Science News

To some viewers, it looks like a landing strip for extraterrestrial spacecraft, but the giant desert spiral is actually an art installation.

A new study of Japanese communities near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant shows a lingering risk of radiation exposure remained more than a year after the March 2011 meltdown.

An incredibly rare process for forming the ultra-heavy top quark has been found. The new result confirms predictions made by the reigning Standard Model of physics.

Samples collected from waters off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia, had trace amounts of radionuclides associated with the 2011 Fukushima radiation leak.

The obesity rate among children and adults in the United States did not change significantly between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012, new research suggests.

When a country is in the midst of civil war, how does that country's government use the Internet to its advantage? A group of scientists recently released the monitoring and filtering practices of the Syrian government d...

Amputees who suffer from phantom-limb pain could get some relief, thanks to a potential new experimental treatment involving virtual reality.

People are exposed to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) mainly through food. But the potentially harmful chemical is also found on receipts, and can be absorbed into people's bodies through the skin when they handle receipt...

A herpes infection is caused by the herpes simplex virus (HSV), which comes in two forms: HSV-1, which usually results in oral herpes infections affecting the mouth and lips; and HSV-2, which usually causes genital herpe...

For reptiles and amphibians, southern Peru's Manu National Park is the most diverse protected area on the planet.

Water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere of one of the first alien planets ever identified by astronomers, scientists announced.

Climate and ocean-circulation changes that happened millions of years ago likely contributed to the differences in appearance between certain species of male and female seals.

A new USDA program pays farmers to reseed fields with clover, alfalfa and other plants good for grazing that also feed bees. The initiative is an attempt to counteract colony collapse disorder.

Sultan Moulay Ismaïl of Morocco, "The Bloodthirsty," reputedly sired perhaps more than a 1,000 kids. Now computer simulations suggest this could have been possible if the ruler had sex about once a day for 32 years.

The Harmon Kardon Aura Jonathon Kambouris For all their engineering, speakers are mostly just formless boxes--eyesores that we shove into corners and forget about. The Harmon Kardon Aura is one that even the most design-...

A transparent silicon sock that slips around the heart could allow monitoring of this precious organ, and even do away with unwieldy pacemakers     

Climate denial is becoming all too predictable, so a drinking game could liven things up.

Watch the snow on Californian mountains disappear after a year of brutal drought. NASA hopes the pictures, taken from orbit, will help the thirsty state find water     

The University of Leicester plans to sequence the full genome of medieval king Richard III, but not everyone thinks the gene sequencing is scientifically relevant or ethical.

More than half of the CO2 emitted by humans has been absorbed by the ocean. Scientists say this means less CO2 in the air, but it also means a change in ocean chemistry -- ocean acidification. Now what?

A Chinese-U.S. research team is exploring the use of metamaterials--artificial materials engineered to have exotic properties not found in nature--to create devices that manipulate sound in versatile and unprecedented wa...

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