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Science

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The (Natural) World, According to Our Photo Contest Finalists

From a caterpillar to the Milky Way, the ten finalists in the contest’s Natural World category capture the peculiar, the remarkable and the sublime

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Which Major Cities Are Leaders in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

Research shows that cities can cut emissions by 70 percent; check out the ones striving their hardest to curb their carbon appetites

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Spiders Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before (Photos)

In honor of Save a Spider Day, we’ve picked the best photo contest submissions that showcase the beauty of spiders across the globe

Locusts covering a bush during the 2004 swarm near the Red Sea cost in Israel.

A Plague of Locusts Descends Upon the Holy Land, Just in Time for Passover

Israel battles a swarm of millions of locusts that flew from Egypt that is giving rise to a host of ecological, political and agricultural issues

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This 33,000-Year-Old Skull Belonged to One of the World’s First Dogs

A new DNA analysis confirms that an ancient skull found in a Siberian cave was an early ancestor of man’s best friend

The research drew upon theromgraphic images of the penguins collected in the wild.

How Emperor Penguins Survive Antarctica’s Subzero Cold

The birds’ plumage is even colder than the surrounding air, paradoxically insulating them from heat loss

It tells you what’s happening on your phone. And it tells time.

How Smart Can a Watch Be?

Actually, fairly smart. And we’re only seeing the first wave of smartwatches, with Apple expected to enter the fray as early as this year

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When, Where and How to Watch the Comet PanSTARRS This Month

Look for the comet just after twilight in the Northern Hemisphere’s western sky, with the best viewing chances to come early next week

A bull male forest elephant in Gabon. A new study published in the PLOS ONE shows that African forest elephants are being poached into extinction.

Miniature African Forest Elephants Could Be Extinct in 10 Years

Ivory poachers slashed the population of the small elephants by 62 percent in the past decade—future losses at those rates will doom the species

Rapidly melting sea ice will open up shipping lanes across the Arctic, potentially making the Northwest Passage (left) and North Pole (center) navigable during the summer.

Climate Change Could Allow Ships to Cross the North Pole by 2040

Melting sea ice will open up shipping lanes across the Arctic, potentially making the Northwest Passage and North Pole navigable during summer

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Trapped as Climate Changes, Giant Gusts of Hot Air Trigger Weather Extremes

Thanks to global warming, hot air piles up at mid-latitudes and causes storms and heat waves to linger for long stretches of time, new research shows.

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Transforming Raw Scientific Data Into Sculpture and Song

Artist Nathalie Miebach uses meteorological data to create 3D woven works of art and playable musical scores

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What Does the Unbelievably Bad Air Quality in Beijing Do to the Human Body?

The level of soot in Beijing’s air is off the charts, leading to higher risks of lung cancer, heart attacks and other health problems

A habitable planet orbits a white dwarf. Here the ghostly blue ring is a planetary nebula—hydrogen gas the star ejected as it evolved from a red giant to a white dwarf.

E.T. Phone Home: New Research Could Detect Signs of Life in this Decade

Thanks to a proposal by astronomers Avi Loeb and Dan Maoz, we could find evidence of extraterrestrial life very soon

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The War on Cancer Goes Stealth

With nanomedicine, the strategy is not to poison cancer cells or to blast them away but to trick them

A New Addition to the International Space Station

The AMS can detect and sort hundreds of billions of high-energy particles whizzing through space

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Photos: The Uneasy Conflict Between Artificial and Natural Light

Artist Kevin Cooley has traveled the world capturing landscapes where one light shines on the horizon

Off the Auckland Islands, a southern right whale moves in for a closer look at Skerry’s diving partner.

Brian Skerry Has the World’s Best Job: Ocean Photographer

The freelancer’s new exhibit at the Natural History Museum captures the beauty, and fragility, of sea life

Goodall’s travels have often brought her face to face with exotic plants. In Cambodia, she was “awestruck” by the giant roots of an ancient strangler fig she found embracing the Ta Prohm temple at Angkor Wat.

Jane Goodall Reveals Her Lifelong Fascination With…Plants?

After studying chimpanzees for decades, the celebrated scientist turns her penetrating gaze on another life-form

How Two Women Ended the Deadly Feather Trade

Birds like the snowy egret were on the brink of extinction, all because of their sought-after plumage

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