Latest articles by Alexander McNamara
'Stranded' astronauts return and mystery human ancestor
Science news this week March 22, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Extraterrestrials quiz: Are you an alien expert, or has your brain been abducted?
Quiz Try this aliens quiz and see how much you know about our interstellar neighbors — if there are any.
Blood moon and a mysterious mummy
Science news this week March 15, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Should we bring back woolly mammoths?
Poll Colossal scientists just created "woolly mice" in another step towards their ultimate goal of resurrecting woolly mammoths. But should we be tinkering with extinct species? Take our poll and have your say.
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38 best science books for kids and young adults
Looking to inspire the next generation of curious minds? These are our picks of the best popular science books for children of all ages.
'A direct relationship between your sense of sight and recovery rate': Biologist Kathy Willis on why looking at nature can speed up healing
Biologist Kathy Willis spoke to Live Science about how touching wood makes us calmer, why looking at a picture of a savanna is calming and how walking through a forest changes our gut microbes.
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'It was clearly a human assault on the species': The fate of the great auk
Two preserved great auk specimens displayed at a museum in 1971. The last pair of great auks were killed in 1844.
'Lost in insignificance': Here's what it's like to rappel into the solar system's largest canyon
"You wanted this moment to belong just to yourself and the landscape: sunset on the rim of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system."
Periodic table of elements quiz: How many elements can you name in 10 minutes?
Quiz Can you name everything from Ac to Zr? Test your knowledge of the periodic table and see if you can top the leaderboard
'Can you predict the future? Yes, of course you can.': Inside the 1 equation that can predict the weather, sporting events, and more
"Life isn’t chess, a game of perfect information, one that can in theory be 'solved.' It's poker, a game where you're trying to make the best decisions using the limited information you have. "
Do you know your meteor showers from your massive millipedes?
Science news quiz It's been a busy week in science news. Can you get all the questions right in our quiz?
A lost Biblical tree and a memory crystal that could 'survive to the end of the universe'
Science news this week Sept. 28, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Spiders on Mars and an ancient Egyptian sword
Science news this week Sept. 21, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Humans have long been a 'geophysical force on a planetary scale,' says philosopher Timothy Morton. That's neither good nor bad.
Interview The person dubbed "the prophet of the Anthropocene" talks to Live Science about how they got this title, what the Anthropocene means, and why we need to stop trying to define when it started and accept that we've been in it for millennia.
Science news this week: 'Thorin' the last Neanderthal and a 'smiley face' on Mars
Sept. 14, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Live Science x HowTheLightGetsIn — Get discounted tickets to the world’s largest ideas and music festival
Live Science has partnered with HowTheLightGetsIn, taking place from Sept. 21 to 22 at Kenwood House, London. See how our readers can get a special discount.
Elon Musk said he's 'definitely going to be dead' before humans go to Mars — and you probably will be too
Book excerpt "If it's taken us 18 years just to get ready to do the first people in orbit, we've got to improve our rate of innovation."
'The beauty of symbolic equations is that it's much easier to … see a problem at a glance': How we moved from words and pictures to thinking symbolically
"Even the +, −, =, and x signs we take for granted only came into widespread use in the 17th century. Which means that the earlier algebraists we know of … all had expressed their equations mostly in words or pictorial word images"
'A force more powerful than gravity within the Earth': How magnetism locked itself inside our planet
"As the magma cooled to form what is today the world's solid outer crust, magnetism was locked into minerals containing iron, such as magnetite."
'We're meeting people where they are': Graphic novels can help boost diversity in STEM, says MIT's Ritu Raman
In a new series of comics, where young, female scientists take center stage, MIT's Ritu Raman explains how the format can inspire the next generation of young people into the world of STEM.
'Most of Gorongosa's large animals had died': How an African paradise for nature recovered from the ravages of war
"Where once there had been more than two thousand elephants, now there were fewer than two hundred."
