Good morning. It's Tuesday, March 17, and welcome to this week's Science & Technology newsletter. First time reading? Sign up here or click here to share with friends. |
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Just over a month ago, Google discontinued its dark web report, which looked for Google account information in the depths of the internet. With credit monitoring companies increasingly advertising similar reporting services, we thought we'd shed some light on what the dark web is and where it came from. Then, as we near the end of peak intensity in the sun's solar cycle, we'll explore the auroras it creates before digging into the impact of critical minerals.
Let us know what you think! Whether it's feedback on our email format, a comment on this week's topics, suggestions for future coverage, or something else, we're happy to hear from readers. You can get in touch by simply replying to this email.
—Marco Daniel Machado, 1440 Science & Technology Section Editor |
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The dark web, explained
The dark web is the deliberately hidden part of the internet. Sometimes mistaken for the deep web—email, medical records, and other content locked behind login pages—dark websites can only be accessed with specialized software that hides a user's identity and location. This has provided anonymity to informants, whistleblowers, and journalists and spawned darknet marketplaces—hubs where drugs, malware, stolen data, and other illicit goods can be bought and sold (view breakdown).
The dark web emerged after the US Naval Research Laboratory developed onion routing in the mid-1990s to protect overseas military and intelligence personnel. The technology prevents the origin and destination of online communications from being known simultaneously (watch explainer). This makes it extremely difficult for sites built on the protocol and users on the network to be located. As a result, the exact number of dark web (or onion) sites is unknown, particularly since they are not discoverable via traditional web search.
In 2008, the release of Tor, a web browser that enabled nontechnical users to access onion sites, expanded the size and user base of the dark web (explore network activity). Reports suggest that about 60% of the dark web is dedicated to illegal activities, though the CIA, Facebook, and other legitimate institutions also have onion sites.
Learn even more by exploring all our findings on the dark web here.
Here's a sample of what we found ...
> Marketplaces on the dark web provide eBay-like vendor feedback scores. (Read)
> Silk Road, the dark web's first major marketplace, helped bitcoin blossom. (Listen)
> Take a tour of the dark web with an ethical hacker. (Watch)
> Safely search for content on the dark web with the Ahmia search engine. (Explore) |
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What are auroras?
Auroras are ethereal displays of light in the atmosphere caused by charged particles colliding with atmospheric gases. On Earth, these particles originate from solar wind—a stream of material ejected from the sun's outermost atmosphere. Like a river flowing around a boulder in its way, Earth's magnetic field deflects most of these particles away, but some are redirected toward the poles, where curtains, swirls, and arcs of light are most prominent (explore gallery).
For millennia, auroras had been explained through folklore, such as a Finnish story about a mythical fire fox's tail producing sparks in the night sky (learn more about aurora mythology). In 1619, Galileo Galilei named the phenomenon "aurora borealis" after the Roman goddess of dawn and the Greek god of the northern wind. The term has since been used interchangeably with "northern lights," while "aurora australis" has been used with "southern lights," when referring to auroras in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, respectively.
By the 1920s, scientists identified which gases produce the various auroral colors seen at different altitudes (read explainer). Although auroras are created year-round by particle collisions throughout the day, solar activity is actively monitored to anticipate the powerful, geomagnetic storms that produce the brightest displays farther from the poles (explore forecast). Travel to destinations where auroras are common drives a tourism industry expected to reach $1.65B by 2030.
Learn even more by exploring all our findings on auroras here.
Here's a sample of what we found ...
> Voids in the northern and southern lights are known as black auroras. (View)
> The strongest recorded geomagnetic storm in history created auroras near the equator. (Watch)
> Do auroras also produce sounds? (Watch)
> How to create artificial auroras in a jar. (Watch) |
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Critical minerals, 101
Critical minerals are a subset of minerals used to make batteries, computer chips, magnets, and other components that power modern technologies, such as mobile devices, clean energy systems, and advanced military apparatuses.
The US government has identified 50 minerals as "critical," deeming them both essential to the national interest and possessing vulnerable supply chains (view list). Global competition to control the supply chains of these minerals—which are finite and dispersed worldwide—has intensified as nations seek to gain an edge in today's technology-driven world (explore map of global production).
Rare earth elements are among the most sought-after minerals because their unique atomic structures give rise to a range of electrical, luminescent, and magnetic properties (learn more). While abundant throughout Earth's crust, rare earths are mixed in ores at low concentrations and require extraction and processing. As of 2025, China accounted for about 70% of global rare-earth ore extraction and 90% of rare-earth ore processing (learn more).
Learn even more by exploring all our findings on critical minerals here.
Here's a sample of what we found ...
> Smartphones contain over a dozen rare earth elements. (View)
> Explore a series of articles on the environmental and social costs of critical mineral extraction. (Read)
> What are the risks of mining the ocean floor for critical minerals? (Read)
> An interactive database of critical minerals and their uses. (Explore) |
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Like all great scientists, we love spending time researching the latest scientific breakthroughs, tech releases, engaging explainers, and the connections between science and society that are making headlines. Here's what we found this week.
> The war in Iran is creating an environmental disaster
The New York Times | David Gelles. Beyond the geopolitical, humanitarian, and energy crises sparked by US-Israeli strikes in the region, fuel depot fires have produced airborne oil droplets mixed with precipitation that have contaminated local ecosystems, and toxic smoke that has spread throughout Asia. (Read)
> Coverage of climate change decreased for the fourth straight year in 2025
Media and Climate Change Observatory | Staff. An analysis by the University of Colorado project found that newsroom consolidation and reductions alongside ongoing political and economic headwinds contributed to the decline. Since peaking in 2021, the volume of climate change reporting has decreased by 38%. (Read)
> Interacting cell structures viewed in real time with a new microscope
Stanford Report | Sara Zaske. Researchers have combined two microscopy techniques to achieve unprecedented 120-nanometer resolution—the highest produced without fluorescent labels. The technology will allow scientists to observe how cellular structures respond to intrusions, such as pathogens and drugs. (Read) | Learn about cells by exploring our write-up and findings here.
> Recreating historical instruments from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts
MIT News | Michael Brindley. Combining CT scans, nondestructive acoustic testing, and numerical simulations, an interdisciplinary team reproduced several ancient and historical clay artifacts from the MFA's musical instrument collection. The project plans to scan at least 100 instruments and reproduce historical music. (Read)
> Astronomers witness the birth of a magnetar for the first time
University of California, Berkeley | Robert Sanders. The observed formation of the highly magnetized, spinning neutron star—an ultra-compact remnant of massive stars—confirmed them to be the sources of some of the brightest explosions in the universe. The data allowed astrophysicists to estimate that the star rotates once every 4.2 milliseconds and has a magnetic field 300 trillion times Earth's. (Read)
> Dark Web: What a dark web monitoring service does and does not do. (Read) |
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"It is good to feel small beneath the sparkling northern lights, small beside the mighty river. Nature is so close to us up here. My troubles and difficulties just shrivel up. I like being insignificant." |
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