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“We moved here for the schools.” It’s a popular refrain of suburban families wealthy enough to afford the high real-estate taxes that go toward funding well-rated public schools but not wealthy enough, or not interested, to send their kids to private school. The result: Because Black parents earn 40 percent less than non-Hispanic white parents, and Black and Latinx dual-income households have half the wealth of white single parents, neighborhoods with properly funded public schools wind up being predominantly white....

This busy lifestyle makes Thoropa taophora a striking exception among amphibians, scientists reported on August 12 in the journal Science Advances. These frogs, which are native to Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest, are the first known case of an amphibian species in which males maintain lasting relationships with more than one female mate. When visiting their mates, the researchers noted, the females have a habit of eating eggs that have already been laid....

These magic kits and props promise lots of fun for the whole family—and provide the perfect context to discuss the work of magician James Randi and detective Rose Mackenberg (an associate of Harry Houdini) to debunk paranormal claims. This affordable kit is designed for small hands and doesn’t require incredible dexterity for audience raves. It features 25 tricks that include an optical illusion (a nice segway to talking about our brains), special contraptions (like a box and drawer that makes crayons vanish and reappear), and of course a magic wand....

STEP 1 Check online to discover your home’s latitude. This is the angle at which you’ll mount your solar panel. STEP 2 Cut six pieces of plywood for the box. The lid should be slightly larger than the solar panel. Trim the top edges of the side, front, and back pieces to the appropriate angle. Cut the bottom to fit. STEP 3 Drill a hole in each side panel for airflow: one in the back panel for the controller and battery cords, and one in the lid for the solar panel’s cord....

3 Infographics About SleepQuestions You Should Ask About Your Sleeping HabitsShould You Stay Up Late?When Sleep Goes Terribly WrongTesting The Sleep TrackersHow Science Will Help Us Sleep BetterTips And Hacks To Get Better Z’s The World’s Most Advanced Building Material Is… Wood **Steel and concrete may rule skylines today, but a new building material is on the rise: wood. **By Clay Risen Why Is Google Building A Robot Army? What the Internet giant’s recent acquisitions mean for the future of robotics....

We’ve all heard warnings to keep poinsettias away from small children and pets because of the festive plants’ toxic flowers and leaves, but it turns out this myth has no scientific basis. Out of 22,793 poinsettia exposures reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, not one resulted in a death and 96 percent didn’t even require medical attention. Animal studies support the findings: a study on rats that ingested poinsettias found no evidence of toxicity....

Now, new data from NASA’s ARTEMIS mission—a reference to the Greek goddess of the moon, but also an acronym for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun—offers a resolution to the long-standing mystery. It all begins with the sun, as many things do. Our great big ball of gas and plasma continuously churns and showers the solar system with charged particles and radiation, collectively called solar wind....

The fresh water is less dense than seawater, so it floats on the top layer of the ocean, which in turn stays cooler. That makes it easier for the seas to freeze again in the Antarctic fall and winter, scientists say. This negative feedback is expected to continue, they added. Sea ice levels in Antarctica are a major part of ongoing climate change research. Scientists have been puzzled as to why sea ice cover is rising in the southern ocean, while ice in the rest of the world is clearly melting....

It’s incredibly rare for a dinosaur’s last meal to be so well preserved, says Caleb Brown, a paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta who published the findings June 2 in the journal Royal Society Open Science. “We finally have some really good, definitive evidence about what at least one particular animal was eating,” he says. “This is by far the best evidence of diet for an herbivorous dinosaur....

When radar detected brightness near Mercury’s poles in 1992, the prevailing theory and hope was that it was H2O, but there are other reflective substances it might have been: lovely white sand deserts, perhaps. Messenger, the NASA probe that’s been orbiting Mercury for a couple of years now, analyzed neutrons coming from the planet, and noticed that the quantity was lower above the polar bright spots — exactly commensurate with the way water ice absorbs neutrons....

NASA’s New Frontiers program is a series of medium-sized missions with a maximum budget of $1 billion. (By comparison, the Curiosity rover cost about $2.5 billion.) But scientists can do a lot on a “shoestring” budget–including visit Pluto. The second New Frontiers mission was Juno, a spacecraft launched in 2011 that will visit Jupiter’s radiation belt later this year, just a few months before OSIRIS-REx, another New Frontiers mission, blasts off to visit an asteroid and bring a piece of it back to Earth....

The report blames the safety concerns on budget pressures and a lack of accountability. “Funding remains a challenge for NASA as it strives to do so much with so relatively little,” ASAP writes. “NASA’s budget is insufficient to deliver all current undertakings with acceptable programmatic risk.” In other words, cutting corners to stay on schedule and under budget could put astronauts at risk. The report points out several safety concerns....

Only five of the gargantuan aircraft were ever built, with the last in service on loan from the European Space Agency to NASA. Why does NASA need a plane that big? For the delicate business of moving giant spaceship parts across the country. Weighing in at 101,500 pounds empty, the Guppy can carry up to 52,500 pounds inside its spacious 25-foot tall, 25-foot wide, and 111-foot long cargo compartment. Today that included the pressure vessel for the Orion crew capsule that will carry future manned (or womanned) missions to Mars....

It’s basically a virtual telescope that allows you to explore the deep sky, and some of the most interesting spots in the universe. You can opt for guided tours, conducted by astronomers or teachers, or check things out on your own. The imagery is compiled from a range of top space- and ground-based observatories, and the tools allow you to switch spectrum mid-stream, so you can see what certain regions or objects look like in different wavelengths....

While it’s true that picking up a foreign language is far more difficult for adults, Babbel, the #1 top-grossing language-learning app in the world, has developed a system to help learners gain fluency in their language of choice in no time. A lifetime subscription is typically priced at $499, but in the next 15 days, you can get a huge price drop for one last time. Whether you want to order a Paccheri al Forno in fluent Italian or pick up a croquembouche at a French pastry shop without sounding funny, Babbel empowers you to speak and understand a new language in as little time as possible....

Octoblu was recently used in a 3D printed car by LocalMotors at IBM Insight 2015. The system used Octoblu’s platform along with the drag-and-drop designer NodeRed and IBM’s IoT for Automotive system. “It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine” of systems, Matthieu says. Even though there were several pieces to the IoT puzzle, the Octoblu team wants to make connecting things as simple as possible. They use inexpensive, open-source solutions like the Raspberry Pi computer so that there’s almost no barrier to entry....

The downward trends are likely due to a combination of factors, including habitat loss and climate change. But in a recent study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, researchers from Emory University and the University of Georgia added another culprit to the list: the Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) parasite. The rise in OE-infected monarchs has led some experts to wonder whether certain conservation tactics may be aiding the pathogen’s spread....

In a study out this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers at the University of California San Francisco tried to pinpoint what percent of Medicare beneficiaries would have trouble navigating telemedicine, whether on the phone or on a computer. The researchers found that more than one third of people over 65 years old would have some degree of problems with telemedicine. These results have left the researchers calling for more intentional accommodations for older adults in telemedicine, especially as the pandemic stretches on and the likelihood of the medical system returning to normal anytime soon grows thinner....

Our old (and current) bridges Limited Lanes Designers of even the broadest ­­20th-​century bridges didn’t plan past the new millennium. Despite the number of cars per person more than doubling since the ’50s, most commuters still rely on undersize infrastructure. When rain, ice, low visibility, or rush hour strike, the ­result is a long line. Too weak A new four-door in 1987 weighed 3,221 pounds; its 2016 equal topped 4,000. The extra tonnage per car means many passes can’t accommodate the autos that modern drivers increasingly prefer....

Following the Ethiopia accident, the FAA has grounded the Boeing 737 Max, the aircraft-maker has said it will suspend production, and the president of Boeing has been fired. But beyond these disasters, the aviation world—commercial, military, recreational, and the experimental realm of air taxis and the like—kept on cruising. We covered a lot of it at PopSci. Here are some of our most exciting flying stories of the year....