These fossilized foraminiferan shells, dating back 35 to 45 million years, were found in Tanzania. They all belong to species that are now extinct. The largest are about half a millimeter in diameter.

The History of the Ocean, as Told by Tiny Beautiful Fossils

Bountiful remains of foraminifera reveal how organisms responded to climate disturbances of the past. They can help predict the future, too.
The Pantheon, Rome

One Thousand Years of Domelessness

For more than 900 years, between the fifth century and the Renaissance, Romans didn’t cap their buildings with domes. Why?
Maxine Singer, Norton Zindler, Sydney Brenner and Paul Berg at the Asilomar Conference, February 1975

The Legacy of Asilomar

The 1975 scientific conference laid the ground rules governing the next half century (and counting) of biological research and public scrutiny of it.
A man scrambles up a gully on the Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Colorado.

How Science Might Help Keep Wild Places Wild

Recreation researchers are studying how to minimize human impact on public lands while maximizing accessibility.
Grace Hopper at the UNIVAC keyboard, c. 1960.

Talking with Machines: Computer Programming as Language

The proliferation of different types of computing machines in the 1950s enabled—or perhaps forced—the creation of programming languages.
Fruit of the pong-pong tree (Cerbera odollam)

Cerbera odollam: “The Suicide Tree” That Harms and Heals

Even before The White Lotus, people feared the poisonous pong-pong tree, Cerbera odollam. But there's another way to look at the plant and its effects.
Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), demonstrating his pile (battery) to Napoleon in Paris, 1801.

Electric Fish and the First Battery

Allesandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the earliest electric battery, in part because of his investigations into the torpedo, an electric ray fish.
West County Recycles, Richmond, CA

Did “Big Oil” Sell Us on a Recycling Scam?

Our focus on recycling to save the planet may be missing the mark.
Elisha Gray

Gray’s Music: Over the Telegraph

Inventor of the telephone Elisha Gray also pioneered the world’s first purpose-built electric musical instrument.
Red-lined Sea Cucumber Thelenota rubralineata in the shallow water near Moyo Island, Sumbawa, Indonesia.

Weird and Wondrous Sea Cucumbers

These spiny or slimy ocean creatures display an astonishing diversity of appearances, behaviors and lifestyles. Many are increasingly threatened.