Imagine taking a hike through a forest or a stroll through a zoo and not a sound fills the air, other than the occasional chirp from a cricket. No birds singing, no tigers roaring, no monkeys chattering, and no human voices, either. Acoustic communication among vertebrate animals is such a familiar experience that it seems impossible to imagine a world shrouded in silence.

Back in July 2018, researchers at Purdue University created the world’s fastest-spinning object, which whipped around at 60 billion rpm – and now that seems like the teacup ride at Disneyland. The same team has now broken its own record using the same technique

The genetics testing company 23andMe licensed the rights to a drug it developed in-house to a Spanish pharmaceutical company, Bloomberg reported. This is the first time that the company has directly sold a product it created using the genetic information collected from users.

By now, surely all of us are aware of the huge problem posed by plastic pollution. Humans created the material because of its durability, and now that very same durability means the stuff is clogging up our oceans and destroying marine habitats.

Often typecast as spear-wielding mammoth killers, some Neandertals were beachcombers and surf divers, researchers say. At Moscerini Cave, located on Italy’s western coast, Neandertals collected clamshells on the beach and retrieved others from the Mediterranean Sea, say archaeologist Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Boulder Museum of Natural History and her colleagues. Our close, now extinct evolutionary relatives waded or dove into shallow waters to collect shells that they sharpened into scraping or cutting tools, the researchers report January 15 in PLOS ONE.

Xenobots have been called the world's first "living robots". They are made entirely of living tissue, and can be programmed to move towards a certain object.

European researchers are working on a system that can churn out breathable oxygen from simulated samples of moon dust. “Being able to acquire oxygen from resources found on the Moon would obviously be hugely useful for future lunar settlers, both for breathing and in the local production of rocket fuel,” explained Beth Lomax, a chemist from the University of Glasgow, in an European Space Agency (ESA) press release.

“A Frankenstein material” is teeming with — and ultimately made by — photosynthetic microbes. And it can reproduce.

It’s not just a modern problem. Airborne toxins are so pernicious that they may have shaped our DNA over millions of years.

English is the world’s dominant scientific language, yet it has no word for the distinctive smell of cockroaches. What happens though, if you have no words for basic scientific terms?

A brain region called the hypothalamus is smaller among women who use birth control pills, compared with non-users, a new study finds.

The late Devonian mass extinction around 375 million years ago may not have really happened, according to an analysis using machine learning

Researchers hope the living robots, made up of masses of cells working in coordination, can help unlock the mysteries of cellular communication.

How many bites does it take to get to the center of an alligator corpse? Bottom-feeders in the Gulf of Mexico have just found out.

Complaining about winter is one of the few remaining bastions of reliably safe small talk. Some people protest—I absolutely love freezing—but most will happily engage in winter bashing. In addition to widespread access to heated homes, offices, and vehicles, new industries continue to emerge on the promise of combatting winter. Moisturizing skin-care regimens are sold as the only way to keep our skin in one piece, and massive down coats are deemed necessary for spending even a few minutes outside. Sun-imitating lamps and vitamins promise to help us maintain a will to live.

Every season has its characteristic star constellations in the night sky. Orion—one of the most recognizable—is distinctly visible on crisp, clear winter nights in the northern hemisphere. The constellation is easy to spot even in light-polluted cities, with its bright stars representing the shape of a person.

Researchers foresee myriad benefits for humanity, but also acknowledge ethical issues

Students calculate how many of the breaths they take each day come from the phytoplankton, Prochlorococcus. Students use data collection and calculations to understand how the health of the ocean affects their lives.

A team of Canadian astronomers have played a key role in locating a second fast radio burst, a crucial step in identifying what causes these mysterious signals from outside Earth's galaxy.