Explainer

Majestic night sky full of stars behind dark tree silhouette in a rural setting

Five women watched nine planetarium scenes three times and a 0.001-lux new moon sky gave the strongest healing scores while the blackest dome first raised stress before dark adaptation gradually eased it

The kind of darkness many city residents rarely see may also be the kind that feels best under a planetarium dome. In a small experiment, the most soothing condition was not a bright field of easy-to-see stars. It was a sky background set to 0.001 lux, close to a new moon night in a place…

Person floating during zero gravity training

Humans Explainer

Parabolic flights showed why men who could not stand routine often handled weightlessness better, as a study of 24 volunteers found boredom scores and motion sickness history helped classify poor adaptation with 93.33 percent accuracy

Serene foggy beach scene on the Oregon coast with sea stacks and nearby coastal homes

Oceans Explainer

A 30-second message telling Oregon beach visitors they could help move other people to act raised climate-action intent in a 2,414-person field experiment, while warnings about ocean acidification and appeals to coastal attachment produced no detectable lift and did not change the final sticker choice meant to mimic real-world follow-through

Two astronauts in silver space suits exploring a rocky, desert-like environment, resembling Mars

Humans Explainer

A 520-day Mars mission simulation found five times more conflict with Mission Control than inside the crew and it showed how sleep strain, stress and just two vulnerable crewmembers could dominate the social pressure of a 17-month voyage

Drone shot over a vibrant mangrove forest with a wooden boardwalk and gazebo in Thailand

Oceans Explainer

Marine reserve trips left 228 tourists with two distinct paths toward conservation, as awe tracked the easier promises to recycle and save resources while nature connection aligned more strongly with donating, volunteering and asking others to stop harming the coast

A vibrant green nebula in outer space with countless stars shining bright

Humans Explainer

Twenty-second views of James Webb deep-space images and star fields in a 113-person study were linked to higher awe, stronger feelings of vastness and restoration and no rise in negative emotion when the same people later rated urban scenes

SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in orbit, highlighting advanced space technology with cloud backdrop

Humans Explainer

Power rose and benevolence dipped for 12 astronauts midway through 4 to 7 month ISS missions, while perceived gaps across seven personal values tracked where crew tension was most likely to grow

A smiling female scientist in a futuristic space station, symbolizing innovation and exploration

Humans Explainer

Twenty percent shorter inner minutes appeared in orbit while memory for docking and spacewalk dates stayed close to Earth time and a 10-astronaut study on the International Space Station suggests that routine duration judgments can drift even when mission milestones remain firmly tracked

Ten astronauts who spent six to eight months in orbit gave researchers a striking split result: when they judged a single minute, their responses shifted in a way that made the interval feel shorter than it did on Earth, yet the same crewmembers stayed much more accurate when recalling how many days had passed since…

A mesmerizing view of Earth as seen from a space station with solar panels and satellite modules

Space Explainer

ISS cosmonauts spoke to Mission Control more than twice as much during heavy workloads, while negative emotion signals rose fivefold across 164,658 statements, suggesting that long missions may require stronger support from the ground

Long missions in orbit depend on voice traffic from the ground and the new paper shows that the emotional tone of that traffic can shift sharply when work pressure rises. Researchers studying Russian segment operations on the International Space Station found that crew members spoke far more often during intensive periods than during standard ones…

Close-up of an MRI scan showing a sagittal view of the human brain for analysis

Humans Explainer

Freedivers who trained without breath three times a week for seven months kept stable hippocampal volumes and normal episodic memory, as MRI scans in 17 divers and 20 other athletes found no detectable damage from repeated voluntary hypoxia and no change in how the brain sorted similar experiences

Low oxygen is usually bad news for the brain region that helps people store events, places and the fine details that separate one memory from another. A new Journal of Integrative Neuroscience study followed recreational freedivers through seven months of training and found a quieter outcome: their hippocampal volumes stayed stable and their episodic memory…

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