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QUICK FACTSWhere is it? New York City, NY [40.71113953, -74.01078602]What's in the photo? A massive plume of smoke blowing from Manhattan in the wake of 9/11Who took the photo? NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson, on board the ISSWhen was it taken? Sept. 11, 2001This iconic photo, captured by an American astronaut on board the International Space Station (ISS), shows a lengthy trail of thick smoke pouring across New York City in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. A quarter of a century lat

BERLIN — An eerily lifelike humanoid robot made by Chinese technology company Xpeng has now entered mass production, company representatives revealed. They say it'll be the first such machine to walk itself off the production line.The humanoid robot, dubbed IRON, went viral last year after presenters sliced it open onstage to prove a human wasn't inside. Xpeng will now produce units through its existing production facilities, with no word on how many its factories will aim to build.The fabric sk

When the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, both nations agreed not to place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit around Earth. Specifically, Article IV of the treaty was designed to keep the Cold War's nuclear arms race from extending into space — a goal both superpowers shared. The problem, then and now, is that neither side has ever had a reliable way to confirm that the other is keeping its word. After nearly 60 years of uncert

Remains of a Bronze Age folding chair were found in a chieftain's grave in Denmark. (Image credit: National Museum of Denmark (CC-BY-SA))QUICK FACTSName: Guldhøj folding chairWhat it is: A wooden chair with an otter-skin seatWhere it is from: Guldhøj, southern DenmarkWhen it was made: Circa 1400 B.C.When archaeologists with the National Museum of Denmark excavated a burial mound called Guldhøj (Gold Hill) in southern Jutland in 1891, they were surprised to find a well-preserved wooden folding ch

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an ancient tomb belonging to the "keeper of the secrets of royal decrees," they announced following an excavation at Saqqara.The decorated burial belongs to an official named Sekhentio-Ptah, who lived during the Old Kingdom (2649 to 2150 B.C.), a period that's famous for the building of the pyramids, including those at Giza. While the title "keeper of the secrets of royal decrees" may sound mysterious, it was likely a more bureaucratic position, said Ann M

"Protect our water," "Water for people not AI," "Don't mess with our water," declare protest signs from Texas to New Mexico to Arizona. Angered by water use, energy consumption and pollution, locals are increasingly protesting the rapid expansion of data centers in the United States as tech companies work to rapidly expand capacity for AI.Many data centers rely at least partly on water to absorb heat from air or surfaces, and then cause cooling as it evaporates, just like sweating keeps our bodi

Nearly two millennia ago, a wealthy Roman commissioned an intricate, multicolored floor mosaic that depicted two beloved household animals: a cat named Emerald and a dog named Ocean. The mosaic was a key feature of a villa, which archaeologists recently unearthed from beneath the ancient city of Adramytteion on Turkey's Aegean coast.Within the Roman villa, which has been dated to the late second to third centuries A.D., archaeologists discovered three halls surrounding a central atrium. In one r

The transistor was able to operate normally at temperatures ranging from room temperature to 1112 F (600 C). (Image credit: Science Graphics)Scientists in Japan have built a new transistor that can withstand temperatures of 1,110 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). Components this robust could one day be used in surface probes on Venus — where the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere can reach temperatures of 860 F (460 C).Most modern tech, including instruments used for deep-space exploration,

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured the "Treasure Chest," a cometary globule in the star-forming Carina Nebula, on Aug. 6, 2026 (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Reiter; Acknowledgment: M. H. Özsaraç)Quick factsWhat it is: The Treasure Chest, a cometary globule in the Carina Nebula star-forming regionWhere it is: 7,500 light-years away, in the constellation Carina (the Keel)When it was shared: Aug. 21, 2026It looks like a gigantic treasure chest left open among the stars — but inste

For decades, engineers have been working to create smaller and smaller transistors to fit ever-larger numbers of them onto computer chips, all in the name of greater processing power. Now, in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), that effort has turned into an all-out race. So how small can a transistor actually get? And is smaller even still the goal? To understand the answer, first you need to know what a transistor is. "If you take a computer or your mobile phone and you were to pry it ope

Over dinner at a gaming convention around 2010, board game designer James Ernest turned to his friend Eric Harshbarger and asked a question: Could you design a set of dice so that each player in a group — whether two people or any number — could grab one, roll and have a perfectly equal shot at going first? The rule is simple: Roll your dice, and whoever lands the highest number goes first. The hard part is making that outcome truly fair for every player, no matter how many are at the table.Ther

Humanoid robots in Beijing have beaten a number of men's athletics world records at the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games, claiming high-water marks in the 100-meter sprint, the 400 m, 1,500 m and high jump. While these performances aren't official replacements for the human records, as the robots competed under robot-specific categories and conditions, they highlight the progress made since last year's inaugural robot games .The five-day games were held between Aug. 22nd and 26 at Beijing’s Natio

Archaeologists were excavating in a Roman-period cemetery in Poland when they came across something extremely unusual: the grave of a man who was buried with two decapitated human heads, a necklace made from 42 mammal teeth, and a battle ax. That ax provided an important clue: He was actually from the Stone Age, three millennia older than the Roman cemetery."We were practically packing up, and then we discovered a circular shape in the ground and began digging," Paweł Dąbrowski, a biological ant

The Romans are well known for their aqueducts, which brought water to their cities and settlements.These aqueducts sometimes ran for very long distances. For instance, the aqueduct of Valens, which brought water to the city of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), was 250 miles (400 kilometers) long, according to a statement from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. The aqueducts also lasted a long time; their remains are some of the most prominent Roman architectural finds visible today. All of

Over a century ago, German pathologist Georg Schmorl documented a strange phenomenon: cells from fetuses that had moved into the mother during pregnancy. He had discovered microchimerism — where the cells from one individual move into another and set up shop. In the past few decades, scientists' understanding of microchimerism has grown, thanks to technological advances. And the implications are wild. Cells transferred during pregnancy could mean you have cells from your grandmother living insid

When Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket suddenly blew apart on a Florida launchpad earlier this year, it sent sound waves racing more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across the U.S., new data reveals. While imperceptible to human ears, the subtle vibrations have helped researchers analyze the blast in surprising detail. New Glenn is the largest and most powerful of Blue Origin's commercial rockets. It stands at 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly the same size as NASA's Space Launch System (most

A 3,200-year-old Egyptian inscription found near an ancient military road may indicate the location of a long-lost city, archaeologists have announced.Found at the site of Tell Abu Seifi (also spelled Seify), the inscription mentions Ramesses II, who reigned from about 1279 to 1213 B.C. It says that Horus, a falcon-headed ancient Egyptian god associated with the sky and war, is the "Lord of the City of Mesn," representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a translate

People who are the exact same chronological age can undergo very different molecular changes as they grow older, a new study finds."Molecular aging is dynamic and unique to each person," said study co-author Julia El-Sayed Moustafa, a computational genomics researcher at King's College London. Even if you and your friend were born the same day, the activity of some of your genes might ramp up while the same genes in your friend dial down. The same is true for metabolites, which are small molecul

Large patches of open water were visible just 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the North Pole on Aug. 29, a NASA satellite image shows. Although this doesn't necessarily mean that Arctic ice is worse off this year than the past few years, the image reveals how severely climate change is affecting the region, experts say.The image is from the NASA Worldview satellite photo browsing tool and was shared last week on the blog Arctic News. The patches are "quite striking," but it's not the first time th

Chemotherapy can save lives, but for many cancer patients, it leaves behind a painful legacy: damaged nerves that burn, tingle or go numb. Now, researchers report that a psychedelic compound may protect those nerves — not through its mind-bending effects, but by helping neurons keep their internal power supplies moving.A new mouse study, published Thursday (Sept. 3) in the journal Science, suggests that psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in "magic mushrooms," may help prevent this painful and