Science News

While not a complete figment of our imagination, the universe may only become real because we're looking at it (full text available to subscribers)

The sound was recorded by a UNC Chapel Hill payload aboard a high altitude balloon. The balloon was commissioned by Louisiana State University's High Altitude Student Platform (HASP) program and flew to an altitude of ~2...

Manu Prakash has designed the Foldscope, an origami paper microscope that costs less than a dollar.

An underwater volcano off the West Coast of North America is showing telltale signs of an eruption, just as scientists had predicted. Motions of the seafloor, accompanied by a series of earthquakes, suggest a large amoun...

The probe of an atomic force microscope (AFM) scans a surface to reveal details at a resolution 1,000 times greater than that of an optical microscope. That makes AFM the premier tool for analyzing physical features, but...

Penguins poop on the ice to melt it, enabling them to create rocky breeding coves.

An underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon has risen from its slumber and may be spewing out lava about a mile beneath the sea.

The rover snapped a picture of something stuck on its wheel, but NASA says it's no cause for alarm

The mechanism for how bombardier beetles eject liquid jets from their behind has now been revealed

It's possible that thousands of ivory objects -- from kitschy trinkets to carved tusks -- worth more than $15 million are being traded each year on Craigslist in the United States, according to a new report.

Most new patents are combinations of existing ideas and pretty much always have been, even as the stream of fundamentally new core technologies has slowed, according to a new paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Int...

If the idea of a breast-milk smoothie grosses you out, how about a version made with milk from glands in the uterus? A tiny embryo wouldn't complain

The Ebola virus can remain in semen for longer than previously thought, and men who survive the disease should always use a condom during sex, the CDC says.

Einstein and the controversy surrounding the Nobel Prize in Physics take center stage, while Franz Kafka steals the showYou would think it's impossible to simultaneously spurn a professor and award him the greatest acade...

With the help of modern brain scanning technology, scientists have begun methodically mapping the brain by asking people to perform tasks or inducing experiences in a scanning machine and recording...

Plans to tackle rhino poaching by flooding the market with lab-made horns may backfire

He's the man who got the FBI to admit that hair analysis was flawed evidence, and now campaigner Peter Neufeld says there's a bigger problem to tackle

Scientists are striving to learn from the latest volcanic eruption in Chile.

The Nasca Lines, a series of strange etchings in the barren Peruvian desert, may have been viewed on ritual processionals to an ancient temple.

The Nasca Lines, a series of strange etchings in the barren Peruvian desert, may have been viewed on ritual processionals to an ancient temple.

A 20-ton superconducting magnet has completed its journey from California to New York. Why did the 40,000-pound superconducting magnet cross the country? The full answer to this twist on the old joke is complicated, but ...

We can tell whether the sounds a baby makes are positive or negative, but we're terrible at identifying their feelings - apart from when it's playtime