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Articles

Midnight Snacking Is Bad for Your Brain

Experiments in mice show that misaligned eating patterns can mess with the brain’s ability to form memories and learn new tasks

As a kid, you may remember getting your first glimpse of paramecium in pond water or the cell structure of an onion by peering through a microscope.

Ultra-Cheap Microscopes Could Save Millions of Lives

Researchers are designing portable microscopes that cost just a few dollars to make

Luna moths - arguably the most spectacular moths in North America - deflect bat attacks with their ornate wing tails.

New Research

Luna Moths’ Gorgeous Wings Throw Off Bat Attacks

Spinning twin tails at the end of moth wings garble bats’ sonar cries, causing the winged predators to miss the tasty mark

Revolution Bioengineering is working to genetically engineer petunias that continuously change from pink to blue and back again.

Art Meets Science

Would You Like to Grow Color-Changing Flowers?

A Colorado company is working to genetically engineer petunias that change colors throughout the day

Close-up of a bald eagle at Klamath Basin.

Now’s the Time to See Hundreds of Bald Eagles

The Winter Wings Festival at Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge is one of the longest-running bird festivals in the country

The Zboard 2 is an electric skateboard that can reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour.

This Week in Crowdfunding

Five Wild Ideas: From a Vest for Weight Loss to an Electric Skateboard

Plus, building blocks for children inspired by Archimedes

Benjamin Franklin reading letters, which may or may not have been written by his female friends.

The Founding Fathers and the Women, Not Their Wives, Whom They Wrote To

These words today would raise suspicion if written between married men and their female friends

A chocolate pot from Yokohama, Japan, ca. 1904. Porcelain with clear glaze and overglaze enamels

Chocolate Week

A Brief History of the Chocolate Pot

How humans have consumed chocolate sheds lights on its significance to cultures and eras

Best Space Photos of the Week

These Spacey Treats Include a Galactic Smiley Face and an Interstellar Rose

A lucky lens and a pair of mismatched star twins feature among our picks for the week’s best space images

Google's driverless car prototype. Is this the cab of the future?

Cabs of the Future Won’t Have Drivers

Recent moves by Uber and Google may foreshadow a battle over who will control fleets of autonomous cars on city streets

The World of Chocolate

What Physics Tells Us About Making the Perfect Chocolate

Like carbon, the treat can take on many crystalline forms, so a master chocolatier must know how to temper it in just the right way

Cocoa roasters at the Hershey Chocolate Company in Pennsylvania

The World of Chocolate

The Short Rise and Fall of the Crazy-for-Cocoa-Trade Cards Craze

In the late 19th-century, when you bought chocolate, the grocer dropped a delightful prize into your bag, a trade card to save and share

President and First Lady Edith Wilson.

Five Spots for a Romantic Presidents’ Day (or a Presidential Valentine’s Day)

These locations combine presidential history and romance

Chocolate Week

D.C.’s Artisan Chocolate Makers Show Off Their Sweet Labor of Love

Leaving no task undone, this husband-and-wife team demonstrate their process for producing chocolate

What little-known facts could you learn about FDR?

Ten Fascinating Presidential Facts to Impress on Presidents’ Day

Learn a new side of the Commanders-in-Chief, from whiskey seances and magazine cover boys

An example of a pot used by the ancient Maya

Chocolate Week

What We Know About the Earliest History of Chocolate

We’ve learned things that could help today’s artisan chocolatiers improve their trade

The Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado was abandoned hundreds of years ago, probably because of a severe drought. Scientists now predict that the region could experience an even worse megadrought in the latter half of the 21st century.

Anthropocene

The Western U.S. Could Soon Face the Worst Megadrought in a Millennium

Climate models predict that the region will be drier than the droughts that likely caused ancient Native Americans to abandon their pueblo cities

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A Man With ALS Says “I Love You” to His Wife for the First Time in 15 Years

A new invention from Not Impossible Labs allows Don Moir to script an audible love letter

Is fine chocolate slipping through our fingers?

The World of Chocolate

How to Save the Chocolate Tree Without Sacrificing Flavor

Demand, disease and climate change are threatening cocoa, but a new breed of clones could keep the treat abundant and tasty

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