The Mother of All Nerds

Technician Emory Toomey installs a navigation camera on NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft in a cleanroom

NASA’s Dragonfly Just Simulated the Hardest Flight It Will Make on Titan

NASA’s Dragonfly has completed its most comprehensive simulated flight yet, rehearsing the autonomous decisions it will need to reach Titan’s surface safely.

Artist’s concept of NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory orbiting above Earth

NASA Ends Swift Observatory After Nearly 22 Years of Chasing Cosmic Explosions

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has ended its nearly 22-year mission, leaving behind a vast public archive and a rapid-response model that reshaped astronomy.

Nintendo Switch 2 console in handheld mode with blue and orange Joy-Con 2 controllers

Modern Warfare 4 Brings Call of Duty Back to Nintendo After 13 Years

Modern Warfare 4 launches on Switch 2, ending Call of Duty’s 13-year Nintendo absence and putting Microsoft’s day-and-date platform promise to its first real test.

Deborah Ann Woll speaking into a microphone at GalaxyCon Raleigh in 2024

The Cycle Gives Deborah Ann Woll a Horror Mystery Built to Hide Its Monster

The Cycle sends Deborah Ann Woll into a forensic cold case that turns into creature horror, testing whether its family mystery can survive the monster.

Brendan rides a horse through a sunlit forest as Prue stands beside her bicycle in Wildwood.

Wildwood’s Puppets Have Tiny Mechanical Bodies and a Hospital

A puppet hospital, spring-steel hands and animatable muscles: a look at the miniature engineering behind LAIKA’s Wildwood.

Four NASA leaders seated at the Artemis Acceleration briefing with a Moon graphic behind them

NASA’s 2028 Moon Landing Now Has Two Very Different Paths

NASA is keeping SpaceX and Blue Origin in contention for its first Artemis Moon landing. Their two flight plans could not be more different.

Catherine Breed wearing a wetsuit, swim cap and goggles aboard her support boat, with the ocean behind her.

She Swam Nearly 900 Miles. Sewage Kept Her Finish Offshore

Catherine Breed completed a nearly 900-mile staged swim down California on October 19. Sewage pollution near the border shaped her offshore finish.

Louis Daguerre’s view of Boulevard du Temple, with a standing customer and a smaller shoeshiner figure near the lower-left street corner.

Finding Where Two Strangers Stood in This 1838 Photo Took Two Years

Two tiny figures in Louis Daguerre’s famous 1838 photograph sent filmmakers on a two-year hunt through old maps and modern 3D scans. Paris now marks their spot.

Composite promo image of Bryce Harper in a Phillies uniform beside the masked Doctor Doom.

Doomsday’s Baseball Promo Had Viewers Asking What Was Actually in the Movie

Reed Richards takes the mound in Marvel’s World Series crossover, while real MLB stars leave some viewers wondering which bits belong in Doomsday.

A grizzly bear at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center walks past a fallen log, rocks and yellow flowers.

A Trash Can Was Designed to Keep Bears Out. Kobuk Figured Out the Latch.

A guarded lever was meant to keep bear paws out. Kobuk used his claws and a twist of his body to open it, revealing the ingenuity behind bear-resistant gear tests.

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Late-1970s film desk with original science-fiction concept art, a clapperboard, and production papers illustrating the CIA’s fake Argo movie cover.

Jack Kirby’s Unmade Sci-Fi Art Helped the CIA Sell Its Fake ‘Argo’ Movie

Jack Kirby’s unused Lord of Light artwork helped the CIA sell its fake Argo movie cover during the 1980 rescue of six Americans from Iran.

Illustrative scene of a vintage sci-fi promotional vending machine strapped to a flatbed truck traveling from a Pittsburgh firehouse toward Los Angeles.

Pittsburgh’s ‘Phantom Menace’ Vending Machine Turned Up 2,400 Miles Away

The missing 1999 Phantom Menace vending machine resurfaced 2,400 miles away in Los Angeles after its creator took it on a cross-country trip.

Illustrative reconstruction of Ken Carter’s rocket-powered car waiting beside a towering ten-storey ramp on the St. Lawrence River.

Ken Carter Built a 10-Storey Ramp to Launch a Rocket Car Across the St. Lawrence

Ken Carter spent five years and about $1 million building a rocket car and ten-storey ramp for an attempted mile-wide jump across the St. Lawrence.

Illustration of a charred replica papyrus scroll undergoing X-ray scanning in a laboratory

Scientists Burned Fake Ancient Scrolls to Figure Out How to Read the Real Ones Buried by Vesuvius

Researchers carbonized a modern papyrus replica, then used X-rays to read its hidden text. The experiment may help identify which fragile Herculaneum scrolls are worth scanning next.

Original illustration of a mummified pearlfish inside an oyster shell, with Komodo dragon skull and dodo specimens in a museum gallery.

At Harvard, a Fish Mummified in an Oyster—and a Komodo Skull With a King Kong Link

Harvard’s natural-history exhibit pairs an oyster containing a mummified pearlfish with a Komodo skull tied by curators to the story behind King Kong.

Illustration of a tiny red-eyed marine sea spider with bristly legs and comb-like grooming appendages on an underwater hydroid

Scientists Found Red-Eyed Sea Spiders With Hairy Legs—and Built-In Combs

Two sea spider species new to science were described from the Salish Sea. One has red eyes, bristly legs and comb-like appendages it uses to groom itself.

Illustration of a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex tooth in a research lab with a blurred T. rex skull in the background

Scientists Put a Number on T. rex’s Body Temperature—and It Was Surprisingly Human

Researchers estimated T. rex’s body temperature at about 97°F by studying chemical bonds in fossil tooth enamel. The result gives a famous dinosaur a surprisingly familiar number.

Original illustration of a gothic film screening with a shadowy monster on screen and a live orchestra performing in front

Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein Had No Continuous Score—Now His Daughter Is Joining Its London Live-Orchestra Premiere

The 1931 Frankenstein had dialogue but no continuous music score. Composer Michael Shapiro will conduct his 2001 score live in London, with Sara Karloff joining a post-screening Q&A.

Moonlit Crystal Lake summer camp with a woman standing at the shore

Crystal Lake Gives Friday the 13th Its Most Unsettling Twist Yet: Jason’s Mother Is the Story

Crystal Lake’s official trailer moves the Friday the 13th legend backward, putting Pam Voorhees’ grief—and the town’s fear—at the center of the nightmare.

Two original futuristic android figures face each other across a glowing energy reactor in a red and blue laboratory.

VisionQuest Brings Vision and Ultron Back Together—and That Is a Much Stranger Reunion Than It Sounds

Marvel’s VisionQuest will reunite Paul Bettany’s Vision and James Spader’s Ultron in the final chapter of the WandaVision-era trilogy. The surprising hook is not a cameo: it is a reckoning between two versions of synthetic life.