Humans

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

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…

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

Interior view of the engine room in the Zollverein Coal Mine, showcasing historic machinery and large windows

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A Ro-Pax ferry study of 22 crew members found engine-room noise above 96 decibels was linked with physical fatigue, while cabins that met maritime rules still sat above health guidance for undisturbed sleep and left recovery as a human-performance concern between shifts

Two scuba divers capturing the vibrant marine life near an underwater wreck in crystal clear waters

Humans Explainer

Twenty-two divers played a gambling game 100 feet underwater and the deeper group kept picking the losing decks while previous dive count offered no clear protection, a sign that nitrogen narcosis may bend judgment before people notice it

Close-up of a modern laboratory centrifuge on a sterile white surface, used in medical testing

Humans Explainer

Sixty days of head-down bed rest changed brain signals while harder task scores held steady and two 30-minute artificial-gravity regimens neither hurt nor clearly improved thinking in a 22-person analysis built to prepare humans for longer space missions

Volunteers and children participate in a beach cleanup, promoting environmental awareness

Humans Explainer

Ninety students spent the same 90 minutes on one Devon shore, either walking, rock pooling, or picking up litter and the beach cleaners came away with the strongest sense of meaning even as that volunteer lift and their broader green intentions were already easing one week later

Astronaut conducting a spacewalk with Earth in the background, showcasing outer space exploration

Humans Explainer

A review of 125 astronaut life stories found that space veterans spoke first about personal drive, but after returning they gave more space to universalism, spirituality and social recognition, offering a rare narrative map of how flying off Earth may reorder the values people choose to emphasize

Humans Explainer

Twenty-one older adults made 111 percent more listening errors on land than in chest-deep water, while immersion also doubled one balance-complexity measure and pushed sway area and velocity in the same direction, showing how a pool can lighten vigilance demands even as upright control becomes more challenging

Twenty-one healthy older adults in their early seventies showed a striking split between mind and posture when researchers compared the same tasks on land and in chest-deep water. The group made far fewer errors on an auditory vigilance task in the pool, yet their standing-balance measures moved in the opposite direction, with water placing extra…

Two astronauts in space suits help each other in a desert-like terrain, evoking Mars exploration

Humans Explainer

Eighteen HI-SEAS crew members spent 8 to 12 months inside a Mars habitat on Mauna Loa and the combined stress signals suggest that the biological and social strain grew harder to manage after the missions passed their halfway point

Eighteen people lived through three long HI-SEAS missions that tried to mimic some of the isolation, confinement and delayed communication expected on a trip to Mars. The crews were small, the living space was tight and the missions lasted either eight or 12 months, which gave researchers a chance to watch how stress changed as…

Top view of frowning teen female holding nose and keeping breath lying in bathtub

Humans Explainer

Fifty healthy adults spent 60 minutes floating in warm, silent darkness or lying on a waterbed and the float sessions more often blurred body boundaries, bent the sense of time and produced a sharper short-term drop in anxiety

Anxiety can fall for a while when the body stops getting its usual stream of signals from light, sound, pressure and movement. In a tightly controlled experiment from Freiburg, volunteers who floated weightlessly in warm salt water for one hour came out feeling calmer than they did after an hour on a warm waterbed in…

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