How physically magnifying objects using a key ingredient in diapers has opened an unprecedented view of the microbial world.

New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest ...

Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

Primordial black holes could rewrite our understanding of dark matter and the early universe. A record-breaking detection at ...

Mathematicians are still trying to understand fundamental properties of the Fourier transform, one of their most ubiquitous ...

Researchers documented the activity of neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the ...

It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question. Landmark results ...

For three decades, researchers hunted in vain for new elementary particles that would have explained why nature looks the way it does. As physicists confront that failure, they’re reexamining a ...

In the 1960s, the Soviet climatologist and mathematician Mikhail Budyko set out to investigate the potential future of a planet on the brink of nuclear Armageddon. He started by looking some 600 ...

Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology. New experiments ...

Learning a language can’t be that hard — every baby in the world manages to do it in a few years. Figuring out how the process works is another story. Linguists have devised elaborate theories to ...