting stories to explain why the 1894 S-Dime is so rare, although they all tie back in one way or another to the Panic of 1893. Within a year of its onset, the economic depression practically eradicated the need to mint any new coinage for months. Some historians allege the dimes are a result of the San Francisco Mint needing to melt $2.40 in leftover silver, while other experts claim the Mint’s superintendent made the coins as gifts for his daughter and a handful of banker friends. Regardless of the true origin story, only nine Barber Dimes are accounted for today.

Unlike the current U.S. dime’s design featuring Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barber dimes showcase a portrait of Lady Liberty on the front along with the words “One Dime” above another wreath on the back.

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What began as a routine police response to a reported break-in turned into a brief standoff between nature and technology. Last week, law enforcement in the city of Kirkland, Washington (just northeast of Seattle) responded to a 911 call from a resident reporting loud banging inside their home. Officers arrived expecting a human intruder, but were instead greeted by a more literal cat burglar: a trapped and confused bobcat. 

Not wanting to risk a claw to the face, the officers backed out and reassessed the situation. They ultimately decided to deploy a remote-controlled drone into the house, to monitor the feline intruder from a safe distance. Video captured from the drone’s perspective and released on Facebook, shows the frustrated bobcat standing by a staircase, growling and arching its back at the hovering machine. After a brief standoff with the buzzing, metal alien, the bobcat carefully retreated, sidestepping into an adjacent empty room.

Police were then able to close their door and keep the bobcat isolated until a team from the  Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife arrived. Wildlife officials then sedated the cat, loaded it into a crate, and transported it to nearby Forbes Creek. The feline was then released back into the wild, startled but safe. As for how a bobcat ended up in the house in the first place, Kirkland Police believe the adventurous intruder climbed a tree and jumped through an open window, possibly lured in by the resident’s indoor cat. Both the owner and its likely shocked cat were unharmed, according to the police. Thankfully, curiosity didn’t kill this cat.

The Kirkland Police Department did not immediately respond to Popular Science’s request for comment. 

The aerial deployment was made possible by a public safety drone program the Kirkland Police began in 2022. Today, they reportedly maintain five drones and have 17 FAA-licensed pilots ready to operate them. The typical use cases for those drones include search and rescue, tactical search, scene documentation, and, apparently, bobcat removal. 

The bobcat before its release near Forbes Creek. Image: Kirkland Police Department. Drones are changing the way police surveil wildlife…and people 

Drones and robotic dog-like quadrupeds are reshaping how local communities approach wildlife management. In Japan, authorities deploy a combination of camera-equipped drones and robotic Monster Wolves to locate and deter bears following a record spike in human-bear encounters driven by urban sprawl and declining farmland. In the United States, police in Santa Fe, New Mexico, recently used an aerial drone to track an errant bear wandering near a school. Expanded drone programs are also playing a greater role in locating lost or missing pets. Just last month, firefighters in t Florida used a remotely controlled drone to find an overly adventurous dog trapped in a storm drain. 

But this increased prevalence of drones comes with other, more controversial concerns as well. Police forces around the country are ramping up “drones as first responder” programs, which civil liberty critics say could introduce unreasonable surveillance. Law enforcement around the country has already used these drones to monitor political protesters. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is reportedly interested in using Boston Dynamics’ quadruped robot “Spot”  to aid in immigration operations. Private security companies like Flock and Axon are also investing heavily in aerial surveillance drones. 

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Following an outpouring of support for Jackie, a famous bald eagle mother watched by millions, the California State Senate passed Senate Resolution 140. The bipartisan measure honors Jackie and proclaims that Friday September 4, 2026 is California Wildlife Day to honor her memory and celebrate the Golden State’s biodiversity.

The resolution was introduced by State Senator Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) and is sponsored by KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles. It recognizes the eagle’s role in connecting people with wildlife conservation, while highlighting the state’s biodiversity. 

“Jackie captured the hearts of people in California and around the world, giving so many of us a front-row seat to the beauty, strength, and resilience of wildlife,” Senator Strickland said in a press release. “Her story reminds us that wildfire conservation brings people together. As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday this year and reflect on the values that unite us, it is especially meaningful to honor the Bald Eagle and Jackie’s incredible legacy here in California.”

Amy King, the host of “Wake Up Call” on KFI AM640 in Los Angeles, said it was clear how many humans connected with these eagles and their story. 

“Over the past decade, many of our listeners watched the webcam and witnessed the beautiful life Jackie, her mate Shadow, and their eaglets created together,” King added. “Jackie’s story brought people together across generations and communities. As storytellers, we believe stories can connect people, inspire compassion, and create a shared sense of community. It has been an honor to share Jackie’s story with our listeners and to be part of the community that followed her remarkable journey.”

Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), the nonprofit organization that runs the nest cameras that brought Jackie and Shadow to the world, are also planning a memorial service for October 3. 

Jackie’s story

Jackie was born, raised, and lived in Big Bear Valley in southern California. Prior to the 2011-2012 nesting season, no bald eagle chicks were known to have ever hatched in Big Bear Valley. Then came Jackie, named after a forest ranger and born to parents Ricky and Lucy in 2012. 

During the 2016-2017 nesting season, Jackie took over a nest where Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV) had a camera stationed. In 2018, she had two chicks named Stormy and Big Bear Baby (or BBB) with her first mate, Mr. B. 

Her long-time partner Shadow entered the picture in summer 2018. He showed up at the nest and would not leave. FOBBV called the new male Shadow because he appeared so determined to stay in the nest, and the team initially believed he was one of Jackie’s siblings, also named Shadow. The eagle’s plumage indicated he was one year older than the other Shadow and not Jackie’s sibling, but the name stuck. 

Shadow continued to hold his ground and Mr. B gave up and eventually left. Jackie then accepted Shadow as her new mate.

Wildlife cameras documented Jackie and Shadow’s life together, offering viewers a direct look into the brutality and beauty of nature. The pair successfully raised chicks in 2019 (Cookie and Simba) and 2022 (Spirit). The pair’s eggs failed to hatch in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, Jackie laid three eggs that all hatched in early March. However, a strong snowstorm dumped up to two feet of snow and battered the nest with strong wind and only two of the chicks (Sunny and Gizmo) survived.  

In January, Jackie laid two eggs in the nest, but ravens destroyed them. She later laid two more eggs that hatched in April and named Luna and Sandy. The name Sandy is in honor of FOBBV’s former executive director Sandy Steers who died from cancer in February. 

Jackie’s injury

On July 17, Jackie was found injured on the ground near Dana Point Park, California. Cell phone video from a witness confirmed that she had an altercation with two other subadult eagles. She successfully fended off the other eagles by turning over and using her talons, but could not fly far away. 

She was transferred to the Ojai Raptor Center for care, where she was diagnosed with severe anemia. Her anemia worsened during the first week of August, the Ojai Raptor Center said that she was in unstable condition on August 9. Her packed cell volume (PCV) fell below percent, before rising to nine percent. She died early in the morning on August 10 and a full necropsy report is still forthcoming. 

Jackie’s resilience inspired millions of people around the world. 

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It’s a bird’s world, and we’re just living in it. Today, the National Audubon Society officially announced the winners of the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards. The contest is now in its 17th year and celebrates stunning photos (and even a few videos) that showcase the beauty of birds and the challenges they face. For the second year, the judges awarded prizes to residents of Chile and Colombia, as well as the United States and Canada, highlighting how avians connect us across geographies and ecosystems. 

This year’s Grand Prize winners each received $5,000 and a voyage to Antarctica with HX Expeditions—an expedition cruise company and Audubon’s exclusive cruise partner.

Take a peek at the winners in the gallery below. (Click to expand images to full screen.)

Prizes for United States and Canada Residents

Grand Prize: Jacqueline Burke, roseate spoonbill

A roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, in St. Augustine, Florida. Image: Jacqueline Burke.

Youth Prize: Ian Shultz, rock pigeon

A rock pigeon (Columba livia) in Golden Gardens Park in Seattle, Washington. Image: Ian Shultz.

Video Prize: Piper VanOrd, great blue heron

A great blue heron (Ardea herodias) at Allegheny Islands Wilderness, National Wild & Scenic Allegheny River, in Warren, Pennsylvania. Credit: Piper VanOrd.

Female Bird Prize: Gail Bisson, common merganser

A common merganser (Mergus merganser) in East Bay Sandbar, Nova Scotia, Canada. Image:  Gail Bisson.

Plants for Birds Prize: Mike Henry, Gila woodpecker and saguaro cactus

A Gila woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis) and saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) in Tucson, Arizona. Image: Mike Henry.

Birds Without Borders Prize: Nick Parayko, Tennessee warbler

A Tennessee warbler (Leiothlypis peregrina) in photographer Nick Parayko’s backyard in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada. Image: Nick Parayko.

Birds in Landscapes Prize: Liron Gertsman, white-tailed tropicbird

A white-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus) in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in Hawai’i. Image: Liron Gertsman.

Conservation Prize: Josh Galicki, northern gannets

Northern gannets (Morus bassanus) on the Isle of Noss in the Shetland Islands, United Kingdom. Image: Josh Galicki. Prizes for Chile and Colombia Residents

Grand Prize: Francisco Castro Escobar, lesser horned owl

A lesser horned owl (Bubo magellanicus) in Antofagasta, Chile. Image: Castro Escobar.

Youth Prize: Juan David Camacho Márquez, Canada warbler

A Canada warbler (Cardellina canadensis) in Doña Dora Birding, El Queremal, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Image: Juan David Camacho Márquez.

Video Prize: Nicolás Muñoz García, black-browed albatross

A black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) is on Isla Chañaral Marine Reserve, Huasco Province, Chile. The nearest town is Caleta Chañaral de Aceituno. Credit: Nicolás Muñoz García.

Birds Without Borders Prize: Rodrigo González Pairoa, black-browed albatross

A black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) in Almirantazgo Fjord, Chile. Image: Rodrigo González Pairoa.

Conservation Prize: Santiago Pérez Rincón, yellow-eared parrot

A yellow-eared parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) in Anaime River Canyon, Rural District of the Municipality of Cajamarca, Department of Tolima, Colombia. Image: Santiago Pérez Rincón.

Plants for Birds Prize, Colombia: Santiago Giraldo, yellow-eared parrot and Quindio wax palm

A yellow-eared parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) and Quindio wax palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense) in Anaime, Cajamarca, Tolima, Colombia. Image: Santiago Giraldo.

Birds in Landscapes Prize, Colombia: Faber Mosquera Álvarez, oilbird

Oilbird (Steatornis caripensis) in the Cañón de los Guácharos, Pijao, Quindío, Colombia. Image: Faber Mosquera Álvarez.

Birds in Landscapes Prize, Chile: Timothy Dhalleine, crested caracara

A crested caracara (Caracara plancus) in Torres del Paine National Park, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic region, Chile. Image: Timothy Dhalleine.

Coastal Birds Prize, Chile: Gonzalo Bertolotto Quintana, gentoo penguin

A gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) in Fildes Bay, Antarctica, in the vicinity of the Chilean bases. Image: Gonzalo Bertolotto Quintana.
Gonzalo Bertolotto Q

The winners and honorable mentions are published online in Audubon magazine, and winners will be in the Fall 2026 print issue. The annual Top 100 photos will also be announced on September 23, 2026, and additional selections will be featured in digital galleries on Audubon’s website.  

The 2027 Audubon Photography Awards will open for entries on January 13, 2027. 

The post Tweet! Here are the winners of the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards appeared first on Popular Science.

One of a smartwatch’s main selling points can be its ability to track the calories burned while exercising. But similar to the health tech industry’s “10,000 steps” selling point, new research strongly suggests a wearable’s workout assessment may overestimate your efforts—and in some cases, the readings are off by as much as 25 percent.

“You can’t treat the calories burned number it gives you as an accurate number, because it’s not,” Florida International University kinesiologist Jason Kostrna said during a recent profile.

Kostrna and his colleagues compared four of the most popular fitness wearables on the market: the Apple Watch Series 8, Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, Fitbit Sense 2, and Garmin Forerunner 955 against clinical-grade measurement equipment. They then asked 58 adult volunteers to use a stationary bike during a controlled workout session, while alternating between moderate and intense activity. Their results were simultaneously recorded by one of the commercially available wearables, as well as a COSMED K5 metabolic analyzer. For reference, COSMED fitness equipment can be seen during James Bond’s physiology assessment scene in the 2012 film Skyfall.

According to results recently published in the journal PLOS One, smartwatch calorie overestimations ranged between 15 and 25 percent. Apple was the most comparatively accurate, while Garmin and Samsung offered the most generous results. Meanwhile, the researchers needed to discard Fitbit from their trial entirely because the device repeatedly glitched during experiments. In some instances the Fitbit recorded a single calorie burned during an entire workout, or even failed to generate any assessment.

To put the larger findings in perspective: if your wearable claims you burned 500 calories at the gym, that number may be much closer to 350 calories. This may not seem too serious, but the errors can easily add up over time.

“You could be hundreds of calories off each week and easily end up in a calorie surplus when you think you’re in a calorie deficit,” said Kostrna.

Tests also consistently indicated that smartwatches become less accurate for wearers with higher body fat percentages. The exact reason is still unclear, but Kostrna’s team suspects the issue may stem from how each device’s algorithms are calculated. This information is often highly guarded from public scrutiny by the tech companies themselves.

“When the companies are developing those algorithms, we don’t know where the test data is coming from,” Kostrna explained. ” That’s why I think it’s beneficial for the companies to see this type of data, so they can refine their products over time.”

However, this doesn’t mean the devices are completely useless. Their caloric measurements should just be taken as generous estimates. Researchers suggest treating a reading as a best case scenario after each workout, while people with higher body fat index may want to view the actual numbers even more conservatively. At the same time, the study’s authors warn against solutions like more aggressive dieting, since the body still requires healthy foods to recharge and improve. In any case, Kostrna stressed that calorie monitoring should only be one part of a person’s larger fitness goals.

“Focus on how you’re feeling, and use data to get a little better over time,” he suggested.

The post Your smartwatch may be overestimating calories burned by 25 percent appeared first on Popular Science.

I consider myself to have a somewhat challenging personality. The popular Myers-Briggs test labels me an ‘INTJ,’ commonly referred to as an “Architect.” We’re supposedly independent, determined, curious, and original, but we’re also considered combative, overly critical, dismissive of emotions, and more concerned with “rationality and success over politeness.” 

My family would generally agree with that description of me. Perhaps thankfully, we are a rare bunch: only two to four percent of people, and about one percent of women, are INTJs.

I’m expecting my first child, a daughter, in January. The prospect of meeting a mini “Architect” has me wondering: Are we born with our personalities?

The answer is complicated—and still evolving. 

“All of it comes from genes, and all of it comes from [the] environment in a sense,” says Matthew Keller, a behavioral geneticist at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

Dozens of twin studies have found that personality is partly heritable, but exactly how genes shape who we become is far from straightforward, and it’s even less clear how environmental factors play a role.

What is personality?

The very definition of personality is complex and somewhat “squishy,” Ted Schwaba, a personality psychologist at Michigan State University, concedes.

Most people think of personality as traits. The adjectives we use to describe a person: creative, hard-working, honest, kind. But personality also encompasses identity, life story, reputation, and how other people see you, says Schwaba. 

Brent Roberts, a personality psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, adds that skill, ability, interests, and motivations also play a role. Someone can have remarkable talent in, say, soccer or music, but without the interest or motivation to pursue those areas, one’s ability may never become central to what they do.

“Personality is really any kind of stable characteristic of a person that makes them who they are,” says Schwaba. 

The Myers-Briggs test is a popular self-report questionnaire that categorizes people into 16 different personality types. Video: Myers-Briggs Explained in Less than 5 Minutes – 16 Personalities, Frank James

While personality itself remains somewhat difficult to define, most psychologists use the standardized “Big Five” model to measure it. The framework scores people along five broad traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, the tendency to experience negative emotions. 

Though imperfect, the model lets researchers compare personality across people and over time. The Big Five and other measures of personality have proven consistent predictors of school and work performance, relationships, health, and even longevity. 

How much of personality is genetic?

Throughout much of the 20th century, researchers studied twins to understand how genes and environment shaped personality. One 1996 study compared 123 pairs of identical twins, who share nearly all their DNA, with 127 pairs of fraternal twins, who share about half, and found that genetic differences accounted for roughly 40 to 60 percent of variation across the Big Five traits.

That estimate has endured. A 2015 meta-analysis of more than 100,000 people found that personality is about 40 percent heritable. 

Heritability tells us how much of the variation in personality, or other traits, can be linked to genetics. If something is 100 percent heritable, all the differences we see among people would be linked to genetics, Keller explains. If it is 0 percent heritable, then genetics would explain none of those differences.

So, when researchers say personality is about 40 percent heritable, they don’t mean 40 percent of a person’s personality comes from their genes. An outgoing mother may pass along genetic variants that make her child more likely to be outgoing too, but her daughter is not destined to share the trait. 

And just because a trait is heritable doesn’t mean it is immutable or set at birth. Environmental factors still matter. Height, for example, is roughly 80 to 90 percent heritable, yet genes don’t determine exactly how tall someone will become. A child with tall parents may have the genetic potential to be tall, but without proper nutrition may never reach that potential.

Most psychologists use the standardized “Big Five” model to measure personality. Video: The Big 5 OCEAN Traits Explained – Personality Quizzes, Practical Psychology

Both height and personality are genetically complex. A 2022 study of 5.4 million people identified more than 12,000 genetic variants associated with height, while a 2024 study of the Big Five identified 254 genes associated with at least one trait. There is no single gene for height nor is there a single gene for being extroverted, agreeable, or conscientious. Instead, these traits appear to arise from the combined effects of many genes, each with a very small influence.

Schwaba likens individual genetic variants to grains of sand on a beach. One grain tells you nothing about what the beach will look like, but collectively thousands of them help shape the landscape.

What else shapes our personality?

If genes explain only part of personality differences, what explains the rest? Scientists are still trying to figure that out.

Over the past few decades, researchers have investigated everything from parenting and birth order to socioeconomic status and major life events. Except for extreme experiences such as abuse, trauma, or severe deprivation, most non-genetic aspects have turned out to have surprisingly small effects. 

Roberts calls it “death by a thousand cuts.” No single experience appears to explain much, but thousands of small environmental influences may accumulate over a lifetime to shape personality.

Studying environmental factors is much harder than studying DNA. Scientists can sequence a genome, but understanding environmental impacts requires psychologists to follow thousands of people for decades.  

Researchers do know that personality isn’t fixed; it can change over the course of one’s life. People can even deliberately alter some traits. Therapy can change personality, Schwaba says, and adults can even become more outgoing, for example, if they put intensive effort into socializing and pushing themselves outside their comfort zone.

Scientists aren’t certain when personality first emerges. Schwaba says individuality is obvious by preschool, but recently he and a colleague found themselves wondering whether future extroverts might kick more in the womb. 

“We don’t actually know of a study on that,” he says.

Will my daughter be a mini-Architect? Maybe in some ways. The genes she inherits may nudge her personality in certain directions, but they won’t lock her into them. Who she becomes will depend on a lifetime of experiences that scientists are still trying to untangle.

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.

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The post What shapes your personality? Your genes and environment play a big role. appeared first on Popular Science.

Just like 20-somethings yelling or waving in a crowded, strobe light-filled club, three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) can change their social behavior for the benefit of the group. These small fish will change how they swim to help find food when they are in cloudy water. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

There are eight known species of sticklebacks (order Gasterosteiformes). These small fish live in fresh, brackish, and marine waters all over the Northern Hemisphere and as far north as the Arctic Ocean. They can grow to a maximum length of roughly seven inches and are known for a row of two to 16 spines on their backs.

Since they live in everything from salty seas to fresh lakes, their habitats can range from crystal clear to densely clouded. Turbidity is when small particles like mud, algae, or silt make water cloudy. While it is a natural process, farming, mining, construction, and other pollutants are increasing turbidity and reducing visibility in rivers and coastal waters around the world. This can make it more difficult for aquatic animals like sticklebacks to see their food, friends, or enemies.

“At the moment, we’re seeing our weather flipping between hot, dry periods to heavy rains, which mean[s] our rivers and streams experience sudden surges of muddy, highly turbid water,” 

Dr. Sean Rands, a study co-author and behavioral ecologist at the University of Bristol, said in a statement. “It is good to know that the fish can respond to these big changes.”

For this study, the team observed how three-spined sticklebacks responded to their water becoming cloudier and noted their directions when food suddenly appeared in the water. 

In murkier water, the fish took longer to swim towards the food than those in clear water. However, individuals in larger groups responded more quickly in both clear and cloudy water. 

The study found in murkier water fish took longer to move towards the food than those in clear water, but individuals in larger groups responded more quickly overall. Image: Christos Ioannou.

The way that the sticklebacks moved together also influenced their response to the food. The smaller groups living in murky water got to the food more quickly when they swam close together in the same direction. By contrast, tighter coordination slowed the group’s response for larger groups of fish in clear water.

Before the food was introduced, fish in murky water tended to stick closer together, align their movements more closely, and respond more eagerly to the behavior of group members that were nearby.

According to the team, these results suggest that sticklebacks can compensate for reduced visibility in the water by increasing cooperation and coordination with one another. 

“When we put an unexpected piece of food in the water, it took the fish longer to find it when the water was cloudier. This makes sense and has been shown before in different water-living species,” added study co-author and behavioral ecologist Christos Ioannou. “However, we were excited to see that the sticklebacks were able to compensate for this challenge by changing their shoaling behaviour. Their shoals became more coordinated, with the fish moving and aligning themselves together much more closely in poor conditions. This in turn meant the fish were able to find the food faster than if they weren’t coordinating.” 

This enhanced social behavior may help them overcome the challenges of living in murky environments and respond better when there is an opportunity to find a meal. 

“Finding that these rules are able to change in response to the challenges animals experience is reassuring, as it shows that these little fish have some extra tricks for the changes that humans are causing to their homes,” said Rands. 

The post These fish rely on teamwork to find food in murky water appeared first on Popular Science.

Japan’s bears are still causing problems. The hefty predators continue to stray from mountainous forests in search of food, putting them in direct contact with the nation’s rapidly aging and dwindling population. According to the country’s Environment Ministry, bears have killed six people across the country since April 1, while a record 13 victims died during the previous fiscal year. It’s gotten so bad that Japan called in the armed forces to help, and companies are even running out of their popular robotic wolf deterrents.

Culling strategies are reducing bear numbers, with around 14,000 killed during the last fiscal year. But in the central prefecture of Nagano on the main island of Honshū, conservationists are promoting a different approach to keeping both humans and bears safe. Using a combination of sensors, traps, and GPS monitoring, researchers are avoiding unnecessarily killing bears while improving the overall population’s wellbeing at the same time.

“By not killing too many of them, more bears survive to live out their expected lifespan. In that sense, a healthy bear population is being formed,” biologist Akiko Takii explained in a recent interview with AFP.

Takii is participating in a program with an over 30 year head start. In 1995, local authorities discovered bear numbers suddenly shrinking on Honshū, and slowly enacted new strategies like GPS monitoring and installing over 2,000 miles of fencing. But concerns for the animals have dwindled in recent years, as attacks and deaths continue to mount across Japan. 

Takii and her supporters argue that simply culling bears is not a practical, ethical, or necessarily long-term solution strategy. Instead, members of Nagano’s Shinshu Asian Black Bear Research Association are using catch-and-release tactics to monitor animal movements and keep locals out of harm’s way. Meanwhile, Takii is overseeing school outreach classes to educate children and their parents about bears, as well as humanity’s relationship to them. While a combination of culling and conservation is likely the path forward, advocates like Takii hope officials will see the added benefits of humane interventions

“I am convinced it’s safe to live with them as long as humans don’t offend them,” a school principal recently told AFP , following one of Takii’s presentations.

The post Japan’s continuing bear problems can’t be solved by culling alone appeared first on Popular Science.

A recently excavated, 2,000-year-old ancient Roman artifact suggests that followers of secretive cult were more widespread than historians initially thought. Based on findings recently detailed in the journal Antiquity, a skyfather named Sabazios from present-day Turkey boasted worshippers as far away as northeastern Spain.

Ancient Rome’s primary pantheon of deities like Jupiter, Minerva, Juno, Mars, and Vulcan are fairly well-known today. But for every Apollo or Neptune, there were hundreds of minor gods and goddesses worshipped across the vast empire. These entities often evolved in diversity and complexity depending on regional influences and traditions.

While digging at the site of a Roman villa about 200 miles east of Madrid in Spain, archaeologists from the University of Girona discovered a striking artifact that points to a similarly mysterious cult that existed in the area around 2,000 years ago. Pottery fragments featuring a handle crafted to resemble a two-headed snake suggest at least some locals dedicated themselves to the god Sabazios. While minor religious groups were common at the time, the deity’s location makes the find particularly interesting. The skyfather horseman Sabazios traces back to Thrace and Phrygia, regions located about 2,000 away, across present-day Turkey and the Balkans.

Sabazios was often represented with a votive hand decorated with various iconic embellishments. Credit: Alcuni monumenti del Museo Carrafa

Sabazios’ origins date back at least 3,000 years, and likely solidified as migrating Indo-European Phrygians settled in Anatolia, Turkey. Despite always being depicted on horseback and wielding a staff of power, ancient Greeks came to associate the sky god with both Zeus and Dionysus. Followers of Sabazios may have even come into conflict with Indigenous Phrygians who worshipped a mother goddess named Cybele. Historians cite the poet Homer, who wrote of a young Priam’s alliance with the Phrygians against the Amazons.

Sabazios remained associated with Jupiter as well as Mercury amid the Roman era, and was most commonly symbolized by small brass or copper votives crafted into hands and decorated with numerous symbolic embellishments like pinecones, rings, and lightning bolts. However, historians are still unsure about the exact meaning behind these images.

Archaeological layers and surrounding artifacts indicate the Roman villa vessel dates back to around the reign of Emperor Augustus between 27 BCE and 14 CE. Mineral analysis could not conclusively identify the pot’s geographic origins, but certain details indicate it may have come from North Africa.

Snakes are a common religious motif across ancient Rome and were associated with multiple deities, including Mithras. Despite this, the researchers still believe the pottery shards likely reference Sabazios based on previous finds at nearby sites. Archaeologists identified a portable bronze triptych with two of its three panels still intact inside of a tomb in present-day Catalonia dating to the same era. The triptych’s central image is Sabrazios surrounded by his cultic symbols.

While there is no clear explanation for how the worship of Sabazios traveled from central Asia, the study’s authors suggest a wandering priest from an eastern province operated in the region at the time. At some point, residents of the villa then incorporated the once foreign god into their private worship at home. If true, the discovery could dramatically expand the known reach of even the more obscure Roman cults.

“Apparently minor cults were not confined to restricted areas, but could have constituted extensive cultic networks within the wider Roman empire,” the study’s authors wrote.

The post Two-headed snake pottery suggests ancient Roman mystery cult spanned over 2,000 miles appeared first on Popular Science.

The deepest parts of our ocean are more like the fare reaches of space than planet Earth. We never really know what we’ll find down there. A team from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Ocean Exploration team experienced that first hand when they spotted a very tiny fish in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New England.

The team estimated that it measured only five millimeters (0.19 inches) to one centimeter (0.4 inches). It is still unclear what species this fish is, but scientists speculated that it could be a juvenile toadfish (family Batrachoidida) aka the sea toad. They have a sad-looking “Monday Face” and dwell on the sea floor to  hunt whatever comes within their reach.

This particular little fish was spotted during Deep Connections 2019: Exploring Atlantic Canyons and Seamounts of the United States and Canada. However, these kinds of deep-sea discoveries are not over. NOAA just completed their 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration in the Pacific Ocean, where they recovered a whale beak, observed an ethereal type of sea sponge called glass sponge (class Hexactinellida), and more.

A glass sponge amongst polymetallic nodules. It was one of several varieties of sponges seen during the final dive of the 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration cruise. Image: NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration.

Currently, NOAA is partnering with Nautilus Live to explore the deep sea near Wake Island. The island is about halfway between the Hawaiian and Mariana Islands, and is one of the most isolated land masses on Earth. The 30-day expedition will utilize remotely operated vehicles (ROV), mapping technology, and the E/V Nautilus to collect baseline data about the 157,236 square-mile area and the marine life that lives there. 

The expedition could find potential maritime heritage sites associated with the Battle of Wake Island. From December 8 to 23, 1941, a small force of United States Marines and civilian defenders fought off parts of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Japanese Navy ultimately took Wake Island, but at great cost. According to the National World War II Museum, the Japanese Navy ultimately sacrificed two destroyers, one submarine, 21 aircraft, and 900 to 1,000 lives just to conquer Wake Island. Despite the loss, fewer than 100 Americans died during the 16-day siege, including 46 Marines and three sailors.

The Wake Island expedition is scheduled to end on September 18. 

The post NOAA scientists spot ‘outrageously tiny’ fish appeared first on Popular Science.

On September 3, 1967, at 4:50 a.m., a lone Swedish taxi driver stopped his car on the street in the light of early dawn. He carefully checked around him on both sides of the road, then pulled over from the left-hand side of the road onto the opposite lane on the right-hand side. He then stopped again. After 10 minutes, he continued driving on the right, along with every other driver in Sweden who had made this switch at the same time. This was Högertrafikomläggningen, also known as “Dagen H,” the largest traffic logistics event that Sweden—and perhaps the world—had ever seen.

Dagen H provides insight into some of the difficulties that people and systems have with changing their behavior, alongside highlighting the danger of having left-hand- or right-hand-drive vehicles misaligned on the road. With its memorabilia campaigns and smooth execution, Dagen H has since provided an example for other countries to follow, some of which still sorely need to make a change.

Rösta nej: Swedish voters said “no” to driving right

The origins of left-hand or right-hand traffic are “clouded in antiquity,” writes David Baldwin, a U.S. traffic safety expert, but are most likely related to horse-drawn carts. In Sweden’s case, the first ordinance on left-hand traffic originated in 1734. That was later affirmed in 1916. 

But this left-hand driving practice meant Sweden was out of step with all surrounding nations, where people drove on the right. This meant that most Swedes drove left-hand-drive vehicles (mostly imported from surrounding countries, or manufactured with export in mind), which resulted in a high level of head-on collisions and fatalities. Essentially, Sweden’s left-hand drive vehicles were “wrong-hand drive.”

The left-hand driving rule was hotly debated for several decades, followed by a 1955 referendum with dismal results. The Swedish National Maritime, Transport and Military Museums writes that “a violent scaremongering erupted about the enormous waste of money the changeover would entail and, above all, the terrible bloodbath that would occur on the roads.” Ultimately, the referendum concluded with 83 percent voting against the switch.

Generally, people don’t like making major changes to their habits, or feeling like their behavior is incorrect. “[People] are invested in maintaining the status quo,” said Dr. Christina (Missy) Rudin-Brown, a transportation safety and behavioral adaptation expert at Human Factors North. “Because if you switch everything, it means everything you’ve been doing your whole life has been wrong and unsafe.”

Despite the significant resistance, the Swedish parliament decided on May 10, 1963, that right-hand traffic would go ahead. 

The major pop hit: “Keep to the right, Svensson”

Several years of widespread advertising then took place, including memorabilia with a leaning blue letter “H” on a yellow background (for “Höger,” meaning “right”). People could purchase cups, soda bottles, socks, underwear, and bags, and each household received a 32-page pamphlet, produced in nine different languages. For children, cartoons helped them learn to look left, using characters such as Donald Duck and Dennis the Menace.

One popular song about the traffic switch called “Håll dej till höger, Svensson” (“Keep to the right, Svensson”) reached number five on the Swedish hit music charts, and stayed in the top 10 for three weeks. Despite the widespread attention and understanding, many residents were nervous. The Victoria Advocate reported that many Swedes said they’d prefer to “stay off the streets for a few days.”

In 1967, Sweden came out with the bop to remind drivers to stay on the right side of the road. Video: Håll dig till höger Svensson – Swedish propaganda song, All things Swedish

One of the issues was that this change affected everyone. “It’s not just the drivers,” said Dr. Rudin-Brown. “You have all the pedestrians, who might be very alert and conscious of the change for a few days, but that tends to wear off over time. All it takes is one instance of forgetting that you have to look left first.” 

The big switch takes place

The Saturday before the switch, traffic was banned, and workers hurried around switching signs. By evening, it was so quiet that it felt like there was “a touch of the eerie.” A few hours later, early on Sunday morning, the Swedish population (including its nearly 2 million drivers) was waiting with bated breath. Every driver knew they were required to stop at 4:50 a.m., switch sides of the road, and pause for 10 minutes, before continuing to drive at a lowered speed.

Thousands of Swedes came out on that Sunday to test out the new rules, with numerous resulting traffic jams. Crowds began gathering at around 4 a.m., with fireworks, impromptu choirs, clapping, and “what appeared to be every taxi driver in the city” ready to go. One man, so eager to be a part of it all, turned up in his pajamas.

For most people, making such changes is very hard because of behaviors that have become partly automatic. Difficulties arise particularly when our cognitive resources are under pressure. 

On September 3, 1967, at 4:50 a.m., Kungsgatan( King’s Street) in Stockholm, Sweden, suddenly switched from driving on the left to the right. Image: Public Domain / Jan Collsiˆˆ

However, in the case of Dagen H, every driver was potentially expecting every other driver to do something incorrect. “If you did turn the wrong way down the road,” said Dr. Rudin-Brown, “at least you’d be facing drivers who might expect that to happen rather than people just continuing [on] into a collision.”

Despite some level of chaos, the number of accidents was far below that of a typical day. One hundred and fifty-seven accidents were reported nationwide, only a small number of which were serious. 

However, one visiting traffic expert warned of celebrating too soon: “We have only seen the bride and groom brought to the altar. The citizens of Sweden have now embarked on their honeymoon. It is too early to judge the results.” 

In the first few weeks after Dagen H, traffic accidents maintained their low levels, some of which was attributed to lower speed limits and other rules established alongside the switch. 

Throughout 1967, the year of the switch, 1,077 traffic deaths were recorded, compared to 1,313 in 1965. The mood in Sweden had also changed: Instead of the initial 83 percent against the move in the 1955 referendum, 57 percent of Swedes after Dagen H perceived it favorably.

The complex safety results of Dagen H 

In the following years, overall traffic deaths crept back up. However, when compared to deaths per 100,000 cars, the fatalities continued reducing. This meant that even while the number of cars on the roads was increasing, driving had become safer.

Dr. Felix Rösel, professor of economics at Technische Universität Braunschweig, studied the Dagen H switch to examine the causal effect of wrong-hand-drive vehicles on road safety. He was able to determine that “more than 4,000 lives between 1953 and 1966”  could have been saved if Dagen H had happened earlier. Rösel’s results highlighted just how dangerous a wrong-hand-drive misalignment is. “I came up with this one-third markup in risk,” said Dr. Rösel. “I think that’s quite substantial. It’s not a trivial thing.”

In addition, it was not only the most serious types of accidents that could have been prevented earlier. Rather, the effect was also shown with minor accidents, such as hitting another parked car. 

“We see very similar effects on the number of fatalities and the number of injuries [from the study],” said Dr. Rösel. “It seems you have a problem per se, that you have this bad vision that is not aligned with the road.”

This diagram shows the field of view under different vehicle configurations. Image: Courtesy of Felix Rösel

Dr. Rösel also found that the reduction in accidents was likely due to the switch, rather than because of reduced speeds or other safety measures put in place after the event. But if safety improvements came from Dagen H, why did accidents not reduce more significantly? This is partially due to behavioral adaptation. 

“People usually use [a safety improvement] in some way to adapt and improve their experience,” said Dr. Rudin-Brown. “They feel like the road is safer, they feel like they’re better able to drive faster and assume more risk.” This means that even with the safety benefits of Dagen H and greater visibility, drivers eventually reverted to driving less carefully.

A huge undertaking with global relevance

Other countries have followed the example of Sweden and made similar changes, most notably Samoa in 2009. In Samoa, the country switched from right- to left-side driving to bring it into step with surrounding countries. Samoa also faced widespread protests (including from a group called “People Against Switching Sides”), and broadcast a song about the switch. 

A number of other countries around the world still deal with wrong-side-drive alignment, particularly Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Russia, all of which experienced widespread protests when changes were suggested.

“These fundamental institutions of driving on the left or right, it’s almost in the genes: the British on the left and the continent on the right,” said Rösel. “This really takes a long time [to change]. Even in Sweden, it was not a switch from one day to another. It took decades.”

In the case of Dagen H, the switch was considered a success. For Swedes at the time, only “a few minor skirmishes between right-hand partisans—now estimated at 43 percent of the population—and adherents of the old way were reported in towns across the country,” wrote the Daytona Beach Morning Journal. “But even the reluctant majority appeared to be swept up in the festive mood of the day.”

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The United States’ 63 official National Parks are often renowned for their natural beauty, but many of them are also hubs of history. To help honor both the country’s 250th birthday and the upcoming 85th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than a dozen locations are participating in World War II Across America’s National Parks. According to a recent announcement, three parks from around the country will highlight “different parts of America’s wartime story, including both triumphs and tragedies” every week leading up to December 7.

“This list of parks is by no means exclusive, nor are the stories that will be shared,” park representatives wrote on social media. “They represent just a fraction of the war’s impact on our parks and the nation, with many of those impacts still felt today.”

While the project began with the Pearl Harbor National Memorial itself, the two subsequent entries are arguably lesser known for their relationships to WWII—Governors Island National Monument in New York and Golden Gate Recreation Area in California.

An eastern military headquarters

Located in New York Harbor near Lower Manhattan, Governors Island National Monument commemorates the location of the Eastern Theater of Operations, later renamed the Eastern Defense Command in 1942. The U.S. established the military headquarters here two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This headquarters oversaw protecting the then 40 states, Washington D.C., as well as Army bases in Bermuda, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. 

Governors Island also oversaw New York City’s defensive brownouts and blackouts to guard residents against any suspected aerial bombardments.

According to the National Park Service, Governors Island was the command headquarters and military post for the United States Army from 1794 until 1966. From 1966 to 1996 it was the US Coast Guard’s largest and most complex installation. Credit: STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images STAN HONDA Anti-submarine nets, blackouts, and other domestic defences

On the other side of the country,the Golden Gate Recreation Area, was vital to the West Coast’s domestic defense during WWII. At the newly established Fort Cronkhite, thousands of troops in the Harbor Defenses of San Francisco mandated evening blackouts around the Bay Area, while maintaining an anti-submarine net, anti-aircraft weapons, and 600 underwater mines. The fort also included two 500-pound battery guns that were ready to aim at any potential incoming enemy naval vessels. Even today, many of the site’s hastily built, temporary wooden structures are still used by non-profit and educational park partners.

A sign for Golden Gate National Recreation Area near Crissy Field, in the Presidio, San Francisco, California. Credit: Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images Smith Collection/Gado

To keep up with the series, the National Park Service recommends following the #WWIINPS and #Freedom250 hashtags on social media. Next up for celebration: the Redwood National and State Parks.

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We are mere weeks away from Fat Bear Week 2026, but the brown bears (Ursus arctos) gorging on salmon at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska are already showing off that beautiful bulk. Based on a recent video posted by explore.org, Bear #910 might be a major contender for this year’s competition.

Bear #910 is a female brown bear that was first spotted in 2019 at Katmai’s Brooks River. She is about 10.5-years-old, has large, blonde, floppy ears, which can help viewers pick her out of the crowd on the live cam set up in the park. 

Bear #910 is also a particularly unique mother bear. Between mid-August and October 2022, she adopted her sister Bear #909’s 2.5-year-old female yearling cub (a one- to two-year-old cub still with its mother), while she herself had a spring cub (a first-year cub that was born over the winter and emerges in the spring). An adoption like this is an exceptionally rare event in the wild, but it has also been observed in polar bears. The pair was frequently seen fishing together with their cubs throughout 2023 and 2024 and a paper on their story was published in the journal BioOne in 2025. 

Most bear mothers generally keep their litters separated, and this year’s season was an example of why they tend to stick to themselves. On Tuesday, July 28, the live-cams captured a young brown bear cub being killed and eaten by an unrelated mother bear (Bear #806). The deceased cub was born this spring, and was one of Bear #909’s cubs. Bear 909 started this season with two cubs, but has now lost both. 

On Sunday, August 2, one of Bear #335’s (also known as Jolly) cubs died, after following three unrelated cubs up a tree. The mother of the cubs already in the tree attacked Bear #335’s cub, who did not survive the encounter. The identity of the mother bear who killed the spring cub was not confirmed. 

Following the first cub’s death, naturalist Mike Fitz and park rangers Christine Loberg and Sarah Bruce hosted a chat about the incident. The team said that while infanticide by female adults does occur, this is likely the first documented case occurring at Brooks River. While there is no single answer as to why mother bears are killing cubs, some experts suspect bear adoption, food scarcity, and fights for dominance all play a role. 

During Fat Bear Week 2025, she lost to Bear #856 in the second round of voting. Voting this year. The competition this year is scheduled to begin at the end of September.

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Few entities from Australia’s Aboriginal cultures are more powerful than a Rainbow Serpent. Often likened to an archetypal mother goddess, the beings are associated with concepts like creation and chaos. Rainbow Serpents even possess the ability to fold the cosmos itself (often known as Dreamtime) to blend the past and the present. While stone wall paintings and rock arrangements of Rainbow Serpents across Australia date back hundreds of years, many examples of these revered deities apparently experienced a major growth spurt beginning during the 19th century.

“We could see from the shape of [it] with a large head-like stone at the end of a winding neck attached to a large body outlined with stones, that it resembled some paintings of Rainbow Serpents,” Paul Taçon, an archaeologist at Queensland’s Griffith University, said about a 407-foot-long rock arrangement near Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile) in northern Australia.

Taçon and his colleagues worked in partnership with local Amurdak representatives to meticulously document 165 archaeological locales across the region. In addition to 29 Rainbow Serpents found at 21 sites, the team also examined depictions of seven-foot-long pythons, life-sized kangaroos and crocodiles, Australia’s only known baleen whale rock art, and even a giant man measuring over seven feet tall.

A stone arrangement of a Rainbow Serpent is around 407 feet long. Credit: Paul Taçon

Although much of the art wasn’t available for radiocarbon dating, Aboriginal creators painted many of the Rainbow Serpents using white pipe clay that starts fading after only a few decades. Combined with other historical accounts and data, Taçon’s team now believes they can explain all of the elongated Rainbow Serpents. According to their recent study published in the journal Australian Archaeology, the desire to illustrate larger animals and other revered beings in art was a direct response to European colonization.

Awunbarna itself also supports this theory, since the region served as a nexus for trading, social gatherings, and religious ceremonies for multiple Aboriginal groups for generations. The area was also one of the initial places to experience colonial buffalo hunting during the latter half of the 19th century, making its inhabitants some of the first communities to endure European pressures on the environment. In some cases, Aboriginal artists even painted Rainbow Serpents and other mythically charged animals over or next to depictions of European firearms and sailing vessels. Archaeologists believe these depictions were communal attempts to reassert autonomy, authority, and tradition amid violent external threats.

Today, these cultural echoes remain vital reminders of an era marked by intense upheaval and Aboriginal erasure. But even centuries later, Rainbow Serpent artwork like a 407-foot-long stone protector Taçon spotted near Awunbarna remains as impactful as ever.

“I thought to myself, ‘Wow! This is one of the largest Rainbow Serpent paintings I have seen in 40 years of Arnhem Land rock art fieldwork,’” he recalled. “And look at those teeth and tongue!”

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Animals sometimes get stuck in the strangest (and most terrible) of places. From a peanut butter jar to a car’s front grill, wildlife experts have certainly seen it all. But when Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable, Massachusetts received a call about a raccoon trapped in a drain grate earlier this month, their veterinary staff had their hands full with three other emergencies. 

While they couldn’t get to the trapped raccoon right away, other animal lovers were ready to step in. They physically took the raccoon—and the grate it was stuck in—to the Cape Wildlife Center. This team raccoon and drain grate removal effort involved the Bourne Department of Natural Resources, Fire/Rescue & Emergency Services, Police Department, and Department of Public Works. 

“In our line of work it sometimes takes a village to do what we do and this young raccoon had so many people fighting to save him today,” Cape Wildlife Center wrote in a social media post. “When they arrived at the hospital we were ready with meds to sedate the poor raccoon. We did not know how long he had been stuck like that and could only imagine how exhausted and scared he was.”

Bourne Department of Natural Resources, Fire/Rescue & Emergency Services, Police Department, and Department of Public Works worked together to save the raccoon. Image: Cape Wildlife Center.

With the trash panda fast asleep, the team used highly sophisticated equipment to pull its head out—canola oil and plastic garbage bags. Thankfully, it took less than 10 minutes. The medical team then carried out a full exam and administered rehydrating fluids and anti-inflammation medications. 

Finally, they woke up the unfortunate raccoon. In its misfortune this furry individual was pretty lucky—it doesn’t seem like he sustained any significant injuries, given that he could move his neck and limbs normally. For now, the wildlife center is keeping an eye on him while he stays in an outdoor enclosure. 

The raccoon did not have any major injuries. Image: Cape Wildlife Center.

“Wildlife rescues don’t always happen with one person or one team,” the wildlife center wrote. “This one took a whole community working together, and we’re grateful to everyone who helped get this little guy the care he needed.”

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When it’s time to finally greet the world, snakes emerge from their shells with the longest bodies of any vertebrate animal. This remarkable evolutionary achievement is only possible due to their limber gestational contortions. Snake embryos develop in a tight spiral, and these early stage coils always form dextrally, or towards the right. But how (and why) the reptiles consistently favor this right angle has baffled biologists for years.

“There is a touch of mystery to spirals,” explained University of British Columbia zoologist Alexandra Weber. “We are only beginning to understand how these shapes are produced in animals, such as our looping intestine, snail shells, and now these beautifully coiled snake embryos.”

Weber and an international team of scientists finally have an answer. As they explain in a study published today in the journal Current Biology, it all has to do with a snake’s gut.

An embryo of Cape house snake (Boaedon capensis) stained to show developing muscle blocks in the trunk. The embryo shows right-handed coiling. Credit: Raul Diaz / California State University Los Angeles

The investigation kicked off during the COVID pandemic lockdowns of 2020. At the time, an evolutionary biologist and study co-author at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa named Tetsuto Miyashita was struggling to envision a remote research project for his students. He eventually recalled his PhD advisor’s deep interest in evolutionary asymmetries, particularly when it came to snakes. 

“Every time I saw images of snake embryos in papers, I wondered whether they are right- or left-handed in their coiling,” said Miyashita.

After sending out a request call to various museums, Miyashita and his students amassed images of over 900 embryos from 39 snake and other limbless reptile species. They then meticulously reviewed all of them and saw a striking biological pattern. Snakes began their right-handed coiling within the first few weeks of embryonic development—but they were doing it before they had any muscles.

“Different forces are making them coil…but we didn’t know what’s making them do that,” said Weber.

CT scans began to fill in the gaps, revealing a previously unidentified biological structure: an intestine located outside the embryo’s body, but enveloped by blood vessels stretching from the yolk. According to Miyashita, this “pillar of gut” slowly detaches from the yolk while tethering the elongating body.

As the snake embryo develops, it twists into a coil on the opposite side of the yolk. And since the yolks are always on the left side of the embryo, the snake coils rightward. Miyashita likens the dynamics to adjusting a strap’s length so that the longer, buckling loop always twists. Snakes eventually gain the ability to wriggle as the embryo matures and its muscles develop. Once this occurs, around half of the late-stage spiraling bodies recoil to the left. 

Many evolutionary biologists previously focused on detailed snake genetic analysis to explain their unique anatomies, which importantly helped explain many of their attributes. Miyashita is thankful for these “key discoveries,” but noted how answers sometimes can be found thanks to simple observation skills.

“Out of the COVID lockdown, we uncovered a snake’s secret with a startlingly simple approach,” he said. “Just scroll through an album of snake embryos and record which way they are coiled, and take a good look at their anatomy.”

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September 9Epsilon Perseids Predicted peakSeptember 22Autumnal EquinoxSeptember 26Neptune in Full OppositionSeptember 26Full Harvest Moon

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, the temperature is dropping. That’s right, folks, summer is officially over! Well, not quite yet, but the month of September ushers in the official beginning of fall, along with a rare chance to see the solar system’s most distant planet, the Epsilon Perseids meteor shower, and a full moon that lives up to its name. So brew a nice cup of tea, put on a Leonard Cohen record and immerse yourself in pleasant melancholy, then grab some binoculars and get stargazing.

September 9: Epsilon Perseids Predicted Peak

Compared to the exciting celestial pyrotechnics of August, September is a pretty quiet month for meteor showers, but there’s at least one shower you can catch. The Epsilon Perseids are predicted to peak on September 9. These are a different meteor shower than the more famous Perseids. They share the same name simply because they both appear to originate from radiant points in the constellation Perseus. The constellation will rise in the northeast and move to the east over the course of the night. Expect to see about five meteors an hour, and be patient. There are not quite as many meteors in this shower.

September 22: Autumnal Equinox

If you’re as tired as we are of the heat, humidity and mosquitoes that come with summer, then rejoice: September 22 is officially the first day of autumn. 

The two annual equinoxes mark the midpoint between the summer and winter solstices. On an equinox, the earth’s axial tilt is perpendicular to the sun, meaning that both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres receive equal daylight.

Earth has two solstices and two equinoxes every year.  Image: Tom Hawking / Popular Science. September 26: Neptune in Full Opposition

If there’s one planet that doesn’t get a ton of attention, it’s Neptune. There’s a pretty simple reason for this: the cranky king of the sea is really, really far away. On any given day, Neptune is about 2.8 billion miles from the sun and 2.79 billion miles from Earth. Both distances are so large that they’re honestly pretty much incomprehensible. But here’s one way to think about it: we all learn at school that light takes eight minutes to get from the sun to the Earth. To reach Neptune, sunlight needs four hours.

Neptune’s remote spot in our solar system means that spotting it is a challenge for amateur astronomers. However, if you want to give it a shot, the evening of September 25 brings an excellent opportunity. At about 10 p.m. EDT, Neptune will be in full opposition. This means that the Earth will be directly between the sun and Neptune, and that Neptune will be as close to us as it gets.

How close? Well, it’ll only be a mere 2.68 billion miles away! You’ll need good binoculars or a telescope to see it, and you’ll need to look east towards  the constellation Pisces.The planet will rise in the east and will be visible all night. Happy hunting!

September 26: Full Harvest Moon 

Most of the names given to the full moon are poetic, but not quite reflective of reality: the Pink Moon is not pink, the Sturgeon Moon is not fishy, and so on. The Harvest Moon, however, really does have some significance for the annual harvest. As the Farmer’s Almanac explains, September’s full moon is close to the autumn equinox, so the moon “rises about the same time for several nights, providing extended evening light… [for] farmers to complete their harvests before fall frosts.” This year’s Harvest Moon will reach peak illumination at 12:49 p.m. EDT. 

Remember that you’ll get the best experience gazing up at the cosmos if you get away from any sources of light pollution. You should also give your eyeballs some time to adjust to the darkness, and review our stargazing tips before setting out into the night.

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