Chemistry

Many red-colored birds have to convert yellow pigments in their food into the red pigments that make their feathers and beaks so brilliant.

Chemists generate variations on erythromycin in "daring" synthesis

Synthetic polymerase is a small step along the way to mirrored life-forms

Imprinted polymers capture chemicals in sweat that cause body odor

Caltech theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll talks about his new book The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. (Dutton, 2016)

Caltech theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll talks about the necessary connections among the various ways we have of describing the universe.

Data from failed experiments combines with machine learning to predict successful chemical reactions and form new hypotheses 

A chemical compound can cut a cow's methane emissions by 30 percent—and help the animal get more energy from its food. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Former Scientific American editor Mark Alpert talks about his latest science fiction thriller, The Orion Plan, featuring the method whereby aliens most likely really would colonize our planet.
 

As hoped-for precipitation from El Niño falls short, Los Angeles resorts to a controversial method to reap water from the sky

Crime expert Linda Stratmann describes 19th century efforts to understand what traces poison leaves on a body after death in this excerpt from her new book “The Secret Poisoner: A Century of Murder” 

Separating substances without using heat would lower global energy use, emissions and pollution