Tom Hartsfield

He was also a eugenicist — but at least he could draw pretty pictures.

If you gave me $400 and I gave you $3.15, would you consider yourself wealthier? That's a financial analogy for the supposed fusion power "breakthrough."

The insanity of the academic job market laid out in numbers.

Find your wallet or keys — or a nuclear submarine.

Vanadium dioxide is a strange material that "remembers" information and when it was stored. This is akin to biological memory.

There are at least 15 different types of solid water (ice). Now, scientists believe that there might be a second type of liquid water.

Does it have a deeper significance — or is it just a number?

Unfortunately, the Lunar Ark project is an idea more at home in science fiction than science fact.

Over the past 50 years, 27 leap seconds have been added to our time.

One of the winners. Dr. K. Barry Sharpless, is now the fifth person in history to win two Nobels.

Meaningful pictures are assembled from meaningless noise.

An average undergraduate student in physics is better than the AI.

Elon Musk suggested remote-controlled, vibrating anal beads. Thankfully, there are more mundane explanations.

The war in Ukraine is unlikely to trigger a catastrophic nuclear meltdown. Physics and smart engineering are the reasons why.

Quantum mechanics forces us to toss out the old, reliable ways in which we make sense of our everyday reality.

Hint: It wasn't always an asteroid.

NASA was dangerously cavalier about the dangers of the shuttle launches.

For decades people have arranged to freeze their bodies after death, dreaming of resurrection by advanced future medicine. Many met a fate far grislier than death.

More than 300 years ago, a Spanish ship laden with unspeakable treasure sank after a battle. Because of greed, the treasure remains on the sea floor.

Before gunpowder was introduced to the West, medieval Arabs devised grenades using crockery.

Fire-retardant gels and slimes combine the best attributes of water and foam.

"The Soul of a New Machine" provides a rare level of insight into the minds and decisions of humanity's greatest thinkers.

A next-generation LHC++ could cost $100 billion. Here's why such a machine could end up being a massive waste of money.

Experimental archaeology is the practice of recreating past events using knowledge and tools available at the time. Sometimes, it involves elephants.

The Hyperloop is physically possible, but engineering challenges will make its construction very difficult. Also, accidents would be catastrophic.

But does Amazon know when you're tired or hungry?

Searching for truth in unorthodox ways can be a valuable exercise. But Anatoly Fomenko's alternate world history is just plain weird.

The apes taught sign language didn't understand what they were doing. They were merely "aping" their caretakers.

Nanofabricators could quickly synthesize whatever we need, molecule by molecule.

Pluto failed to meet the definition of a planet, but some astronomers think there might be a legitimate Planet 9 out there.