A basketball player’s smooth, nothing-but-net shot. A softball pitcher’s wicked curveball. A football quarterback’s beautiful spiral toss. These aren’t just athletic spectacles. They’re feats of physics. Making a ball take…

Pollination (noun, “pah-lih-NAY-shun”) Pollination is a step in a plant’s life cycle that allows it to make seeds. It is the transfer of pollen from the male parts of a…

Mosasaurs — a fearsome group of ancient predators — once ruled the seas. Now researchers have turned up a 66-million-year fossil tooth from one. And the big surprise: It came…

Around 400,000 years ago, a group of Neandertals camped at a site in what’s now southern England. Near a grassland water hole, they struck chunks of iron pyrite against flint…

Anyone doing math today will use a lot of symbols in addition to numbers. Did you ever wonder why? Or who invented those symbols, such as the signs for plus…

Jessica Talmage played sports for as long as she can remember. She recalls smacking baseballs off tees at age 4. And she loved being on a team. Then, she hurt…

New research links a heightened risk of mood problems, weight gain and sleep loss to the age at which kids first get smartphones. But that’s no reason to ditch your…

When the wind blows on Mars, electricity crackles through the air. And for the first time, scientists have detected this.  NASA’s Perseverance rover — aka Percy — captured the data. Its…

Cryogenic (adjective, “Cry-oh-JEN-ick”) Cryogenic refers to technology that works in or relies on very low temperatures. Typically, cryogenic tech involves temperatures lower than –150° Celsius (–238° Fahrenheit). The word cryogenic…