Book criticism often encourages speed: verdicts delivered briskly, ideas reduced to angles, art pressed into service of an argument. The two books under review here resist that pressure.

It was quite a leap. Conspiracy theorists are being brought back down to Earth after NASA scientists debunked a wild claim that the space agency was hiding knowledge about an event that could result ...

China has unveiled an extremely powerful “hypergravity machine” that can generate forces almost two thousand times stronger than Earth’s regular gravity. The futuristic-looking machine, called ...

In early January 2026, a rumor circulated online that Earth would "lose gravity" for seven seconds on Aug. 12, 2026 — leading to "40 million deaths from falls," among other cataclysmic outcomes.

There is a rumor going around online—on Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, and (I assume) Friendster—that gravity will stop working for seven seconds on August 12. Here is part of the warning posted online: In ...

The accelerating expansion of the universe is usually explained by an invisible force known as dark energy. But a new study suggests this mysterious ingredient may not be necessary after all. Using an ...

Another day, another pea-brained conspiracy theory that manages to bring together complementarily high levels of stupidity and insanity. Below, we take a closer look at the false claim, which—to be ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, an immensely important update to Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, is currently our best approximation ...

A new theory suggests that gravity could possibly be the result of entropy. If true, this would mean that everything in the universe would fall apart if it all remained unchanged. This theory tries to ...

NASA has debunked a wild conspiracy theory doing the rounds on social media. The bizarre theory claims that on August 12, at exactly 14.33 GMT (9.33 ET), Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds.

Every time a coffee mug drops, a satellite orbits or an astronaut floats, we are watching the same phenomenon play out under very different disguises. For centuries we have treated gravity as the ...

Gravity, in the literal sense, keeps everyone (and everything) on Earth grounded. It acts as the anchor that prevents objects from floating skyward. For humans, it’s a leash that stops us from ...