Science News

We might have more success in explaining how the universe works if we abandoned the idea that some things go on for ever, says Amanda Gefter (full text available to subscribers)

In the western U.S., trees are facing a triple threat of heat, drought and wildfire. Despite efforts to find more resilient tree species, some forests may not survive past mid-century.

Meet the adorable olinguito, a newly discovered species found living in the cloud forests of the Andes

By using a link-referral service called Outbrain, the Syrian Electronic Army dove into the Washington Post. Today, the Washington Post (newly owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos) posted a brief note admitting that certain pages...

Hello, TailBot! With the goal of making a robot that can run, jump, and maneuver in the air, a student team at Michigan State University came up with this monkey-like miniature machine: TailBot. It is super goofy. For ex...

Hackable baby monitors reveal the vulnerability of everyday things. Baby surveillance devices: adorable and practical when used by parents, freaking creepy when used by strange adults on the internet. A couple in Houston...

All the latest on newscientist.com: infinity's end, a way to fix the emergency healthcare crisis, oddball space neutrinos, the all-in-one factory, and more

A seven-item hors d'oeuvres tour through the wonders of bug-eating The Future Food Salon describes itself as "a celebration of food in an arts-soaked setting that explores with enthusiasm what we will be eating in the fu...

The number of bottlenose dolphins beaching themselves along the Mid-Atlantic coast skyrocketed in July and early August, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare on August 8 an "unusual mort...

Once you're done recoiling in fear, they're pretty great Artists Enrico Ascoli and Donato Sansone (who goes by the name Milkyeyes and whose very, very NSFW work you can find here) teamed up to create these nightmarish vi...

The International Astronomical Union is now taking input from public campaigns to name celestial bodies - though it won't be a complete free-for-all

Key Concepts [More] --

High up in the Andes mountains, civil engineers are laying out plans to build an almost nine-mile-long tunnel connecting Chile and Argentina. Once completed, the Agua Negra tunnel will be the sixth longest underground ...

The rise of citizen photo/videojournalism: why old media loves it and needs it, and why it's, at best, a temporary solution. On Sunday, the New York Times broke the news that NBC News will acquire a startup called String...

Geneva, 15 August 2013. From today, CERN* will be taking bookings for visits of its underground facilities during the Open Days. From 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on 28 and 29 September, members of the public will have a rare opport...

How funny can a robot be? Celeste Biever finds a robot stand-up less stressful to watch than human comics - but it would have problems with a rowdy audience

3D printers are so passé. The Microfactory not only prints objects, it can drill and etch too, making it far more versatile

A $38,000 piece of Styrofoam, a pop-up drone-in-a-can, and more!

Novel idea would explain puzzling features of some recently detected deep-space neutrinos - and suggest an unusual identity for mysterious dark matter

A spike in CO2 in the atmosphere after the last ice age may explain the choice of plants humans now cultivate for food, such as wheat and barley

High-speed underground transit systems were first devised more than a century ago. Can Elon Musk's Hyperloop succeed where they failed?