Science News Explores

Heavy plowing can impair water’s flow through the ground. The problem was found by “listening” to tiny seismic signals caused by rain infiltrating the soil.

With half a beak, Bruce has developed a unique fighting style that has won him top status in his flock, videos and documented interactions reveal.

One widely used “geoid” technique may have missed up to a century of sea level rise — so risks could hit millions of people far sooner than expected.

A brief stellar eclipse hints that this 2002 XV93 has a thin atmosphere. It would be a first for any solar-system body farther from the sun than Pluto.

Victoria Glynn is studying how high temperatures are affecting ocean plankton. She also makes art to help communicate science to the public.

Data from animal studies point to a troubling possibility: Caffeine may alter brain development.

Humidity makes North American sweat bees change color. This trait could be widespread among shiny insects, some biologists now suspect.

New brain scans are helping sort out how our brains process imagined thoughts versus real sensations.

This is a trait in which one kind of sensory input, such as sound, can trigger another sense, such as sight.

In 2022, NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid. New data show how that impact changed the orbit around the sun of this space rock — and its partner.

Though they can look like rocks or plants, corals are animals. Most are made up of colonies of individuals called polyps.

Millions of treasures stashed in this museum storage site — open only to select visitors — tell the history of Earth's inhabitants.

At the 2026 Regeneron ISEF competition, teens showed how they blasted past a problem that has limited use of super-efficient aerospike rocket engines.

As expert echolocators make multiple clicking sounds, their brains process the echoes to help them perceive their surroundings.

A study of ancient artifacts suggests Native American dice games began thousands of years earlier than previously documented.

These massive wildflower blooms create colorful carpets over desert landscapes during unusually rainy years.

Scientists are testing whether plastic pollution from the ocean can be transformed into safe and durable highways.

Learning from the Earth's past climate swings — what happened to life and when — can help us understand where we might be headed.

Here’s a basic breakdown of the different cloud types, as well as how clouds form and why they float.