The Higgs boson, the pope, and the curious interaction between organized religion and big science.
Planets form more commonly in star systems with relatively high concentrations of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, a new study suggests. Such heavier elements are necessary to form the dust grains and planetesimals that build planetary cores, according to the study, which was carried out by researchers Jarrett Johnson and Hui Li of Los…
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson relates his personal story of how he became a scientist and his peak spiritual experiences in doing science—including his comprehension that “we are made of stardust!”
A second term frees the President to end his climate change silence and perhaps spur on a global deal, but he still needs to win Republican support on Capitol Hill
When in our evolution did we humans become so clever, so creative, so boundlessly ingenious? Writer Heather Pringle tackles exactly this question in the cover story of the March issue of Scientific American. The answer, in a nutshell, is rather earlier than scientists traditionally thought, which itself raises all sorts of questions about what factors…
Scientists have identified the largest ancient Mayan dam, constructed from stone and holding back around 20 million gallons of water in a man-made reservoir. The Tikal dam stretched more than 260 feet in length and was 33 feet high, and sheds new light on how the Maya conserved their natural resources for over 1,500 years….
The rate of star formation in the universe has dropped to just 3% of its long-ago peak, and there’s no end in sight to the decline, a new study finds. A team of astronomers has determined that the rate of star birth peaked around 11 billion years ago, just 2.7 billion years after the Big…