The Pentagon has canceled a ground control system for the US military’s GPS satellite navigation network after the program’s enduring problems “proved insurmountable,” the US Space Force announced in a press release Monday. The Global Positioning System Next-Generation Operational Control System, known by the acronym OCX, was officially canceled by Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s defense acquisition

Continue Reading

Nearly 10 years after Kara Kenan of North Carolina finished treatment for advanced breast cancer, her routine bloodwork revealed an increased level of an enzyme called alkaline phosphatase. Kenan’s primary care doctor didn’t think that was important, so he ordered no further tests. But Kenan, who directs marketing for the advocacy group Cancer Nation, knew

Continue Reading

For close to a century, geoscientists have pondered a mystery: Where did Earth’s lighter elements go? Compared to amounts in the Sun and in some meteorites, Earth has less hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, as well as noble gases like helium — in some cases, more than 99 percent less. Some of the disparity is

Continue Reading

We often learn about the past visually — through oil paintings and sepia photographs, books and buildings, artifacts displayed behind glass. And sometimes we get to touch historical objects or listen to recordings. But rarely do we use our sense of smell — our oldest, most primal way of learning about the environment — to

Continue Reading

Mary Gay Scanlon cut her teeth in Congress scrutinizing Big Tech’s enormous power over Americans’ lives. As she and fellow representatives on the Judiciary Committee set about their 16-month investigation, she was itching to explore corporate misconduct across a wider swath of industries. “It seemed like an area that was ripe to address,” Scanlon, a

Continue Reading

Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. A sharp, musky scent rushes over me as I step out of the taxi outside Mr. Wang’s house near Tong’erpu, in China’s northeastern Liaoning province. It’s one of the country’s largest fur-trading centers. Wang greets me, sporting a blue jersey and matching cap. “I’m about

Continue Reading

On October 6, 1970, the deep-sea drilling vessel Glomar Challenger returned to port in Lisbon, Portugal, bearing a cargo that would revise history. During its 54-day voyage, the Challenger had punched 28 holes into the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The recovered cores pointed toward a startling conclusion: About 6 million years ago, the sea

Continue Reading

Sixteen years ago, a brainless, unicellular organism blew our human minds. And it continues to fascinate and surprise researchers to this day. Scientists had known that some slime molds of the species Physarum polycephalum consist of one giant, pulsating cell that keeps changing shape as it moves around and branches out to access food and

Continue Reading

For most of her adult life, Katherine Sanders had what she calls a typical career for someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After finishing her doctoral thesis on Bronze Age Syrian mythology, she bounced between unrelated jobs. She tutored university students. She sewed Victorian corsets for bridal outfits. She designed stained glass and sold picture

Continue Reading

Protein dominates the grocery shelves: Protein chips. Protein cookies. Protein water. It’s in the headlines, too: January’s new US dietary guidelines raised the recommended amount from 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram body weight to 1.2 to 1.6 grams. Yet there’s a cadre of scientists studying a contrary phenomenon: In critters from single-celled yeast to

Continue Reading