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Science & Tech

October 18, 2019. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir waves at the camera during a spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch (out of frame). They ventured into the vacuum of space for seven hours and 17 minutes to swap a failed battery charge-discharge unit (BCDU) with a spare during the first all-woman spacewalk. The BCDU regulates the charge to the batteries that collect and distribute solar power to the orbiting lab's systems.
7 Questions for Astronaut Jessica Meir

She was one of the first astronauts selected for the Artemis program, having already logged almost 205 days in space.

NASA
Lab mouse using an optogenetics device
Karl Deisseroth
Optogenetics: Controlling the Brain with Light

Developed in the early 2000s, optogenetics—the combined use of genetic and optical (light) methods to control genes and neurons—is among the most rapidly advancing technologies in neuroscience.

Karl Deisseroth

Popular

  1. Titanosaurs: 8 of the World's Biggest Dinosaurs
    illustration of the walking titanosaurus, Patagotitan mayorum

  2. What's the Difference Between Speed and Velocity?
    Highway Night Traffic Portland, drive, driving, car, automobile.

  3. The Apollo Space Program
    Apollo program: launch vehicle and spacecraft modules

  4. Pros and Cons of the Industrial Revolution
    Young boys working in a thread spinning mill in Macon, Georgia, 1909. Boys are so small they have to climb onto the spinning frame to reach and fix broken threads and put back empty bobbins. Child labor. Industrial revolution

Editor's Picks

Color wheel, visible light, color spectrum. Colour wheel
Are Black and White Colors?
What do we see when we see black and white?
Ghost forest along the Lewis Gut - a stream along the coast near Core Point, North Carolina. Photographed in 2022
Ghost Forests Are Becoming the New Haunts of Climate Change
What are ghost forests? How do ghost forests emerge, and how do they affect the global environment?
Illustration showing electrical activity of the human brain
5 Common Misconceptions About Schizophrenia
Learn about five of the most common misconceptions about this highly stigmatized mental disorder in this Encyclopaedia Britannica Health & Medicine list.
Man and woman with substance induced mental disorder or psychosis, hallucination, hallucinogens, lsd, drugs
Investigating Therapeutic Uses for Hallucinogens
After a pause of several decades, scientists have resumed investigating how hallucinogens could be used to treat a variety of psychiatric problems.
Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician and autodidact.
6 Interesting Facts about Srinivasa Ramanujan
Some things to know about one of the world’s greatest mathematicians.
Digital image of the Western Hemisphere (Earth, Blue Marble) at the time of one of the strongest hurricanes (Hurricane Linda) ever observed in the Eastern Pacific. Moon is an artistic addition. (Data date: 2000)
How Old Is Earth?
According to modern scientists, Earth is roughly 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old. Various religious traditions disagree, claiming that Earth’s age is anywhere from about 6,000 years to more than 150 trillion years.
One day old human baby sleeping in a hospital. Newborn, dreaming, infant, napping sleep. reproductive system.
9 Fun Facts About Sleep
While you sleep, your body goes to work, restoring itself and gathering energy for a new day.
number zero, 0 balloon
Is Zero an Even or an Odd Number?
Or is this oddly fascinating number even a number at all?

Spotlight: Invasive Species

You probably encounter an invasive species every day and don't even notice. They can be cute like a rabbit, stunning like lantana, or as tiny as bacteria. And they're doing a real number on the planet, costing the global economy more than $423 billion each year, according to a new report.

Quizzes

Human eyelashes under magnifcation. Colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of human eyelash mites
Name That Magnified Object!
Can you figure out what these common items are when they're extremely magnified?
3d illustration of small intestines, human body, anatomy
Guess the Body Part Quiz
Taking this quiz requires guts.
Name that Thing - Science, composite: circuitboard, gnomon, eye iris, airplan yaw
Name That Thing: Science
Do you know the difference between a protractor and a compass?
Close up of the eye of a horned owl. (genus Bubo) bird raptor. Cropped version of Asset ID:
Guess the Animal Eyes Quiz
Can you tell these creatures just by looking at their peepers?

Videos

Explore the phases of the moon and their effectiveness in tracking time
Explore the phases of the moon and their effectiveness in tracking time
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  • Explore the phases of the moon and their effectiveness in tracking time
    Explore the phases of the moon and their effectiveness in tracking time
  • What causes the seasons?
    What causes the seasons?
  • What made the design of Benjamin Banneker''s clock special?
    What made the design of Benjamin Banneker''s clock special?
  • Is overpopulation a problem?
    Is overpopulation a problem?
  • Learn about the Golgi apparatus and its structure
    Learn about the Golgi apparatus and its structure

Galleries

Paricutin Volcano, Mexico, in eruption at night. 1947.

7 Wonders of the Natural World

Nickel-iron meteorite, from Canyon Diablo, Arizona.

Meteorites

Orange Cup Coral

Coral

Reed frog on the inside of a pink lily flower (hyperolius sp)

Life

With the tornado in the background in Goshen County, Wyoming on June 5, 2009, the National Severe Storms Laboratory Field Command Vehicle helped coordinate operations in the field during the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment

Tornadoes

Milky Way galaxy in night sky. (space, stars, center, astronomy, telescope)

The Solar System

Featured Categories

Biology

Astronomy

Mathematics

    Al-Khwārizmī
    al-Khwārizmī
    Al-Khwārizmī, Muslim mathematician and astronomer whose major works introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals and the concepts of algebra into European mathematics. Latinized versions of his name and of his most famous book title live on in the terms algorithm and algebra. Al-Khwārizmī lived in Baghdad,
    bunch of numbers
    Unusual Counting Systems
    In everyday life we use a base-10 counting system, but that is not something that has always been used in history.
    Euclid
    Euclid
    Euclid, the most prominent mathematician of Greco-Roman antiquity, best known for his treatise on geometry, the Elements. Of Euclid’s life nothing is known except what the Greek philosopher Proclus (c. 410–485 ce) reports in his “summary” of famous Greek mathematicians. According to him, Euclid
    Aryabhata I
    Aryabhata
    Aryabhata, astronomer and the earliest Indian mathematician whose work and history are available to modern scholars. He is also known as Aryabhata I or Aryabhata the Elder to distinguish him from a 10th-century Indian mathematician of the same name. He flourished in Kusumapura—near Patalipurta