Mapping 6,000 Worlds: The New Era of Exoplanetary Data
Mapping 6,000 Worlds: The New Era of Exoplanetary Data

In the 1990s, astronomers confirmed the first planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. Since then, the tally has risen steadily, and last year it crossed a striking milestone: more than 6,000 known exoplanets. NASA’s Exoplanet Archive has captured not j…

How Norway Accomplished a Near-Total EV Transition
How Norway Accomplished a Near-Total EV Transition

More than 97 percent of the new cars Norwegians registered in November 2025 were electric, almost reaching the country’s goal of 100 percent. As a result, the government has begun removing some of the many carrots it used to encourage its successful E…

How the Dictaphone Entered Office Life
How the Dictaphone Entered Office Life

Thanks to Hollywood, whenever I think of a Dictaphone, my imagination immediately jumps to a mid-20th-century office, Don Draper suavely seated at his desk, voicing ad copy into a desktop machine. A perfectly coiffed woman from the secretarial pool th…

See the Sky Like Never Before With a DIY Eyepiece
See the Sky Like Never Before With a DIY Eyepiece

When it comes to viewing nebulae, galaxies, and other deep-sky objects, amateur astronomers on a budget have had two options. They can view with the naked eye through a telescope and perceive these spectacular objects as faint smudges that don’t even …

Jacob’s Ladder
Jacob’s Ladder

I know now how the sparks can climb,in broadening arcs of ions—the heat they grow inside themselveslike some permission or belief.But at ten, it seemed mystical;their frown, glowing, then invisible.Gone. Save the odor of ozone.I was young and scared a…