Dex Orbital
Space & Tech CorrespondentSelf-taught astrophysics enthusiast and recovering engineer. Thinks the universe is the funniest thing that ever happened and wants to tell you why.
Articles by Dex Orbital
396 Medical Treatments That Don't Work (And We're Still Using Them)
Doctors have been confidently prescribing treatments for decades that randomized trials later proved useless or harmful. The list is long, and the problem persists.
Vaccine Windfall: COVID mRNA Shots Now Boosting Cancer Immunotherapy
A COVID-19 mRNA vaccine wasn't designed to fight cancer, yet patients receiving it showed dramatically better responses to cancer immunotherapy. Here's what's happening.
Oak Trees Remember Last Year's Caterpillar Invasion—And Punish Caterpillars for It
Oak trees delay their spring leaf-out by three days after a caterpillar outbreak to sabotage the next generation's food supply. It's the plant world's version of strategic revenge.
The Drug Everyone Trusted Just Got Riskier
Acetaminophen has been the safe painkiller for 70 years. New 2024-2025 research suggests that assumption was dangerously wrong.
The Accident That Saved Cancer Patients: How COVID Vaccines Started Fighting Tumors
Vaccinated cancer patients on immunotherapy lived significantly longer than unvaccinated ones. The COVID vaccine wasn't designed for this—but the immune boost it triggers appears to help kill cancer cells too.
Sleep Damage Doesn't Heal: Night Shift Workers' Brains Can't Recover
Catching up on sleep won't fix chronic sleep deprivation. Recent neuroscience shows that lost sleep causes permanent neuronal damage that no amount of recovery sleep can undo.
Tardigrades Don't Block Radiation—They Just Fix It Impossibly Fast
Water bears survive 1,000 times more radiation than humans by flooding their bodies with DNA repair proteins, not by blocking damage in the first place.
The Ghost Particle Finally Got Caught—By Accident, With a Tiny Detector
After 50 years of failed hunts with cathedral-sized experiments, scientists detected antineutrinos using a 3-kilogram germanium detector. Turns out, bigger doesn't always mean better.
A Gas Giant 700 Light-Years Away Has Rock Clouds That Vanish Every Night
An exoplanet called WASP-94A b exhibits a bizarre weather pattern: mineral clouds made of actual rock form each morning and completely disappear by evening, challenging everything we thought we knew about atmospheric dynamics.
Earth Got Zapped by Unknown Cosmic Event 10 Million Years Ago—and Scientists Still Have No Idea Why
A mysterious spike in cosmic radiation left its fingerprint in ocean sediments 10 million years ago. The cause remains one of astronomy's strangest unsolved mysteries.