Extreme ultraviolet light streams out of an X-class solar flare

The Threat of Solar Flares

Solar flares are highly unpredictable and difficult to anticipate. But their threat is very real.
North American Nebula

The Search For Antimatter

Physicists, in recent years, have been trying to find evidence of antimatter in the universe. Its existence could overturn the Big Bang theory.
Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921

Entanglement: A Milestone for Quantum Mechanics

Advances in quantum mechanics has proved the existence of entanglement, a principle even Einstein had a hard time swallowing.
Bacteria

Protecting Mars From Earthly Contaminates

Now that water has been discovered on Mars, the next step is to ensure we don't contaminate the planet with Earthly microbes and bacteria.
This is an artist’s impression of a Kuiper Belt object (KBO), located on the outer rim of our solar system.

Next stop for the New Horizons Spacecraft: The Kuiper Belt

New Horizons, the NASA probe deployed to visit Pluto, has begun a new mission: visit the Kuiper belt, a region beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Sweden-Nobel prize-China-Tu Youyou
Xinhua via Getty Images

Why Hasn’t China Won a Nobel in Science Until Now?

Despite a long tradition of scientific inquiry and study, no Chinese scientist has won the coveted Nobel Prize. Until now. We try to understand why.
Beth Stevens

Read MacArthur “Genius” Grant Winner Beth Stevens’ Work on JSTOR

Beth Stevens was awarded the heralded "genius" grant for her work on microglia, the specialized nervous system cells.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Caption: Alfred McEwen

The Canals of Mars

We now know there's liquid water on Mars, according to NASA. But at the turn of the 20th century, we believed something else: that Mars had canals.
Black and white mapping of canals

The Extinct Civilization of Mars

Liquid water has been detected on Mars. We explore the history of the search, and the astronomer, Percival Lowell, who shook the public imagination.
Skeletal fossils of the hand of Homo naledi

Homo Naledi: Our Newly Discovered Ancestor

Found in a cave in South Africa, the fossils have been determined to be from Homo naledi, a previously unknown ancestor of the human species.