Lasers and Drones Help Preserve Ancient Temples
3-D digital preservation not only helps save the memories of historical sites, it also guides restoration projects after natural disasters, such as the earthquakes that damaged the temples of Bagan...
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Parrot "Giggles" Trigger Play
Kea parrots have a special call that makes nearby parrots burst into play.
This Itch Is Infectious
Many social animals start to feel itchy after watching one of their fellows scratch, and scientists now have a better understanding of why an itch can spread through a group.
A Tasty Trove of Exoplanets at TRAPPIST-1
A baker’s half-dozen of Earth-size worlds is orbiting a (relatively) nearby star—and some could be habitable
TV Remembers the First Nuclear Bomb Test
Manh(a)ttan re-creates the race to Trinity. Working near the original test site revealed personal stories from the dawn of the nuclear age to the show’s cast and crew. Photo courtesy of U.S...
Rare Video of U.S. Seaplane Downed in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
The U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina airplane sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Click here for more videos and images.Video is courtesy of NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and was made in collaboration with the University of Hawaii Marine Option Program...
Chimps Want Us to Cook Their Food
You won’t see them on your favorite cooking show any time soon, but chimps prefer their food cooked and will bring items to be cooked before they eat them— Christopher Intagliata, Eliene Augenbraun, Benjamin Meyers...
Collecting Meteorites in Your Own Backyard
All it takes is a magnet and knowing where to look.
The Math behind the Polls
When polls try to tease out what a group of people is thinking, what are they measuring and how can they go wrong?
Eavesdrop on Ultrasonic Rat Giggles
Scientists used special microphones to let us listen in on a tickled rat’s titters.
Winter Boot Safety Is a Slippery Slope
Researchers put a tiny ice rink on a tipping platform to measure how much grip winter boots really have.
These Greek Villagers Whistle to Chat
Whistles let shepherds communicate between distant hillsides because a whistled sound wave travels farther than spoken words.
Corals Clash on the Ocean Floor
They may seem stationary to us, but corals are dynamic animals. In this film, researchers use time-lapse video to watch corals move along the ocean floor, unearth themselves when buried, and even attack each other for more real estate.“Lens of Time: Corals in Motion” was first published on bioGraphic and reproduced with permission...
An Olympic Showdown: Human versus Bat
Could the tiny vampire bat give Olympic sprinters in Rio a run for their money?
Designer Probiotics for Cancer
New research on mice demonstrates a way to use designer bacteria as a non-invasive test for cancer.
Juno Arrives at Jupiter
After a do-or-die engine burn the second spacecraft ever to orbit Jupiter is preparing to revolutionize our view of the giant planet
Fluorescence Is a State of Mind: Stefan Hell
How to break a fundamental law of physics and win a Nobel Prize to boot. Stefan Hell explains super-resolved fluorescence microscopy for which he shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry...
![Miniature Space Telescope Could Boost the Hunt for "Earth Proxima" [Video]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/E3EC5DD4-3FC5-44B5-94503492791436DB_agenda.jpg?w=275&h=154&fit=crop)
Miniature Space Telescope Could Boost the Hunt for "Earth Proxima" [Video]
A new film presents an innovative plan to image potentially habitable planets around our sun's closest stellar neighbor—Alpha Centauri
![YouTube's Rock Stars of Science Make a Splash at VidCon [Video]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/603E17C7-97C0-4F15-AB51D3AC04BF3FAE_agenda.jpg?w=275&h=154&fit=crop)
YouTube's Rock Stars of Science Make a Splash at VidCon [Video]
Last week, 20,000 screaming fans swamped YouTube celebrities at the world ’ s largest online video conference in Anaheim, California . Alongside the young celebrity musicians, beauty gurus and pranksters, was an imposing lineup of science rock stars – scientists who have risen to Internet fame through their educational and personality-driven original content. With tens of millions of views per video and hundreds of millions of views overall, these science YouTubers reach more young people today than Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson combined...
The World's Largest Volcano Is a Magnetic Muddle
New measurements of Tamu Massif, the world's largest volcano, indicate that it had a very complicated genesis.
