Science News

Or, how your four-grams may be undermining your anonymous erotica-writing career The Cuckoo's Calling, a detective novel by first-time author Robert Gailbraith, just got solved in a big way. This weekend, the U.K.'s The ...

If the bill passes, it's open season on government drones. In the small Colorado town of Deer Trail, residents may soon be allowed to shoot down flying robots. The town board is considering an ordinance that would not on...

Maybe if you're putting a building in the Windy City it should be wind-proof? This infographic, published by the New School of Architecture, ticks off some of history's most famous architectural failures, reaching back t...

Beavers aren't going to save the world - but the dams and flooded meadows they construct do a surprising amount for carbon capture and storage

Surprisingly, fear of heights is not innate but kicks in after we begin to crawl, when we notice stuff in our peripheral vision and use it to balance

An inflatable abdominal tourniquet has made it possible to survive once-fatal injuries. The device could have saved three soldiers per month between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. Army says. On June 7 in Birmingham, Ala., a blo...

A telescope in Chile has been fitted with a camera called DECam that can reveal light that dark energy has stretched to higher wavelengths

A smash involving two neutron stars has spat out 10 moons' worth of gold, and may explain how the universe got its stock of the precious metal

Exclusive: in a technological breakthrough, the system of gene switches in Neanderthals has been uncovered, allowing us to assess their mental life (full text available to subscribers)

A gene therapy that switches off the extra copy of chromosome 21 which causes Down's syndrome brings hope of reversing symptoms of the disorder

A touchscreen that recognises users by their fingerprints could usher in a new era of secure computing in public places

The supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart has started gobbling a cloud of gas. Watching the feast could help us solve four long-standing mysteries

A better understanding of the brain may help us better understand thought, behavior and neurological disorders. An improved tool to facilitate this--a new 3D map of the human brain--has recently been released. It's hoped...

Two private teams say they will get people to Mars within the next 10 years. Find out how they plan to pull it off - and if the astronauts can come back (full text available to subscribers)

More cars than ever are networked and vulnerable, in theory, to hackers accessing the onboard computer. Now two researchers say they can do it for real

The CIA's Allen Dulles and Bond author Ian Fleming were BFFs. Back in the early days of the CIA, the agency was apparently a little strapped for creativity. Under the watchful eye of Allen Dulles, who headed up the spy c...

A cryptography scheme works even after the delicate entanglement that enables it has been destroyed - suggesting the property is more practical than thought

Soon, a pair of custom-made sneakers could cost hundreds, instead of thousands. Custom-fitted shoes do more than increase comfort; they can improve performance and even reduce the risk of injury. But made-to-order shoes ...

Geneva, 17 July 2013. Scientists working on CERN* experiments are preparing to present their latest results at summer conferences. This year, two major conferences are coming up over the next couple of weeks: the Europea...

Astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet filling with water today isn't the first wardrobe malfunction in space - we bring you four more aborted spacewalks

About 300 million years ago, all the seven continents formed one massive supercontinent called Pangaea.