How black boxes made flying safe

The engineers proposing massive airbags for airplanes

Though they are famously rare, airplane crashes are some of the most shocking catastrophes when they occur. These researchers are dreaming up an implausible safety feature to help crashing planes land safely.

The aviation industry built trust in automation by keeping pilots in the cockpit

Nearly 70% of Americans feel uncomfortable riding in a driverless car, and 81% of them would not fly on a pilotless plane. However, automated systems on planes were slowly introduced and advertised as enhancing safety—an approach that may benefit driverless vehicles.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Most commercial planes get struck by lightning multiple times a year

This piece explains why commercial aircraft rarely crash in thunderstorms, detailing how pilots use onboard radar, shared reports, and strict avoidance protocols to navigate storms that look far more dangerous on screen than in reality.

Explore a timeline of advancements in American aviation

From the Wright brothers' flight of the first powered plane in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to SpaceX's debut of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2010 with reusable boosters, this interactive shows off the technological evolution of flight, from mechanical propulsion to ballistic spaceflight. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The story of Boeing's unraveling

Long lauded as one of the world's greatest aviation companies, Boeing has taken a nosedive in the last decade after major mass casualty crashes of its planes and high-profile scandals, which have led to numerous investigations, the temporary grounding of some of its planes, and a huge hit in its value. Listen to this first episode of a series telling the story of Boeing's fall.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

After a tragic 3 decades, F1 created better safety measures

The first three decades of Formula One saw 41 drivers die in competition; since 1980, only 11 have perished. The reduction is due in large part to better safety measures. This article highlights every safety improvement made by year since F1 started, and describes the accidents or deaths that led to the rule changes.

Commercial air travel's early days: Flights were short, cold, depressurized, and generally comfortable

After World War II, airlines competed for their high-end passengers by offering cocktails, meals, and plush seats, cultivating the image of the elite "Jet Set." By the 1960s, air transport was completely changing global trade and offering big profits to companies able to ship via plane.

Microsoft’s 'Blue Screen of Death' was a symbol of computer crashes for over 30 years

In 2025, the symbol was replaced with a "Black Screen of Death" for improved readability and alignment with Windows 11's modern design. It became a pop culture symbol after appearing in Bill Gates' live tech demo of Windows 98.

'Breather holes' in airplane windows help manage cabin pressure

Airplane windows have three layers of acrylic: the super durable outside layer, the inner pane which acts like a "scratch" surface, and the middle pane with the tiny hole. This bleed hole allows pressurized cabin air to be borne by the strong outer pane while preventing the inner pane from breaking.

Spy balloons. UFOs. What else is up there?

The appearance and downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon brought the concept of high-altitude floating aircraft into the public consciousness. While sparking a diplomatic row, it also revealed how many objects—nefarious or benign—are...

Pill bottles have often been orange to help protect medication from UV light

Amber pill bottles were introduced in 1968 to keep medications potent while allowing patients to see how much medication they had left. The color has since become universally associated with prescription medication.

What do you know about WWI's only Black fighter pilot?

This in-depth article follows the life of Eugene Bullard, a Black American nicknamed the "Black Swallow of Death" for his work in WWI. Though much of Bullard's life is known, some pieces, like what happened to Bullard's brother who vanished in the Jim Crow South, continue to escape historical record.

The evolution of spacesuit design

Spacesuits have come a long way since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's orange jumpsuit used in the world's first entry into space in 1960. The iconic outfit is a crucial feature of all space exploration, ensuring humans are protected during launch, spacewalks, re-entry, and more. From innovations in thermal wear to the incremental changes to space helmets, dive into spacesuit history here.

Scientists increasingly can't predict what AI will do

Most AI systems are so-called "black box" models, where we only see inputs and outputs while the inner workings remain obscure. This piece, written prior to the launch of ChatGPT, cautions developers to know why and how a system produces its results, and not to sacrifice explainability for accuracy.

Faulty wiring and flammable materials caused a fire in the Apollo 1 command module

During a launch rehearsal test on Jan. 27, 1967, the fire took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The tragedy led to improvements to CM construction and the development of a single-piece hatch for escapes.

The terms 'bug' and 'debugging' were popularized by Grace Hopper's team

Engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University identified a moth in one of its components in 1947, which caused it to malfunction. Describing the incident as the "first actual case of bug being found," the term first used by Thomas Edison in 1878 to describe faults in an apparatus caught on.

Diving boards disappeared out of safety, but they don't cause most diving accidents

Bouncy diving boards were widely adopted in backyard and community pools in the 1960s. Reports identifying diving as the primary cause of sports-related spinal accidents exaggerated the role diving boards played (most diving injuries were in lakes, beaches, and rivers) and gave insurers a basis to reduce coverage.

Paper boarding passes have become rarer in recent years

Many travelers have shared their attachment to the documents as their utility fades. This sharply illustrated timeline reviews the development of the paper boarding pass as technology evolved.

There were roughly 17 Black Friday-related deaths and 125 injuries between 2006 and 2021

A website called Black Friday Death Count or “BFDC” scrapes news headlines for Black Friday-related deaths and injuries reported around the world. It includes the overall count of Black-Friday related deaths, as well as the context for each of them.

The mysterious origins of the universe’s biggest black holes

Think you know everything about black holes? You might be surprised. Thought of as massive vacuum cleaners sucking up everything in their cosmic path, black holes actually accrete matter at an incredibly slow pace. Yet, some black holes existed when the universe was only a few billion years young. Learn more in this BBC report.

North Carolina adopted 'First in Flight' license plates in 1982—to snarky reviews

Many locals surfaced the irony of enshrining the accomplishments of two men from Ohio on the license plates of North Carolinans. Nonetheless, the style endures to this day, alongside Ohio’s “Birthplace of Aviation.”

For years, Black players were tacitly banned from professional football leagues

In 1902, Charles Follis was the first Black player to play in a professional football game, and Black players were allowed in years after other leagues banned them. A "gentleman’s agreement” led to the league banning Black players in 1933, until four Black men reintegrated pro football in 1946.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

A 'boombox' is the cool term for a Portable Radio Cassette Recorder

The technology debuted in the mid-1960s, revolutionizing portability of recording radio and playing music. As urban culture, especially hip hop, took advantage of the innovation, the "boombox" was born. See a gallery of old boomboxes and learn their history.

The history of 'Black Mirror,' according to its stars

"Black Mirror" began as a modest anthology show on Britain's Channel 4, offering bleak satire about contemporary technology. It quickly became a hit and attracted stars like Daniel Kaluuya, Jon Hamm, Rashida Jones, and Jesse Armstrong (who'd go on to show run HBO's "Succession"). This oral history of the show details its evolution to an international Netflix hit, providing insights into creator Charlie Brooker's approach to storytelling.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

The 2026 Ebola outbreak is hampered by a lack of vaccine against the species of the virus, heightening the need for rapid tests to aid in disease control.