Science

Yet if a school child’s parents replace a bedtime story with a math discussion even one night a week, the child’s math skill may improve markedly compared with peers who listen to nonmathematical stories, a new study shows.

An ancient landslide on an island volcano is providing a worrisome lesson about tsunamis, thanks to some geologic sleuthing. According to a new study in the Cape Verde archipelago, a landslide triggered a tsunami powerful enough to push massive boulders on a neighboring island onto a high plateau. The scientists warn that although such events…

Standing 2 meters tall and weighing as much as 1000 kilograms, European bison (Bison bonasus) are impressive animals. These cousins of the American bison—nearly driven to extinction in the last century—are being reintroduced in small herds across Europe, leading some farmers and forest managers to worry that the large herbivores will destroy their habitat.

On a blazingly hot morning this past June, a half-dozen scientists convened in a hotel conference room in suburban Maryland for the dress rehearsal of what they saw as a landmark event in the history of aging research. In a few hours, the group would meet with officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration…

Every second, trillions of neutrinos born at the center of the sun shoot through your body. They don’t hurt you, because these ghostly elementary particles almost never interact with matter. But astronomers report that nonetheless neutrinos forged much of the universe’s fluorine, an element added to toothpaste and water to fight cavities and whose cosmic…

A new method of risk assessment finds even areas that haven’t been historical hurricane hotspots may have cause for concern. The technique—a model that takes into account the physics of a storm as well as the shape of a region’s sea floor and coastline—offers city managers a better way to anticipate, and prepare for, disaster,…

The gods of today’s major religions are also moralizing gods, who encourage virtue and punish selfish and cruel people after death. But for most of human history, moralizing gods have been the exception. If today’s hunter-gatherers are any guide, for thousands of years our ancestors conceived of deities as utterly indifferent to the human realm,…

The next electric car you buy might have a little extra zip. That’s because researchers have developed a new electric storage material that’s among the best at holding large amounts of charge as well as charging and discharging in just seconds. Moreover, because the starting materials for making it are commercially available and relatively cheap,…

Weather-related crop disasters will become more likely with climate change, warns a detailed report released today by the Global Food Security (GFS) program, a network of public research funding agencies in the United Kingdom.