Popular Science media bias and reliability
Ad Fontes Media places Popular Science in the centre. We have seen it on 8 published stories of ours.
The short answers
Is Popular Science biased?
Ad Fontes Media places Popular Science in the centre. An outlet rating describes a broad pattern in its output, not every article it publishes.
Is Popular Science left or right?
Ad Fontes Media places Popular Science in the centre. In the three-way grouping used on story pages, that puts it under Centre.
Is Popular Science reliable?
The factual-reliability assessments we hold for Popular Science are Media Bias/Fact Check: High factuality. These are outlet-level assessments, not a guarantee that every report is correct.
What Popular Science has been covering
Our account of each story, written from every outlet that ran it, with Popular Science’s own report linked underneath.
Apple has launched its first foldable smartphone, the iPhone Duo, at its 'Surprise and Shine' event. The company also introduced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. This marks the first major product launch under new CEO John Ternus.
Popular Science reported it asEverything Apple just announced at its fall 2026 event: The folding iPhone Duo, iPhone 18, Apple Watch Series 12, and new AirPods (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
Apple CEO John Ternus posted a cryptic video ahead of the company's expected iPhone 18 Pro unveiling. The video appears to hint at a new variable aperture camera feature for the device, which is set to be announced alongside new Apple Watch models.
Popular Science reported it asEverything Apple just announced at its fall 2026 event: The folding iPhone Duo, iPhone 18, Apple Watch Series 12, and new AirPods (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
NASA's Roman Space Telescope has successfully launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The observatory is designed to study dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets, collecting vast amounts of data to deepen our understanding of the universe.
Popular Science reported it asNASA’s Nancy Grace Roman space telescope launches (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
Researchers used buried organic cotton underwear as an indicator of soil biological activity. The experiment, involving nearly 1,000 volunteers across Switzerland, found that land use was the most significant factor influencing decomposition rates, with private gardens showing the highest activity.
Popular Science reported it as'Proof by Underpants' offers a cheeky way to test soil (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
Astronomers have identified a star, S301, orbiting the Milky Way’s central black hole at 25,000 kilometres per second, the fastest known in the galaxy. Its tight orbit may enable scientists to measure the black hole’s spin, testing Einstein’s general relativity.
Popular Science reported it asA star spinning at 15,000 miles per second tests Einstein theory of relativity (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
A University of Vienna study used brain scans of twelve dogs to show that happy human faces activate the temporal cortex and caudate nucleus, while anger, fear and sadness produce distinct neural patterns. The findings, published in iScience, suggest dogs can differentiate between specific emotions.
Popular Science reported it asDogs can tell if you're angry, scared, or sad (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
Scientists using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii have captured the most detailed images yet of the Sun’s visible surface, showing vortex-like plasma patterns ranging from 19 to 170 kilometres in diameter. The findings, published in Nature, could improve understanding of coronal mass ejections and space weather.
Popular Science reported it asPlasma waves spotted on sun’s surface for the first time (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
A study of ancient DNA has provided the first direct genetic evidence that European colonisers introduced smallpox to the Americas. All six outlets reporting the story led on the confirmation of long-held historical accounts, with no left-rated outlet covering the findings.
Popular Science reported it asChilean mummies prove Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas (opens Popular Science in a new tab)
Who says so
One organisation has published a rating for this outlet. Where they disagree, the disagreement is the useful part and it is left standing.
- Ad Fontes MediacenterCheck it
How reliably it reports fact
A rating of the newsroom in general, by others, and a different thing from the Trust score we publish on each story, which judges one piece of reporting.
High factuality
- Media Bias/Fact CheckhighCheck it
Who owns it
We hold no ownership record for Popular Science.
Where it publishes from
- Publishes from
- Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States
- Official site
- popsci.com
- Seen publishing on
- popsci.com
- Access
- Free to read
- Wikipedia
- Entry
What we have seen ourselves
Counted across the stories this site has published, which is the only denominator a reader can check: every one of them has a page, and every page lists the reports it was written from.
- Stories
- 8
- Reports listed
- 8
- We could read
- 0
- First seen
- 4 August 2026
8 of those reports were paywalled or blocked to us. Our reading of this outlet is built on the 0 we could open, not on everything it published.
A blindspot is measured against one side of the spectrum. Popular Science is rated centre, so there is no side for it to be counted against and we publish no figure here.
Across the 8 stories of ours where at least three of the reports we listed carried a time, another outlet was always ahead of Popular Science: its report arrived a median of 20 hours after the earliest one we logged.
Measured 18 September 2026. Last seen in a coverage list 15 September 2026. Ratings pulled 4 September 2026.
Other outlets rated the same way
Publishers carrying the same published leaning as Popular Science, also publishing from United States, ordered by how often we have seen them on a story. Sharing a rating is not the same as being alike.
Think this page is wrong?
The leanings above are published by AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, and we republish them rather than make them. If you think one is misapplied, the strongest place to say so is with the organisation that made it, and every verdict here links to their page.
What we are responsible for is everything else: the ownership chain, where Popular Science publishes from, which of our stories we have listed it on, and whether we have the right publisher at all. Tell us what is wrong and an editor reads it.
Report something wrong on this page
Anything we correct is written up in the public corrections log. We do not publish reader votes as a rating, because an unattributed rating is the thing this site exists to argue against.
Every rating on this page is a named third party’s published work, republished with its author and, where one exists, a link to it. Our own coverage record is the section we measure ourselves. Neither is a judgement of any individual report: those are scored story by story, and the reasoning is on our methodology page.