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Tuesday, June 09, 2026

Stephen Ornes

science writer

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Tag: Discover

Astronomy Discover Recent Work

The Dazzling Sun of 2024

From totality to tremendous light shows, our sun put on a shining performance. The sun had a big year in…

March 15, 2025March 15, 2025
Math stories Recent Work

How Mathematicians Cracked the Zodiac Killer’s Cipher

In the late 1960s, a serial killer self-identifying as “the Zodiac” killed at least five people in Northern California and…

December 23, 2021
Recent Work

Life at the bottom

What does Absolute Zero mean? Temperature tends to be relative — the air is below freezing, her fever is above normal. But scientists probe…

October 4, 2019
Math stories Recent Work

Prizes, Thievery and Higher-Dimensional Doughnuts

And how mathematical collaborations yield breakthroughs. The biggest math heist in years happened the morning of Aug. 1 in a…

February 23, 2019
Features Tech

Everything Worth Knowing About Virtual Reality

 Forget reality: In virtual reality, you can be whomever and wherever you want. VR makes the unreal real, using computer…

January 25, 2018August 8, 2018
materials science Physics Recent Work

Introducing silicene

Electronics engineers are constantly seeking the next great thing, the supermaterial that will allow for devices even smaller and faster…

January 16, 2012August 8, 2018
Physics

Better boarding

Slow boarding annoyed Jason Steffen. but rather than complain about it, like most of us would, the Fermilab astrophysicist took…

January 16, 2012August 8, 2018
Physics

Robots invent their own language

Australian scientists have invented a new breed of robots called Lingodroids, programmed to make, use, and share language. The bots can…

October 10, 2011August 8, 2018
Astronomy Physics

Planets with screwy orbits

Ever since astronomers started finding planets orbiting other stars, they have been learning just how rich and peculiar the cosmos…

January 28, 2011August 8, 2018
Math stories

Million dollar math

My first feature was a piece about unsolved problems in mathematics, published in Discover in 2006. Read it here.

January 1, 2011August 8, 2018

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RECENT WORK

  • Looking for LUCA, everyone’s shared ancestor
  • Math long resisted a digital disruption. AI is poised to change that
  • No one’s sure if synthetic mirror life will kill us all
  • A Digital Ally
  • Human-built ‘beaver’ dams help save struggling streams

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