Latest articles by Alexander McNamara
'Why would you even want to go?': Readers react to the hypothetical 400-year voyage to Alpha Centauri
Would you leave Earth behind to travel to our nearest star system? Live Science readers reveal their thoughts about life among the stars.
'Lord, these affairs are hard on the heart': How Manhattan Project scientists reacted to the world's first atomic bomb test
In this except from the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, we hear from the people at the historic first test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico.
Science news this week: 'Dragon Man's' identity and the universe's 'missing matter'
Science news this week June 21, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
48 best science books for kids and young adults
Looking to inspire the next generation of curious minds? These are our picks of the best popular science books for children of all ages.
Science news this week: Overdue earthquakes and star-shaped brain cells
Science news this week June 14, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
'Stranded' astronauts return and mystery human ancestor
Science news this week March 22, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Extraterrestrials quiz: Are you an alien expert, or has your brain been abducted?
Quiz Try this aliens quiz and see how much you know about our interstellar neighbors — if there are any.
Blood moon and a mysterious mummy
Science news this week March 15, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Should we bring back woolly mammoths?
Poll Colossal scientists just created "woolly mice" in another step towards their ultimate goal of resurrecting woolly mammoths. But should we be tinkering with extinct species? Take our poll and have your say.
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'A direct relationship between your sense of sight and recovery rate': Biologist Kathy Willis on why looking at nature can speed up healing
Interview Biologist Kathy Willis spoke to Live Science about how touching wood makes us calmer, why looking at a picture of a savanna is calming and how walking through a forest changes our gut microbes.
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How we fund the content that you read on Live Science.
'It was clearly a human assault on the species': The fate of the great auk
Two preserved great auk specimens displayed at a museum in 1971. The last pair of great auks were killed in 1844.
'Lost in insignificance': Here's what it's like to rappel into the solar system's largest canyon
"You wanted this moment to belong just to yourself and the landscape: sunset on the rim of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system."
Periodic table of elements quiz: How many elements can you name in 10 minutes?
Quiz Can you name everything from Ac to Zr? Test your knowledge of the periodic table and see if you can top the leaderboard
'Can you predict the future? Yes, of course you can.': Inside the 1 equation that can predict the weather, sporting events, and more
"Life isn’t chess, a game of perfect information, one that can in theory be 'solved.' It's poker, a game where you're trying to make the best decisions using the limited information you have. "
Do you know your meteor showers from your massive millipedes?
Science news quiz It's been a busy week in science news. Can you get all the questions right in our quiz?
A lost Biblical tree and a memory crystal that could 'survive to the end of the universe'
Science news this week Sept. 28, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Spiders on Mars and an ancient Egyptian sword
Science news this week Sept. 21, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Humans have long been a 'geophysical force on a planetary scale,' says philosopher Timothy Morton. That's neither good nor bad.
Interview The person dubbed "the prophet of the Anthropocene" talks to Live Science about how they got this title, what the Anthropocene means, and why we need to stop trying to define when it started and accept that we've been in it for millennia.
Science news this week: 'Thorin' the last Neanderthal and a 'smiley face' on Mars
Sept. 14, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Live Science x HowTheLightGetsIn — Get discounted tickets to the world’s largest ideas and music festival
Live Science has partnered with HowTheLightGetsIn, taking place from Sept. 21 to 22 at Kenwood House, London. See how our readers can get a special discount.
Elon Musk said he's 'definitely going to be dead' before humans go to Mars — and you probably will be too
Book excerpt "If it's taken us 18 years just to get ready to do the first people in orbit, we've got to improve our rate of innovation."
'The beauty of symbolic equations is that it's much easier to … see a problem at a glance': How we moved from words and pictures to thinking symbolically
"Even the +, −, =, and x signs we take for granted only came into widespread use in the 17th century. Which means that the earlier algebraists we know of … all had expressed their equations mostly in words or pictorial word images"
