Why so many mollusks sound Greek—their naming evolves at a snail's pace

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," said Juliet Capulet in William Shakespeare's famous play. And the same is ...

Water simulation of famous quantum effect reveals unexpected wave patterns

In the quirky quantum world, particles can be affected by forces that they never directly encounter. A classic example is the ...

A crowd scientist is helping the Boston Marathon manage a growing field of 30,000-plus runners

Running the Boston Marathon is tough enough without having to jostle your way from Hopkinton to Copley Square.

A light-controlled 'muscle' could give synthetic cells a new way to move

Engineers interested in creating artificial cells to deliver drugs to unhealthy parts of the body face a key challenge: for a ...

A cheaper way to fight 'forever chemicals': How pH-controlled traps could clean drinking water

Forever chemicals don't break down and don't disappear, but Florida International University scientists have developed a safer, cheaper, and reusable solution that could remove these chemicals. FIU ...

These blazing blue explosions may be born when a compact dead star slams into a Wolf-Rayet star

Luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs) are among the universe's brightest and fastest explosions but their origin is not completely understood. A new study takes a closer look at the galaxies ...

Archaeologists have discovered 12,000‑year‑old dice. Here's what they reveal about the history of play

Humans have always been playful. But for much of our history, play has left little trace. Unlike tools or bones, games rarely ...

Moroccan dinosaur's fearsome tail spikes evolved much earlier than we thought—new discovery

In the heart of the Middle Atlas Mountains in central Morocco, a global team of paleontologists and geologists has discovered ...

Wafer-scale 2D magnetic films emerge thanks to a new low-defect growth technique

In a major advance, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have devised a method to grow high-quality 2D ...

Hollow-sphere catalyst enables greener production of 99% pure propane at room temperature

The world's appetite for propene (propylene) is growing faster than the chemical industry can keep up. This petrochemical ...

Atlantic current shows two-decade decline across four deep-ocean monitoring sites

A paper published in the journal Science Advances is adding to the growing body of research showing that the Atlantic ...

Theoretical models of supernova chemistry overhauled after X-ray data from Perseus Cluster reveal key discrepancies

The Perseus Cluster is a massive galaxy cluster located in the constellation Perseus. It is one of the largest structures in ...