In this professor’s class, there are no calculators. Instead, students learn advanced math by talking, drawing pictures, playing with beach balls – and knitting.
Tracking wild animals can provide lots of valuable data. New research suggests audio recordings of wild wolves can replace the typical radio collars, which can be expensive and intrusive.
A detector buried under more than a mile of ice in Antarctica has detected a high-energy subatomic neutrino and traced it to its origin, a blazar – a gargantuan black hole more than a billion times more massive than the sun.
Autonomous cars need to learn how to drive just like people do: with real-world practice on public roads. It’s key to safety, and to public confidence in the new technologies.
Sea turtles contend with a contagious disease that causes debilitating tumors. Genetic analysis is helping researchers figure out precision medicine-based treatments for the turtles.
Big technology firms are becoming known for mistreating workers, customers and society as a whole. Is an economic powerhouse about to collapse like Detroit did years go?
An AC/DC-loving biologist tests the band’s 1980 assertion that “rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution.” Turns out it can be – and the negative effects of noise can ripple through an ecosystem.
Everybody does it, but why? Scientists aren’t really sure if exhaustion, stress or some other social factor is at the root of yawning – and how it can be so contagious.
How did civilization emerge from small groups of hunter-gatherers? Some archaeologists focus on cooperation as the vital ingredient – and find evidence for it in the form of feast-related artifacts.
An astronomer suggests an idea to piggyback on the ambitious Breakthrough Starshot project that aims to send nano spacecraft to Alpha Centauri at a major fraction of the speed of light.
World Cup jerseys have to please players, national officials, FIFA rulemakers and – perhaps most importantly – fans who buy them to show support for their teams.
It’s a psychological quirk that when something becomes rarer, people may spot it in more places than ever. What is the ‘concept creep’ that lets context change how we categorize the world around us?
Kevin Knuth, University at Albany, State University of New York
About 5 percent of all UFO sightings cannot be easily explained by weather or human technology. A physicist argues that there’s compelling evidence to justify serious scientific study and that the skeptics should step aside – for the sake of humanity.
An asteroid on a collision course with Earth is inevitable. Astronomer Michael Lund explains how a new telescope under construction in Chile will become a vital tool for detecting objects that could devastate our planet.
China’s government is prioritizing world-class science and tech. An expert describes the Chinese research landscape – and questions its sustainability.
Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro
Without secure records of property ownership, many poor people around the world have trouble improving their economic situations. Several countries are already trying blockchain-based land registries.
People’s most private information isn’t on paper locked in desks anymore – it’s online, stored on corporate servers. The Supreme Court now says some privacy protections cover that data.
Paul South, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
As the climate changes and the population grows, meeting the demand for food will become more difficult as arable land declines. But an international team of scientists has figured out an innovative solution to dramatically bumping up crop yields.