Science News

Indistinguishable from magic? HOLOGRAMS are a staple of science fiction. For many, the very word will conjure an image of Princess Leia from "Star Wars" (pictured), or of the holodeck of the starship Enterprise. Making ...

A woman experienced months-long headaches after a traumatic injury in a Pilates Reformer class caused spinal fluid to leak out of her spinal cord.

Australian beaches have been closed following a spate of shark sightings and fatal attacks. But shark numbers are not to blame

Two new species of early mammals were discovered in China: a horny-clawed tree-dweller and a tunnel digger with shovel-like paws.

Pinning down how and why acid molecules split in the presence of water could give insights into biochemistry and pollutants forming in the atmosphere

Scientists used supercomputers to find a new class of materials that possess an exotic state of matter known as the quantum spin Hall effect. The researchers published their results in the journal Science in December 201...

If you overnight on an ice sheet, consider getting one of these.

Scientists have used an X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to get the first glimpse of the transition state where two atoms begin to form a weak bond on the way to becoming a m...

Most of our food, medicine, fuel, plastics and synthetic fibers wouldn't exist without catalysts, materials that open favorable pathways for chemical reactions to run forth. And yet chemists don't fully understand how mo...

A new explanation for a type of order, or symmetry, in an exotic material made with uranium may lead to enhanced computer displays and data storage systems, and more powerful superconducting magnets for medical imaging a...

Researchers have revealed the oldest tree-dwelling mammal ancestor and the earliest known burrowing mammalian. The amazing fossils were discovered in lake sediments in China and date back some 160 million years.

Extreme architecture for extreme environments.

Before this century ends, the Southwest and Central Plains states could shrivel under decades-long megadroughts worse than those that ended the Ancestral Pueblo civilization millennia ago.

New nanotech is behind the latest hunt to find and track the millions of microbes in the microbiome.

A new protein is helping researchers to see brain activity in real time as never before.

Scientists have used an X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to get the first glimpse of the transition state where two atoms begin to form a weak bond on the way to becoming a m...

Global warming will trigger historically unprecedented droughts lasting decades in central and southern US, perhaps leading to conflict over scarce water resources

Huddling in the shadows of the Jurrasic world wasn't enough for the first mammals – fossils from China show they dug, swam and climbed trees too

What looks like an underwater French kiss is in fact cuttlefish having sex. A video of their romance is revealing how males and females pick a mate

All the latest stories on newscientist.com: From self-driving cars to Neil Armstrong's moon-landing souvenirs and insect females fighting off male suitors

Many in rich countries worry about overconsumption exhausting the world's resources. But it's ethics rather than minerals that are in short supply

Can your dog tell whether you are content or annoyed? Yes, according to new research.