Science

In the 1997 movie “Contact,” Jodie Foster plays an astronomer, Ellie Arroway, who detects an alien radio signal from outer space. Eventually the fictional Dr. Arroway goes on a trip through hyperspace...

They can bolster the coastlines, break the force of hurtling waves, provide housing for fish, shellfish, and migrating birds, clean the water, store as much as 5 percent of the world’s carbon...

Even in medieval times, recycling was in vogue: Bits of parchment salvaged from older handwritten manuscripts were often used to reinforce other books. Using CT scanning, a team of researchers has now...

If a multiday blackout in Phoenix coincided with a heat wave, nearly half the population would require emergency department care for heat stroke or other heat-related illnesses, a new study suggests.While Phoenix...

Four decades ago, medical researchers reached out to ailing families in Colombia for insights into Huntington’s disease. Scientists are just now following up, hoping it’s not too late.

Some 252 million years ago, it was a disastrous time to be alive. Erupting supervolcanoes destabilized ecosystems, plunging the planet’s living things into a series of extinctions over the course of a...

Arizona, California and Nevada have agreed to take less water from the drought-strained Colorado River, a breakthrough agreement that, for now, keeps the river from falling so low that it would jeopardize...

Some numbers are odd:1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 …Some are even:2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 …And then there are the puzzling “eban” numbers:2, 4, 6, 30,...

When Jace Tunnell spotted what appeared to be a leg on the Gulf of Mexico shoreline in Texas, he thought that his greatest fear — a body washing up on the beach...

The four-bedroom house that Ray and Beth Nygren had lived in for 20 years in Auburn, Wash., measured about 2,400 square feet. The two-bedroom apartment that awaited them in a nearby independent-...