History of Science

In searches for past and present Martian life, some scientists say we’ve been too cautious to see what’s right in front of us

The 2026 Fields Medals recognize breakthroughs in the math of messy fluids, tangled knots, spinning pencils, and more

After decades of debate, the scientific case is clear for Europe’s Future Circular Collider, a colossal successor to the Large Hadron Collider. But transforming this megaproject from vision to reality is far from guaranteed

On Thursday Knicks fans are flocking to Manhattan for a ticker-tape parade. But where did ticker tape even come from?

It’s a complicated time to be a young scientist in America. Lessons from history can tell us what the future might hold

Could a predecessor to the phonograph have appeared a century earlier?

The problem with Pluto isn’t its planetary or nonplanetary status—it’s our insistence on declaring the world must be one or the other

After winning a Breakthrough Prize, the world’s most lucrative science award, theoretical physicist David Gross is using the moment to warn of nuclear war’s existential threat—and how we can escape it

The triumph of NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in a half-century is a reminder of what the moon really means for Earth—and why we’re going back

A new calculation helps narrow down the mass of the W boson, one of the heaviest fundamental particles in the universe

A daring 10-day voyage took four astronauts on a loop around the moon and set the stage for future forays to the lunar surface

Agnes Pockels achievements in surface science have long been overshadowed by a popular and likely untrue story that she became interested in the subject while doing the dishes