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How cutting-edge engineering borrows nature’s innovations
In the never-ending hunt for new designs that jump, pump, or run faster and better, scientists are finding inspiration in nature. The field of biomimicry blurs boundaries between living things -- like the butterfly’s proboscis or the flea's powerful legs…
How to teach a honeybee to do math
Despite their “miniature brains,” honeybees can harness both long-term rules and short-term memory in order to solve math problems.
Not so long ago, cities were starved for trees. That inspired a fight against urban warming
Sixty years ago, urban tree planters stood on the front lines of fighting climate change.
300 million years ago, our ancestors walked tall. This robot shows you how
The fictional Sherlock Holmes could read footprints — in soil, snow, carpet, dust and even blood. Researchers today are similarly using tracks caught in stone — plus a robot — to recreate a creature that lived 300 million years ago.
With sea ice reduced, polar bear attacks are rising. Concerned Inuit communities want to increase hunting quotas, but researchers are testing new technologies they hope will reduce these often deadly confrontations.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of kittens end up in animal shelters, in need of permanent homes. So researchers and shelters are trying to figure out ways to make it easier.
As more humans move into concrete jungles, other animals, like túngara frogs, are joining them — and adjusting their behaviors along the way.
Lonesome George, a wizened Galapagos giant tortoise, was the last of his kind. Now, researchers are using the iconic tortoise’s genetic material to better understand what it takes to live a long life.
Humans produce 420 million tons of plastic annually, most of which lands in the environment. With these two innovations, plastic could have a useful second life.
