Desalination can help meet growing water needs globally. But toxic wastewater and inefficiency hamper current techniques. A new approach uses custom membranes to clean water more easily.
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Left turns are dangerous and slow down traffic. One solution? Get rid of them. New research shows that limiting left turns at busy intersections would improve safety and reduce frustrating backups.
After more than a year of idealizing life without COVID-19, people are starting to reenter ‘normal’ life. Clinical psychology provides guidance on how to prepare for your post-pandemic reboot.
Politics always influences what questions scientists ask. Their intertwined relationship becomes a problem when politics dictates what answers science is allowed to find.
The COVID-19 vaccines are a smash success. But that doesn’t mean they keep every vaccinated person completely free of the coronavirus.
The murky blobs visible with today’s wall-penetrating radar could soon give way to detailed images of people and things on the other side of a wall – and even measure people’s breathing and heart rate.
A meta-analysis of 437 studies found that egomaniacs aren’t just a bummer – they can be dangerous, too.
Record-keepers have a pretty good sense of how many people have died. But figuring out the cause of those deaths is a lot trickier – and that’s why reasonable modelers can disagree.
In the early morning of May 26, 2021, there will be a super blood-red lunar eclipse. The show will be spectacular and can all be explained by the orbits of the Earth and Moon.
In the coming decades, governments and private companies will set up permanent bases on the Moon and Mars. And at some point, the first galactic baby will be born.
Most people think of trust as active – you place your trust in someone or you don’t. But weak cybersecurity, like leaving your front door unlocked, is a matter of trust, too.
Most computer security focuses on software, but computer processors are vulnerable to hackers, too. An experimental secure processor changes its underlying structure before hackers can figure it out.
Pregnant women’s experiences can affect their babies’ health, even into adulthood. Researchers know societywide stresses can lead to these long-term consequences – and the pandemic likely fits the bill.
Disasters highlight the cost of society’s love of efficiency. Nature, in contrast, favors resilience. Being more like nature offers benefits for society, especially in the face of the climate crisis.
Cavity-free teeth depend on many factors, and heredity may not be the most important.
If emissions continue at their current pace, Antarctica will cross a threshold into runaway sea rise when today’s kids are raising families. Pulling CO2 out of the air later won’t stop the ice loss.
Chances are small that space junk will destroy property or harm a person, and existing space law could deal with such an event. But current law doesn’t address the bigger problem of space pollution.
Scientists are working on ways to make lots of energy by converting matter into energy. The trick is keeping the process under control. One possibility is nuclear fusion – the Sun’s power source.
Electronics are not the only technology to have been miniaturized. Using the strange behavior of fluids in tiny spaces, microfluidic devices are critical to medicine, science and the modern world.
For the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, every individual matters. A team of veterinarians and biologists has formed a network along the Gulf Coast to save injured sea turtles and the species.
A thriving black market for stolen personal data makes millions of people vulnerable to spies, spammers, scammers and hackers.
Are the descriptions of war passed down by ancient historians accurate? A site in Sicily provided a rare chance to fact-check stories told about two battles from more than 2,400 years ago.
Fetal brains are changing rapidly over the course of pregnancy, but so are the brains of mothers-to-be. Neuroscience research shows one way worry can start taking hold – and a simple way to help.
Fragmented authority for national cyber defense and the vulnerabilities of private companies that control software and infrastructure stack the deck against US cybersecurity.
DNA has been storing vast amounts of biological information for billions of years. Researchers are working to harness DNA for archiving data. A new method uses light to simplify the process.