Issue 65 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our November and December 2025 online issues, and a special Food section. It includes contributions from animal rights activist Peter Singer, science writer Amanda Gefter, evolutionary biologist David
In the early hours of July 30, 2024, a landslide in the Wayanad district of Kerala state, India, killed 400 people. The Punjirimattom, Mundakkai, Vellarimala and Chooralmala villages in the Western Ghats mountain range turned into a dystopian rubble of uprooted trees and debris.
After years of international negotiation and diplomacy, as of January 2026, the High Seas Treaty has come into effect. It has been ratified by 61 states around the world and is intended to protect international waters and marine life.
The privacy risks of always-listening voice control systems—and how to protect against them The post Your Voice Gives Away Valuable Personal Information appeared first on Nautilus .
For decades, the ability to visualize the chemical composition of materials, whether for diagnosing a disease, assessing food quality, or analyzing pollution, depended on large, expensive laboratory instruments called spectrometers. These devices work by taking light, spreading
When the six tiny spacecraft of NASA's SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission settle into their orbits high above Earth after launching later this year, they'll function as one giant radio dish to track the rumbles of radio bursts coming from deep within
One of the major challenges facing the agricultural sector is reserving the post-harvest quality of fruits. Significant economic losses can be caused by rapid ripening and deterioration in tropical fruits, such as bananas, which are among the world's most important staple
New UBC Okanagan research shows that wildfire can change how much water remains in streams during the driest months of the year.
For more than a decade, local and state laws have been increasingly focused on providing more protection and agency to workers fighting wage theft, according to new data published on LawAtlas.org and analysis in a new article in the American Journal of Public Health.
Today, as Greenland once again becomes a strategic prize, history seems poised to repeat itself. Staying with the Polar Inuit means refusing to speak of territory while erasing those who inhabit it.
In early January, a giant sinkhole formed at an intersection in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of North Philadelphia after a water main break. Just two weeks earlier, the city reopened a section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Center City that had been shut down for two months
The ocean is continuously ventilated when surface waters sink and transport, for example, oxygen and carbon to greater depths. The efficiency of this process can be estimated using the so-called water age, which describes the time elapsed since a water mass last was in contact
Pūkeko use sound elements to create calls and combine them to create complex call sequences in order to expand the range of options for expressing themselves—these are the findings of an international team including Konstanz researchers. Until now, this behavior had only been
A new analysis of air quality data from the past 70 years shows that Canada's record wildfire smoke in 2023 is part of a broader, continent-wide trend toward smokier skies across North America.
Light is a universal stimulus that influences all living things. Cycles of light and dark help set the biological clocks for organisms ranging from single-celled bacteria to human beings. Some bacteria use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy just like plants, but
It’s a resonating chamber for drumming with its ribs The post This Fish Really Does Need a Hole in Its Head appeared first on Nautilus .
What effect does it have on our well-being when we put our smartphones aside for a while or otherwise disconnect from digital media? Alicia Gilbert, a research associate at the Department of Communication at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), together with two
Increasing heat and drought are putting our forests under stress. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have used drone imagery to investigate how native tree species are responding to climate change. This measurement method
Researchers in the lab of Asst. Prof. Chibueze Amanchukwu at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) have spent three years looking for failure, scouring the academic literature for tales of battery breakdowns and degraded electrolytes.
A team of scientists announced Tuesday they have developed new deep-sea landers specifically to test their contentious discovery that metallic rocks at the bottom of the ocean are producing "dark oxygen".
A hundred years ago, quantum mechanics was a radical theory that baffled even the brightest minds. Today, it's the backbone of technologies that shape our lives, from lasers and microchips to quantum computers and secure communications.
Political published writing retains an "important and complex role" in the national conversation—despite huge social and technological changes this century, a new book shows.
"A plague is upon us'' may have been a common phrase in ancient Jordan, where countless people perished from a mysterious malady that would shape both a society and an era of civilization.
Challenging long-held assumptions, Aarhus University researchers have demonstrated that the protein building blocks essential for life as we know it can form readily in space. This discovery, appearing in Nature Astronomy, significantly raises the statistical probability of
A neurologist reckons with recent revelations about the celebrated doctor and author The post The Confabulations of Oliver Sacks appeared first on Nautilus .
Huge inequality between inner-city and suburban parks across the world could be threatening well-being globally, suggests a study from King's College London and Nokia Bell Labs.
Cuts in sulfur emissions from oceangoing vessels have been tied to a reduction in lightning stroke density along heavily trafficked shipping routes in the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea, according to new research from the University of Kansas.
Research conducted by an international team of astronomers from Southwest Research Institute, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences in India and the Max Planck Institute in Germany could help predict upcoming solar cycle activity.
Quantum mechanics is rich with paradoxes and contradictions. It describes a microscopic world in which particles exist in a superposition of states—being in multiple places and configurations all at once, defined mathematically by what physicists call a "wavefunction." But this
An atmospheric scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has helped uncover a previously unknown chemical pathway that plays a major role in the formation of air pollution particles in environments influenced by both
Humans aren’t the only mammal species with aging populations The post Your Favorite Zoo Animals Are Getting Old appeared first on Nautilus .
Researchers from the South Pole Telescope project team looked deep into the center of the Milky Way, discovering powerful, surprising bursts of light from two accreting white dwarf systems.
Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in collaboration with the University of the Virgin Islands have discovered that microorganisms in seawater surrounding corals provide a powerful indicator of coral disease, potentially transforming how reef health
Forensics experts gather DNA to understand who was present at a crime scene. But what if the crime occurred in the middle of a lake, where DNA could be carried far and wide by wind and waves? That's the challenge faced by aquatic ecologists who study environmental DNA (eDNA) to
Pharmaceuticals used in health care provide huge health and economic benefits to society, but are now found extensively as pollutants across global waterways.
Solar panels on bodies of water in the northeastern U.S. might generate renewable energy but could also carry risks for birds, especially waterbirds. Now a new study provides a data-informed approach to siting floating solar that could protect waterbirds and others, without
Precise methods for shredding or repairing and replacing specific cancer-causing proteins in a malignant cell, developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, could have applications beyond cancer to a wide range of immunological diseases, members of the interdisciplinary
Startling findings in 2024 suggested that metallic nodules on the sea floor produce oxygen and might support life. Now researchers are planning an expedition to learn more and refute criticism from mining companies
New research shows the red planet plays an outsized role in Earth’s climate The post Tiny Mars has a Big Impact on Our Climate appeared first on Nautilus .
Cases of respiratory syncytial virus are increasing, but vaccines and antibody shots can keep young children out of the hospital
New research from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, and the University of Kentucky, finds that ChatGPT systematically favors wealthier, Western regions in response to questions ranging from "Where are people more beautiful?" to "Which country is
A Simon Fraser University cosmologist believes his team's new research may bring them a step closer to cracking one of science's biggest questions—the Hubble tension.
Japanese macaques, colloquially referred to as snow monkeys, famously soak in steaming hot springs during winter. It's easy to see that this helps them stay warm in cold temperatures, but a team of researchers at Kyoto University recently discovered that this iconic behavior
Archaeologists working near Skipsea Castle in East Yorkshire say a series of rare discoveries is transforming understanding of life in the centuries before the Norman Conquest.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has zoomed into the Helix Nebula to give an up-close view of the possible eventual fate of our own sun and planetary system. In Webb's high-resolution look, the structure of the gas being shed off by a dying star comes into full focus. The
Humans are using more water than Earth can support, with many water sources already damaged beyond repair, a report from the United Nations found
Sealed surfaces, artificial light and constant noise: What is part of everyday life for humans poses major challenges for other animals. A new international review conducted by researchers from Bielefeld University now reveals just how profoundly cities transform the social
The interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, was first discovered in July 2025, and made its closest approach to the sun (perihelion) in late October. New observations of 3I/ATLAS were taken in December from the SPHEREx observatory—a near-infrared space observatory used for
In 2023, a team of physicists from Sandia National Laboratories announced a major discovery: a way to steer LED light. If refined, it could mean someday replacing lasers with cheaper, smaller, more energy-efficient LEDs in countless technologies, from UPC scanners and
To ensure our bodies function correctly, the cells that compose them must operate properly. Imagine a cell as a bustling city where tiny parts called organelles move, reorganize, and respond to external stresses. To understand how our bodies stay healthy, or what goes wrong
