Are You Feeding a Powerful Facial Recognition Algorithm?
Facial recognition technology has great potential to help law enforcement identify suspects. But collecting and storing data from online photos has raised concern among critics.
GameStop, Reddit, and the Rise of Risky Trades
As many as one in four Americans have invested in speculative "meme" stocks in 2021, many using new mobile apps like Robinhood. How risky is it for small investors entering a volatile market?
Scientists Breed a New Generation of "Super Corals"
Some corals, called "super corals," are more resistant to temperature changes and bleaching. Discover how scientist Ruth Gates began a "super coral" breeding program to create more resilient reefs.
Reef Rescue Preview
If oceans continue to warm at the current pace, coral reefs could be wiped out by the end of the century. But scientists from around the globe are rushing to help corals adapt to a changing climate through assisted evolution.
Mexico's COVID Cases and Deaths are Underreported—Why?
Discover why coronavirus cases and deaths have been underreported in Mexico—and how it's not the only country with this problem.
Search Engine Breakdown
Why does a widely used internet search engine deliver results that can be blatantly racist and sexist? Two leading information researchers investigate their discoveries of hidden biases in the search technology we rely on every day.
Picture a Scientist Preview
Women make up less than a quarter of STEM professionals in the United States, and numbers are even lower for women of color. But a growing group of researchers is exposing longstanding discrimination and making science more inclusive.
Texas' Power Grid Trouble is Far From Over
What did we learn from the Texas power grid crisis earlier this year and how can we build more resilient energy systems?
The Big Lie about Monarch Butterflies
Discover a piece of false information about monarch butterflies and Mexico’s Indigenous Purépecha community, and why tourism may be partly to blame.
Origins of Misinformation and How it Spreads
Watch as a piece of false information about llamas spreads across social media and gets disproved, only to have the story continue to circulate.
Looking for Life on Mars Preview
Follow along as NASA launches the Mars 2020 Mission, perhaps the most ambitious hunt yet for signs of ancient life on Mars. In February 2021, the spacecraft will blaze into the Martian atmosphere at some 12,000 miles per hour and attempt to lower the Perseverance Rover into the rocky Jezero Crater, home to a dried-up river delta scientists think could have harbored life.
This NASA Scientist Helps Prevent Mars from Contamination
The spacecraft has to be extremely clean. The entire spacecraft—that includes the rover, the heat shield, the descent stage, and back shell—must contain less than 500,000 bacterial endospores, or spores. Just to give you an idea, a teaspoon of seawater has ten times more bacteria.
Why NASA is Back on Mars
This NASA rover landed on Mars, more than 130 million miles from Earth. It’s task? To continue the search for past life on the red planet.
Feast Your Eyes on the First-Ever Mars 2020 Mission Videos
Get a guided tour of the first Mars rover landing captured on video from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Ian Clark.
How Mask-Wearing Misinformation Became a Reality
NOVA Producer Alex Clark traces misinformation on mask-wearing from internet circles, to social media influencers, and back to the CDC in the NOVA Education video series.
Dream Hacking: Decisions, Addictions, and Sleep
Neuroscience is beginning to demystify such feelings. Our agency and decisions, it turns out, can be measurably influenced by events that evade the conscious part of our brains. We’ll see three groundbreaking experiments that illustrate that influences we are unaware of in our waking life, during dreamless sleep, or even in our dreams can impact our memory and behavior.
Growing Simple Cells with the Help of... Soap?
In the days of proto-life, less-stable membranes built out of simple molecules, like those in soap, may have been an advantage.
Beyond the Elements: Life Preview
Without the chemistry of photosynthesis, ozone, and a molecule called Rubisco, none of us would be here. So how did we get so lucky? To find out, host David Pogue investigates the surprising molecules that allowed life on Earth to begin, and ultimately thrive. Along the way, he finds out what we’re all made of—literally.
Meet the Enzyme Driving Photosynthesis
RUBISCO, which helps make photosynthesis happen, is the most plentiful enzyme on the planet. But it's not the most efficient. Can a team of researchers give it a boost?
Why Misinformation Matters
Learn the science behind misinformation–how it’s shared, why it's believed, and what we can do to address it.
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