An axolotl can regrow a lost limb. A starfish can rebuild damaged arms. Some flatworms can reconstruct almost their entire bodies. Humans, meanwhile, can repair a wound—but cannot naturally replace ...
Dreams have fascinated humans for thousands of years. We know they emerge from the sleeping brain, yet the bizarre stories, emotions and images that fill them remain difficult to explain. Now artifici...
The human brain is one of the most complicated structures known to science. Now, researchers are creating increasingly detailed maps of its cells, connections and activity. The goal is not simply to d...
The idea of copying a human mind into a computer has moved from pure science fiction into serious scientific discussion. Researchers can already map individual neurons, record brain activity and build...
Every thought, memory, sensation and dream you experience happens inside a brain weighing roughly as much as a small melon. Yet somehow, billions of neurons produce something far more mysterious than ...
For much of modern biology, scientists had to freeze, stain or destroy cells to understand what was happening inside them. New imaging technologies are changing that. Researchers can increasingly watc...
The ground beneath our feet looks solid and permanent. Deep below, however, Earth is anything but still. Massive tectonic plates are moving, sinking, breaking, colliding and recycling material into th...
The deeper scientists go beneath Earth's surface, the stranger the planet becomes. New drilling projects are pushing into rocks that have remained isolated for millions of years, searching for clues a...
Billions of years ago, Earth transformed from a young, chemically active planet into a world capable of supporting life. Scientists cannot travel back in time to watch it happen—but laboratories are...
They are not full-sized organs, and they cannot simply be transplanted into a patient. But tiny laboratory-grown structures that resemble human brains, hearts, kidneys and intestines are giving scient...
For decades, the search for extraterrestrial life lived somewhere between serious science and science fiction. Today, powerful telescopes, robotic missions and increasingly sophisticated instruments a...
For decades, scientists have learned how individual cells work. Now they are trying to understand something far more complicated: how cells talk to one another. If researchers can decode those convers...
The next 20 years could look surprisingly different from the world we know today.
Not because scientists have one magical invention waiting in a laboratory, but because dozens of scientific fields ...
There is a garbage problem above our heads.
It is moving at thousands of kilometers per hour.
Old satellites.
Abandoned rocket stages.
Broken spacecraft.
Fragments created by collisions...
Look around almost any landscape and it is easy to assume that the important geology is happening on the surface.
Mountains rise.
Rivers cut valleys.
Volcanoes erupt.
Earthquakes shake cit...
From the surface, some of the driest places on Earth look almost completely lifeless.
The ground is cracked.
The air is dry.
Vegetation is scarce.
Rain can be rare enough that years may pa...