Mechanical engineer Juan Espinoza’s work in agriculture runs deep. In the 1990s, his parents immigrated to California from Mexico. With little formal education, the only work available to them at…

Humans may not be the only primates with the power to imagine. A bonobo named Kanzi recently showed that he could keep track of make-believe juice and grapes during a…

Bolide (noun, “BOH-lyde”) A bolide is a bright meteor. Usually, this word describes meteors that explode in the atmosphere. A bolide’s extreme brightness sets it apart from other meteors. Astronomers…

What can stink up a beach, stall a boat and ruin a vacation? Too much seaweed. Floating mats of algae now cover a huge swath of the globe’s oceans. And…

When an object shatters, something strange happens. It doesn’t matter whether the object is a dropped glass or plate. Or the nucleus of one atom smashing into another. Or even…

It’s quiet in the Okefenokee. Cypress trees, draped with Spanish moss, loom over the dark water of this swamp in southeastern Georgia. But look closely and that stillness reveals signs…

Ash spewing from a volcano may have been the trigger that brought the Black Death to Europe in the 14th century, new research says. This pandemic-scale plague killed tens of…

For humans, regrowing a lost body part would require superpowers. But for some other animals, it’s business as usual. Salamanders are perhaps the most famous examples. If a salamander loses…

Claire Jiang, 18, still vividly remembers starting to feel sick during a test in third grade. She felt feverish. Her elbow hurt, and she struggled to move it. Her symptoms,…