Science

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, or NASEM, is an independent, 162-year-old nongovernmental agency tasked with investigating and reporting on a wide range of subjects. In recent years, diversity, equity...

In some cases, these health problems arose as byproducts of inbreeding. Because breeds are genetically closed populations, a disease-causing mutation that just happens to pop up in one dog can quickly become...

Since December, astronomers have been carefully studying whether an asteroid between 130 and 300 feet long will impact the Earth in just under eight years. And the odds, overall, seem to be...

Cursing is coursing through society. Words once too blue to publicly utter have become increasingly commonplace. “Language is just part of the whole shift to a more casual lifestyle,” said Timothy Jay,...

An abandoned gunpowder storage shed pokes out from a small mound of earth in what’s now a nature preserve in Northern Ireland. It is the perfect place for a spider: semi-subterranean, cool...

Cats that became infected with bird flu might have spread the virus to humans in the same household and vice versa, according to data that briefly appeared online in a report from...

The English language is full of wonderful words, from “anemone” and “aurora” to “zenith” and “zodiac.”But these are special occasion words, sprinkled sparingly into writing and conversation. The words in heaviest rotation...

When Andreas Fichtner unspooled a fiber-optic cable into a deep hole in Greenland’s ice, he wasn’t expecting to discover a whole new way that glaciers move. Even when the cable started sending...

The vast majority of plants are hermaphrodites, with both male and female reproductive parts. Oaks, some orchids, the potted spider plant in your office — they’re all capable of reproducing without a...

Susan F. Wood, a women’s health expert who resigned in protest from the Food and Drug Administration in 2005, accusing the agency of knuckling under to politics by not approving over-the-counter sales...