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Imagine being able to look back in time to see what the universe was like billions of years ago. Amazingly, powerful space telescopes have allowed scientists to do just that! And with the new James Webb Space Telescope, scientists are poised to get the clearest view yet of the distant past.

Launched in orbit around the Sun in December 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is a joint project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The Webb recently produced test images that suggested just how much it will be able to show scientists about the universe. For example, it captured an image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that is a neighbor to our own Milky Way galaxy. When scientists compared the image produced by Webb to an image produced by Spitzer, a now-retired space telescope, they were stunned. Both telescopes were designed to detect infrared light, which can’t be seen by human eyes. But Webb’s image of the Large Magellanic Cloud was much more detailed than the one Spitzer captured. 

“It’s not until you actually see the kind of image that [Webb] delivers that you…go, ‘Wow, just think of what we’re going to learn.’ Spitzer taught us a lot. This is like a whole new world,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for Webb’s near-infrared camera, at a news conference.

The Webb is also considerably more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, which has produced remarkable images of the universe since its launch in 1990.

Webb’s test images are just a preview of things to come. 

Scientists believe that when Webb becomes fully operational, around July 2022, it will be a game changer. In addition to capturing sharper images of stars, the telescope will be able to peer through the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system. Webb’s powerful mirrors will also be able to see the earliest light from galaxies that formed billions of years ago. Webb will be able to give us clear views of this ancient history because the light from stars can take billions of years to reach us. 

“Astronomy is not going to be the same again once we see what [Webb] can do with these first observations,” said Christopher Evans, Webb project scientist at the ESA, at the news conference.

Get ready to meet a woman from the Stone Age.

Nearly 100 years ago, a road construction crew in Sweden found the remains of a woman who had died about 4,000 years earlier. Now, a forensic artist has made a reconstruction of what the woman might have looked like.

The likeness of the woman is on display at Sweden’s Västernorrlands Museum. Scientists used her skeleton to determine that the woman stood about 4 feet, 11 inches (149.9 centimeters) tall and was in her late 20s or early 30s when she died. To figure out what her face looked like, artist Oscar Nilsson scanned the woman’s skull and then made a copy of it with a 3D printer. He also used information thought to be true about the woman’s age and ethnicity, which can affect the shape of a person’s face.

Nilsson had to take some educated guesses about the woman’s appearance. Her DNA, which would have revealed traits such as hair color and eye color, was not well preserved. But scientists know that there were three large migration waves into ancient Sweden. The one that took place during the woman’s lifetime included pale-skinned farmers with dark hair and brown eyes. So they believe the woman may have had these traits. 

Scientists aren’t sure if the woman was a farmer. She lived during an era when many people were transitioning from hunting and gathering their food to living in one place and farming the land. She may have done one or the other, or both.

We don’t know everything about how ancient humans lived, but we’re getting closer to knowing what they looked like.

When Jacky Hunt-Broersma was younger, she wasn’t into running. But after her left leg was amputated below the knee due to a rare type of cancer, she wanted to challenge herself. She became a dedicated long-distance runner—so dedicated that she recently ran 104 marathons in 104 days, breaking a world record.

“You kind of get put in this box of being disabled and it’s just really annoying,” Hunt-Broersma told ESPN. “And I’m super stubborn and like, ‘Well, no, I want to give running a go. I want to try it and just see.’”

Hunt-Broersma, who wears a prosthesis (an artificial limb) when she runs, originally challenged herself to complete 100 marathons in 100 days after another amputee, Alyssa Amos Clark, did 95 in 95 days. But when Kate Jayden beat Clark’s record with 101 marathons, Hunt-Broersma moved the goal post.

Each day, Hunt-Broersma ran the marathon length of 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers). She mostly ran on trails near her home in Arizona or on a treadmill, though for Day 92, she ran the para-athletic race of the Boston Marathon. She reported her progress on social media and invited those tracking her progress to donate to an organization called Amputee Blade Runners. Hunt-Broersma raised more than $194,000 online for the organization, which provides free running prosthetics for amputees. 

Hunt-Broersma’s original goal was to complete 102 marathons, but she went ahead and did two more after Day 102. It may take Guinness World Records up to a year to verify that Hunt-Broersma broke the previous record. 

In the meantime, the tireless runner is training for a 240-mile ultra run, which will take place in Utah in October 2022.

Researchers say a man who is paralyzed and cannot speak was able to communicate after receiving a brain implant.

The man has ALS, a disease that gradually causes a person to be unable to move. The man lost his ability to speak a few years ago and began communicating with his eyes. But his family knew that, eventually, he would be unable to move his eyes. So researchers decided to try something called auditory neurofeedback. 

Doctors placed an implant in the man’s brain, and then researchers started to work with him. The implant allowed them to show the man his brain activity on a screen. Any time someone moves their body—or even tries to—there’s brain activity. The researchers instructed the man to try to move his eyes and watched how this changed his brain activity. 

His brain activity would produce a sound wave, which people hear as a tone, or musical note. The greater the brain activity, the higher the tone. The man learned to attempt eye movement in a way that would produce a certain tone. When he wanted to say “yes,” he produced a higher tone. When he wanted to say “no,” he did nothing. This produced a lower tone.

Once the man learned to communicate yes and no, he could spell out sentences. He would say “no” to letters until he got to the right one. One by one, he would spell out the words.

In 2020, Jeenah Gwak and her mom were walking in New York City when a man began talking to them about an upcoming show. They didn’t want to hear the sales pitch, so they kept moving. That’s when the man called out, “[So you] don’t speak English, huh?”

Gwak, who is Korean American, knew she wasn’t the only Asian American who experienced racism. After she returned to her home in Bellevue, Washington, she texted her friend Hope Yu with an idea. Together, the friends launched an online magazine called What We Experience. The magazine aims to give Asian Americans a platform where they can share their stories.

“When I thought of the title, What We Experience, I wanted to highlight what we experience; the ‘we’ is emphasized,” Gwak told the Seattle Times. “The platform is a space for people to find solace with their own experiences in learning that they are not alone.”

Gwak and Yu, who are both in high school, assembled a group of volunteers around their age. The staff members create most of the content for the magazine. In essays, opinion pieces, poetry, and art, they discuss and explore racism, immigration, bias, culture, and more. They share their unique experiences but also find themes that bond them with other Asian Americans. 

The magazine, which is free, is published quarterly (four times a year). Gwak and Yu plan to continue What We Experience when they go to college next year.

Were GIFs invented thousands of years ago? Scientists believe that prehistoric people may have used tablets—stone tablets, not wireless tablets—to make their own form of animation. 

Researchers at the University of York and Durham University in the United Kingdom studied pictures of animals that had been carved into stone about 15,000 years ago in what is now France. They noticed heat damage on the stone tablets and concluded that the tablets had been placed very close to fire. They wanted to know why.

The researchers recreated the ancient stone tablets by carving their own illustrations into stone. They were careful to make the tablets look as the ancient ones would have looked when new—with clear lines outlining the animals. Then they placed the recreated tablets around a fire in positions that would cause the same heat damage markings they’d seen on the ancient tablets. This placement caused the illustrations of animals to appear to move and flicker, sort of like a primitive animated movie. 

“When you get this dynamic light across the surface, suddenly all these animals start to move; they start to flicker in and out of focus,” archaeologist Andy Needham of the University of York in the United Kingdom told Live Science.

A group of scientists say they were able to train fish to do math.

No, this does not mean your pet goldfish can help you with your fractions. But in a recent study, stingrays and cichlids (a species of freshwater fish) demonstrated basic numerical skills.

“We trained the animals to perform simple additions and subtractions,” said Vera Schluessel of the Institute of Zoology at the University of Bonn in Germany.

Here’s how the study worked: Each fish was shown an image with between one and five shapes. The shapes were always either yellow or blue. Blue meant “add one to the number of shapes in the image,” while yellow meant “subtract one from the number of shapes in the image.” So, an image with three blue shapes meant “three plus one.” And an image with four yellow shapes meant “four minus one.” The fish would then be shown two new images and have to swim to the correct one. For example, a fish shown three blue shapes, or “three plus one,” had to swim to the card with four shapes.

Scientists trained the fish to do some simple problems by giving them treats when they got correct answers. Then it was time to test whether the fish really understood the concepts of addition and subtraction. The scientists did this by presenting the fish with problems they hadn’t seen before. The fish got most of the new problems right.

Some scientists not involved in the study think the results are a little…fishy. Or, at least, they question whether the fish were actually doing math. But the study authors say their findings provide clear evidence that these animals can add and subtract.

A simple device that just about anyone can put together is proving to be a valuable tool in the fight against COVID-19. The Corsi-Rosenthal box is a build-it-yourself air filter that has been shown to reduce the number of virus particles in indoor settings. 

Scientists say air filtration is an important part of protecting people from COVID-19. That’s because the virus that causes COVID-19 can remain in the air for hours, even after an infected person leaves the area. Invented by engineer Dr. Richard Corsi and Jim Rosenthal, the head of an air filter company, the Corsi-Rosenthal box is a fairly inexpensive alternative to store-bought air-cleaning devices. Scientists at 3M, a company that makes air filters, tested the Corsi-Rosenthal box and found it was effective at capturing virus particles.

The ingredients for a Corsi-Rosenthal box are available at most hardware stores. They include a box fan, four or five high-quality furnace filters, some cardboard, and duct tape. Building instructions can be found on many websites. Assembling the device is as simple as putting flat objects together to form a cube.

Because they’re so easy to make, the boxes have become increasingly popular. Many people have built them for their homes and workplaces. Volunteers have also built boxes for schools and homeless shelters.

Experts caution that air cleaners alone are not enough to make indoor spaces safe. But, along with ventilation, vaccination, and mask-wearing, these portable devices can make a big difference.

Could this be a solution to plastic pollution? 

On March 2, 2022, the United Nations (UN) announced that 175 nations had agreed to draw up a treaty that will legally require them to reduce plastic waste. Government leaders made the agreement at the fifth biennial (every other year) session of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting brought together leaders of governments, businesses, and more to discuss critical environmental issues.

Plastic is certainly a critical issue. Each year, about 11 million metric tons of plastic end up in the oceans and other bodies of water. A lot of this waste is single-use plastic, which is plastic that’s used once before it gets discarded. Single-use plastic items include plastic bags, straws, beverage bottles, and most food packaging. Plastic doesn’t decompose. Once in the water, it often breaks down into tiny pieces called microplastics. Sea life can get caught in large plastic items or swallow small pieces.

The agreement that was made at the UN conference is a step toward tackling the plastic problem. Leaders said they would limit the production of new plastic and increase plastic recycling and the design of more sustainable packaging. Currently, less than 10 percent of the world’s plastic gets recycled.

“Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic,” said Espen Barth Eide, president of the UN Environment Assembly’s fifth session and Norway’s minister of climate and the environment. “With today’s resolution, we are officially on track for a cure.”

If you could have a superpower, what would it be? The ability to fly? How about the power to become invisible? While flying is still beyond our grasp, invisibility is becoming a reality—sort of. British company Invisibility Shield Co. is the latest to announce that it has created an invisibility shield.

It may sound like something out of The Hobbit or the Harry Potter books, but invisibility technology has been a real thing for a long time. A Canadian company called HyperStealth made waves in 2012 when it introduced a material called Quantum Stealth. HyperStealth designed the material for military equipment like parachutes, airplanes, and even uniforms. The company said it would make objects and people invisible. 

Similarly, Invisibility Shield Co.’s product, a lightweight rectangular panel, is meant to conceal the presence of anything that’s behind it. Unlike HyperStealth, Invisibility Shield Co. is selling its product to the public—so anyone can seemingly have a superpower. 

It turns out, though, that there’s nothing supernatural about achieving invisibility. It’s a matter of simple science. Invisibility materials change the path of light rays to make it look like the subject (the person or thing behind the materials) isn’t there. It’s not a perfect illusion. Through the shield, the background looks a bit blurry, so it doesn’t totally match its surroundings.

Even though users may not have superpower-level invisibility, they can still have fun. Invisibility Shield Co. boasts that its device is perfectly portable. The larger of the two sizes weighs less than 9 pounds (4.1 kilograms), and neither of the shields needs electricity.

The power of invisibility doesn’t come cheap. Invisibility Shield Co. is selling the larger of its two shields for about $390.