Ghostly lights in South Carolina might trace to earthquake activity, new research suggests. Since the 1950s, people have reported strange balls of light floating down a road along old railroad…

Objective: Design and build your own rubber band paddleboat Areas of science: Mechanical engineering Difficulty: Medium beginner Time required: ≤ 1 day Prerequisites: None Material availability: Bathtub or kiddie pool…

In the second The Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers, an army of treelike creatures called Ents slowly marches to war. They walk for miles through thick, dark…

Neuroplasticity (noun, “NER-oh-plass-TIH-sih-tee”) Neuroplasticity describes the brain’s ability to change. Our brains change throughout our lives. Much of this change involves neurons building new connections, or synapses, or trimming back…

Smartphones are helping chart an erratic region of Earth’s atmosphere that can mess with navigation systems and other tech. That region is the ionosphere — a sea of charged particles…

Visit your local natural history museum gift shop and you’ll probably find a container of dinosaur toys for sale. Dump out its contents, though, and you’ll likely find some imposters,…

Across the river from Washington, D.C., sits Potomac Overlook Regional Park. Hiking paths wind through acres of forest and cultivated land. Peer into the thick woods and you may glimpse…

Paleontologists have unearthed many iconic dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, from the western United States. Relatively few species, however, have popped up east of the Great Plains. In…

The Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley, is largely a murder mystery. But when Ava Cummings, 18, read the book, she was most intrigued by the main character’s interest in ethnobotany.…