Humans

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

Twenty-eight Navy divers descended to a simulated 220 feet and experience showed up not in reported fear but in cortisol, heart-rate variability and steadier recovery during decompression

Twenty-eight Navy divers entered a simulated deep dive to 220 feet and the clearest split between newcomers and veterans did not come from what they said they felt. It came from what their bodies did under pressure. The study found that experienced Navy divers and novice divers reported no major difference in self-rated stress, anxiety,…

The Mir space station photographed from Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1997

Humans Explainer

Weekly mood surveys from 71 Shuttle-Mir astronauts, cosmonauts and controllers showed crews directing frustration toward Mission Control and controllers passing it upward toward NASA managers

Researchers floating inside an aircraft during a parabolic microgravity flight

Humans Explainer

Two drone operators flew a virtual cave mission during 20 parabolas and became more confident during 30-second bursts of microgravity even though their accuracy did not improve, suggesting weightlessness can separate self-belief from actual performance

A participant resting in a hospital bed during a prolonged bed-rest setting

Humans Explainer

Twenty-four volunteers spent 60 days tilted head-down to mimic microgravity and by the end they took longer to read faces, leaned toward angry interpretations and saw no clear protection from daily artificial gravity sessions meant to help future crews

Concept of human intelligence with human brain on blue background

Humans Explainer

Six volunteers spent 30 days inside a sealed spacecraft simulator and their EEG signals showed growing strain in the brain’s attention-control system before standard task scores fully captured how isolation was affecting focus

A spacecraft docked at the International Space Station above Earth

Humans Explainer

A 50-second delay between the International Space Station and Mission Control raised stress and frustration during a 166-day mission with three astronauts and 18 support staff, showing how a pause can unsettle the partnership that keeps crews and ground teams aligned

A woman swimming in a quiet lake surrounded by green vegetation

Humans Explainer

Researchers compared 1,200 outdoor swims across 19 countries and found wild water produced a stronger wellbeing boost than open-air pools, largely because natural settings supported autonomy and competence

People walking through a busy urban park beside a lake and high-rise skyline

Humans Explainer

Five hundred thirty-two visitors at freshwater sites in one Chinese city reported greater wellbeing where views were cleaner, soundscapes were calmer and access was easier, while smell contributed little on its own

Five hundred thirty-two visitors gave the study a real city test City leaders often talk about rivers, lakes and canals as if water itself automatically calms people. The harder question is which parts of the visit actually help and which parts depend on the setting around the water. A 2025 paper in Frontiers in Psychology…

A submarine traveling at the ocean surface with crew members on deck

Humans News

Thirty-four U.S. submariners spent eight weeks aboard a ballistic missile submarine, where changes in diet and gut microbes tracked fatigue, energy and mood even though each sailor’s microbiome retained its own signature

Thirty-four U.S. Navy submariners gave samples and filled out diet and mood surveys before, during and after an eight-week patrol, giving researchers a rare look at how the body responds inside a tightly controlled undersea mission. Each sailor kept a strongly personal microbial pattern, even while several common changes moved through the group during deployment.…

The interior of a spacecraft capsule configured for flight simulation

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Six people entered Moscow’s SIRIUS-21 spacecraft simulator for 240 days, and after one crew member left for medical reasons, the remaining five showed how isolation gradually rearranged daily alliances without undermining mission performance

Life on a long mission does more than test equipment. It also tests how a crew rearranges its social world when the same faces fill every work shift, meal and quiet hour for months. A 2025 Acta Astronautica study followed that process inside SIRIUS-21, an eight month isolation experiment in Moscow designed to mimic conditions…

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