Stories by Charles Q. Choi

Off-the-shelf technology could ward off missile attacks on military helicopters

How tiny waves of matter may help missiles stay on track

Researchers mine Twitter and find gold

Humans are not the only species capable of empathy. Our closest relatives also show compassion and, like us, are more likely to offer comfort to kin and those socially close to them

A geologic field study explores whether expertise can be taught to novices

Quantum physicists have a novel plan for an experiment that uses the human eye to detect "spooky action at a distance"

In addition to reacting to news as it breaks, we work to anticipate what will happen. Here we contemplate 12 possibilities and rate their likelihood of happening by 2050

The process is extremely difficult, but it also seems inevitable

A field study tries to see how expertise can be taught to novices

A new approach to tiny fuel cells implanted in rats enables the devices to generate electricity for months using sugar in the rodents' bodies

Massive black holes should not have existed in a universe less than one billion years old, yet they did

Were Neandertals our mental equals?

It was hoped using reprogrammed mature cells would be a noncontroversial alternative to embryo-derived stem cells. But problems like low replication rates and early senescence have impeded their efficacy in generating differentiated cells

Did mammoths vanish before, during and after humans arrived?

Could the Puffin, an electric-powered flying suit, change the way we use the sky in war and peace?

A discovery of painted shells shows that Neandertals were capable of symbolism, sweeping away age-old thinking that they were stupid

Why you may have felt less manly after voting in the presidential elections

Three studies seem to disagree as to when mammoths, saber-toothed cats and other North American megafauna disappeared

Beyond cover sheets and TPS reports–white copy paper could be the basis for lightweight, inexpensive batteries

Ancestors of the duck-billed platypus and the echidna may have survived their live-birthing competitors by taking to the water

Man is by nature a political animal, according to Aristotle. Now it appears that political contests can biologically affect the nature of males--namely their testosterone levels

Technique could be a preferred substitute for replacing missing or damaged bones with titanium, donated bones or those harvested from elsewhere in a patient's body

Artificial Golgi apparatus uses voltage to shuttle molecules among nine electrodes, where they are modified by enzymes

The growing problem of spammers who use the names of real Web writers to create bogus blogs