A tiny machine made from just an atom and particles of light may sound impossibly simple, but it raises a surprisingly difficult question: what counts as heat, and what energy can still do useful work...
Honeybees can apparently detect when their food has the wrong balance of essential nutrients and adjust how much they eat to avoid potentially harmful excesses. They also transform pollen into remarka...
If you or someone you love has had cataract surgery, you know how routine the whole thing can feel. You arrive, the surgeon does the procedure, and you are usually back home the same day. Now a robot ...
Miocene South America was packed with giant prey—and the predators hunting them were just as spectacular. Fossil bite marks suggest crocodylians, especially the enormous Purussaurus neivensis, were mo...
A tomb in Egypt’s Theban Necropolis reveals a surprisingly organized story of burial, reuse, and changing beliefs spanning hundreds of years. Researchers found 16 mummified people, the remains of at l...
Your phone may be giving a roadside sensor clues about where you go and which devices regularly travel alongside you. Say you carpool to work with the same person most mornings. Your car passes a lice...
A magnetar’s colossal magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago, in which seemingly empty space alters the behavior of light. If confirmed, t...
Einstein’s abandoned cosmological constant made a spectacular comeback when astronomers discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. It now sits at the heart of our best cosmological mode...
Childhood criticism can leave people carrying a fear of failure long into adulthood, but new research suggests those emotional patterns may be surprisingly flexible. Young adults who revisited painful...
Kratom use and serious health problems linked to it have risen dramatically across the United States over the past decade. Poison center reports jumped from just 19 cases in 2010 to more than 1,200 in...
Scientists studying three artisan British cheeses found that the microbes responsible for their distinctive flavors may also offer surprising benefits for gut health. As the cheeses matured, helpful b...
A low-fat vegan diet may help people lose weight without counting calories, shrinking portions, or feeling constantly hungry. In a 16-week clinical trial, people eating mostly fruits, vegetables, grai...
