Life

Brain

Scientists Say: Brainwaves

These patterns of electrical activity in the brain look like spikes or waves.

Animals

Let’s learn about electric eels

Learn about where an electric eel’s powerful jolt comes from and more with this collection of stories.

Brain

Zapping the brain may make it work right again

Sending electrical zaps to electrodes implanted deep in the brain can help people with Parkinson’s disease, depression and even obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Fossils

Let’s learn about dinosaur extinction

Dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous. What made them go extinct?

Animals

Pandas use their heads as a kind of extra limb for climbing

Their short legs on a stout bear body mean pandas use a rare technique to climb up a tree.

Environment

Decades-long project is linking our health to the environment

Started in 1959, this California study is one of the oldest ongoing research projects in the world.

Brain

Do you sleep enough to banish unpleasant moods?

A large, long-term study in kids has linked getting too little shuteye with mood and behavior problems.

Chemistry

Scientists Say: Fermentation

Fermentation breaks down carbohydrates, such as sugars, producing energy and making gases, acids or alcohol. This process can help make foods and fuels.

Animals

Here’s how butterfly wings keep cool in the sun

Butterfly wings sport structures that let living tissues release more heat than the rest of the wing.

Genetics

Answers to your questions on the new coronavirus

As SARS-CoV-2 spreads globally, researchers are looking for answers on why this novel coronavirus is so infectious and hard to control.

Animals

What would it take to make a unicorn?

Onward’s dumpster-diving unicorns seem like an impossibility. But scientists have some ideas about how unicorns could become real.

Earth

Scientists Say: Fossil

Under the right conditions, living things or traces they’ve left behind can be preserved in rock for a long time — millions or billions of years.