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Chemistry

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is coated in a protective paint called International Orange.

Why Does Rain Eat Through Protective Coatings on Metal Structures? Researchers Propose a New Idea: Electrically Charged Droplets

Scientists long attributed rain damage to physical abrasion and chemical degradation from acidic substances. A new study offers a third idea, which could help researchers develop longer-lasting coatings and preserve important objects

A µBites cookie, which is pronounced "microbites"

Would You Eat a Cookie Made From Upcycled Plastic? Scientists Propose a New Way to Deal With Waste and Provide Food in Extreme Environments

A team of researchers programmed yeast to turn broken-down plastic and agricultural waste into sweet treats called µBites. They might come in handy during deep-space missions or in disaster zones, although some critics say the food is impractical

An estimated one million to two million petroglyphs are spread across the Burrup Peninsula and the Dampier Archipelago, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Historical Pollution, Not Current Industrial Emissions, Damaged the World’s Largest and Oldest Collection of Ancient Rock Art, Study Suggests

Researchers say that past exposure to sulfur dioxide is likely to blame for the increased porosity of the Murujuga rock art created by the Ngarda-Ngarli people tens of thousands of years ago

The studied species, brown-lipped snails, are native to Europe.

Snails Can Make Their Slime Sticky, Slippery, Foamy or Hard Depending on Their Needs. Here’s How They Tweak Their Multipurpose Mucus

The critters can alter the proportions of calcium and collagen in the versatile substance, which changes the protein structure. The different textures can help snails glide, climb or protect themselves

An American bullfrog, which is the largest frog species in North America

This Deadly Shellfish Poisoning Has No Antidote. A Protein Found in American Bullfrogs Could Change That

A study in mice found that a protein called saxiphilin acts like a sponge against a deadly toxin produced by algal blooms. The harmful agent, which accumulates in certain seafood, can cause a life-threatening illness called paralytic shellfish poisoning

The Helix Nebula with bow shocks on the upper left

A New Telescope Still Under Construction Accidentally Reveals How a Dying Star Returns Matter to Space

Researchers captured an unprecedented image of the stellar recycling process while calibrating a Chile-based instrument called MOTHRA, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2026

The Huashan rock art is spread across more than 80 sites spanning roughly 160 miles.

This Rock Art in China Has Remained Bright Red for Nearly 2,000 Years. How? The Secret Ingredient Might Be Blood

A new study offers clues about how the Luoyue people created rock paintings in what’s now southern China. The murals have somehow been durable enough to withstand rain, heat, wind and humidity for centuries

Scientists have discovered more than 4,400 ancient preserved human brains, some of which are 12,000 years old.

Archaeologists Have Found Thousands of Intact Ancient Human Brains. Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out Why the Organs Don’t Always Rot

Under the right conditions—wet and oxygen-deprived—the same chemical reactions that cause tissue to break down can instead have the opposite effect, according to a new study

The glassy sphere of hiroshimaite created in the atomic blast that contained a previously unknown metal alloy. 

The Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Birthed a Strange, Never-Before-Seen Material, According to a New Study

The devastating blast vaporized buildings, metal, glass, soil and water. When the substances cooled and condensed, the process created spherical glassy grains—and some of them seem to contain a previously unknown metal alloy

A 2022 image of Neptune, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope's Near-Infrared Camera

Neptune May Have Once Witnessed a Lunar Massacre That Turned Its Original Moons ‘Inside Out’

A new study identifies an unexpected mineral in two of the planet’s inner moons, pointing to a destructive past in which a large object got pulled into the system and obliterated the former, larger satellites

A digital illustration of typical prokaryotes—cells that do not contain a nucleus. Bacteria and archaea are the two kinds of prokaryotes on Earth, and their ancestors were the first organisms to evolve.

A New Study Points to Two Origins of Life on Earth by Tracing Early Chemical Reactions in Single-Celled Organisms

The work challenges the assumption that all life descended from one free-living cell. Instead, it suggests that two microbial lineages, the bacteria and archaea, evolved independently from a primordial, nonliving ancestor

Scientists studied the sweat bee species Megalopta genalis​​​​​​, native to Central and South America.

In This Bee Species, Why Do Some Daughters Leave Home While Others Stay ‘Bee-hind’ to Help Mom?

Biologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute investigated a flexible social bee species, which helps shed light on the evolution of more complex organizational structures among other insects

A pregnant naked mole-rat queen, on the left, and a worker, on the right, sniff each other.

Naked Mole-Rat Queens Emit a Special Scent to Stop Their Rivals From Reproducing, a New Study Suggests

The strange-looking creatures are one of two known mammals that use a social structure like that of bees and ants. A ruling rodent maintains power over her colony via one key chemical compound, according to new research

A fragment of the Hillsborough meteorite

This Meteorite Crashed Into a New Jersey Home in 2024. Now, Scientists Say It Contains Some of the Building Blocks of Life

The Hillsborough meteorite belongs to a rare class of rocks from space, according to a new study. It holds amino acids and other organic compounds, as well as evidence of salty water

The sugar was detected near the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which shines brightly with stars in this artificially colored image.

In a First, Astronomers Find Sugar in the Space Between Stars, Providing New Clues About the Origins of Life on Earth

Sugars are crucial components of RNA and DNA, the basis of all known organisms alive today. In a new study, the sugar erythrulose was detected in a gas- and dust-filled cloud near the center of our Milky Way galaxy

The Canopus, a pool at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, Italy

How Has Roman Concrete Lasted for Millennia? A 1,900-Year-Old Latrine Offers New Clues About the Material’s Impressive Durability

A chemical process called carbonation, which helps seal cracks, could help explain why many ancient Roman structures are still standing today. Researchers hope that the insights will lead to better modern-day building materials

Scientists analyzed about 25 years' worth of data from the Fram Strait, a passageway where the Arctic and Atlantic oceans meet.

The Arctic Ocean May Have Passed a Crucial Tipping Point That Could Harm Food Webs and Worsen Climate Change

Sea ice loss seems to have triggered a decline in the nutrient nitrate, affecting the tiny organisms that form the foundations of marine food chains and absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study

Microscope images of an artificial cell, colored green, dividing into two

Scientists Say They’ve Made Cells That Feed, Grow and Reproduce, Bringing Them One Step Closer to Building Life From Scratch

The human-made cells show many hallmarks of life, but they can’t make all their necessary internal structures or divide for very many generations

The Perseverance rover inspects a Martian rock called Cheyava Falls using its Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument.

Mars Rover Spots Complex Carbon on the Red Planet, Marking Yet Another Detection of a Building Block of Life

Along with other recent discoveries, the new finding from Perseverance boosts the case that Mars once hosted conditions that could support living things—but it isn’t a definitive sign of ancient organisms

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, imaged here with its broad coma of gas and dust, has captivated astronomers since its discovery on July 1, 2025.

A Rare Comet Made History as the Third Known Interstellar Object to Fly Through Our Solar System. Studies Are Now Revealing the Mysterious Conditions in Which It Formed

In the latest research, telescope observations of 3I/ATLAS examine its chemical structure and suggest that it took shape in a peripheral region of a relatively calm planetary system

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