50 years ago, physicists found the speed of light

A group at the National Bureau of Standards at B­oulder, Colo., now reports an extremely accurate [speed of light] measurement using the wavelength and frequency of a helium-neon laser.… The result gives the speed of light as 299,792.4562 kilometers per second. UpdateThat 1972 experiment measured the two-way speed of light, or the average speed of […]

How sleep may boost creativity

The twilight time between fully awake and sound asleep may be packed with creative potential. People who recently drifted off into a light sleep later had problem-solving power, scientists report December 8 in Science Advances. The results help demystify the fleeting early moments of sleep and may even point out ways to boost creativity. Prolific […]

In 2021, COVID-19 vaccines were put to the test. Here’s what we learned

2021 was the year the COVID-19 vaccines had to prove their mettle. We started the year full of hope: With vaccines in hand in record-breaking time and their rollout ramping up, we’d get shots in arms, curb this pandemic and get life back to normal. That was too optimistic. Roughly 200 million people in the […]

‘The Dawn of Everything’ rewrites 40,000 years of human history

Concerns abound about what’s gone wrong in modern societies. Many scholars explain growing gaps between the haves and the have-nots as partly a by-product of living in dense, urban populations. The bigger the crowd, from this perspective, the more we need power brokers to run the show. Societies have scaled up for thousands of years, […]

Astronomers may have seen a star gulp down a black hole and explode

For the first time, astronomers have captured solid evidence of a rare double cosmic cannibalism — a star swallowing a compact object such as a black hole or neutron star. In turn, that object gobbled the star’s core, causing it to explode and leave behind only a black hole. The first hints of the gruesome […]

LeBron James: How did the Lakers star look in his return from injury in Boston?

The King is back.  LeBron James returned from an almost three-week absence for the Los Angeles Lakers against the Boston Celtics on Friday night. James had been out of the Lakers lineup since November 2, missing the team's past seven games with an abdominal strain. He was listed as a game-time decision with the team announcing he […]