Smart News

The CAP canal is pictured running past houses and businesses it feeds in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Central Arizona Project is a 336-mile, man-made river of canals that delivers water from the Colorado River basin uphill to service water needs in southern Arizona, including Tucson and Phoenix.

New Research

Don’t Bank on Groundwater to Fight Off Western Drought—It's Drying Out, Too

Water losses in the west have been dominated by dwindling groundwater supplies

New Research

Researchers Crack the Code of First Impressions

Mathematics identifies the subtle facial features that influence how we judge others

Across the country, families lost houses like this one—and a substantial portion of their household wealth—during the financial crisis.

New Research

The Average American Household Lost a Third of Its Net Worth During the Recession

A new study shows how much, exactly, the 2008 recession contributed to rising inequality in America

New Research

DDT Is Still Killing Birds in Michigan

DDT was banned in the United States more than 40 years ago, but it's still killing birds in a town in Michigan

Balan, the Blowpipe maker.

Cool Finds

Meet One of the Last Bornean Elders Who Still Makes Traditional Poison Dart Blowpipes

It takes two days of constant drilling by hand to create a single pipe, which can be used to hunting animals

This Monet reproduction is composed of tiny bits of metal assembled on the micron scale.

New Research

This Monet Isn't the Real Thing—But It's Awfully Close

Nanoprinters can duplicate great artwork with remarkable precision

Lead from mining operations in Broken Hill, Australia, reached Antarctica before humans did.

Cool Finds

Pollution Beat People to the South Pole

Before people ever made it to the South Pole, a pollutant had beaten us there

Giant pandas Hsing-Hsing (left) and Ling-Ling frolic at the National Zoological Park near Washington, DC. Photo circa 1974.

Cool Finds

Don't Worry Mr. Nixon, the National Zoo's Pandas Figured Out How to Have Sex

President Nixon wanted to make sure Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing had enough time to "learn the ropes"

Trending Today

It Will Soon Be Legal (Again) To Unlock Your Phone

A new law expected to go into effect soon will make it legal to unlock your phone

New Research

How a Flock of 400 Flying Birds Manages to Turn in Just Half a Second

The birds' patterns of movement are surprisingly similar to that of superfluid helium

The Bahamian Andros Island, surrounded by the bright blue of Great Bahama Bank.

New Research

Saharan Dust Helped Build the Bahamas

Minerals blown off the Sahara fuel the microbes that undergird the Bahaman ecosystem

A baby chimp in the 1950s

Cool Finds

This Guy Simultaneously Raised a Chimp and a Baby in Exactly the Same Way to See What Would Happen

When treated as a human, the baby chimp acted like one—until her physiology and development held her back

We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to mimic a mangrove tree, basically.

Trending Today

Texas Just Started Building the Largest Carbon Capture Facility Ever

The plant will soak up most of the emissions from its coal-fired power production

Cool Finds

These Sexy Geckos are Lost in Space

These lizards have been accidentally left to fornicate all alone among the stars

The original expedition to Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave, more than 30 years ago.

Cool Finds

A Wyoming Cave Full Of Ice Age Animal Bones is Finally Being Opened To Scientists

After being closed for three decades, a remote sinkhole full of ancient bones will be opened to researchers

New Research

Schadenfreude is a Childish Emotion

Even two-year-olds find the twisted joy in others' pain

The small lakes that dot Russia's Yamal Peninsula were likely formed in the same was as the two strange holes.

Trending Today

That Weird Siberian Hole Has a Twin

Melting permafrost can change the land in really strange—and sometimes dangerous—ways

A tiger skin openly for sale at Mong La.

Cool Finds

This Market Along the Burma-China Border Is a Veritable Noah’s Ark of Critically Endangered Animals

Photographer Alex Hofford exposed the extent of the wildlife trade openly taking place at this infamous market

New Research

Your Dog Might Be Jealous

How much is that green-eyed doggy in the window?

Trending Today

Shale Oil May be Making Railroad Oil Transport More Dangerous

The rise of shale oil and longer shipping distances have spurred railroad regulators' push to update oil cars

Page 783 of 980