Sir Isaac Newton once wrote, in what must be one of the most oft-quoted lines in the history of science, "If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." Well, any of us who ...

The story behind the centuries-long decipherment of ancient Maya hieroglyphs.

Across the Arabian Desert lie colossal, enigmatic structures, some stretching for miles, visible only from the sky. Rediscovered a century ago and once believed to be defensive or ritualistic in ...

Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. The invention that set the stage for the telescope was the ...

On March 26, 2024, the world collectively gasped as a massive container ship, the Dali, lost control and plowed into the landmark Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The busy four-lane bridge ...

Once you’ve seen a slime mold—its gooey, delicately branching structure oozing in a vaguely unsettling way along a log or leaf—you’re unlikely to forget it. They’re unmistakable because there’s ...

Patterns of lines and dots associated with specific animal species in cave art may point to an early writing system. The four dots painted across the back of this aurochs (wild ox) in the Lascaux cave ...

At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, snowboarding made its debut as an Olympic sport. No longer relegated to the fringes, snowboarders took to the snow-capped peaks of Mount Yakebitai, and 26 ...

Ask a materials scientist to choose the strongest material, and you are likely to get a question instead of an answer. What kind of strong? Tensile strength? Toughness? Yield strength? Hardness? When ...

There’s truly nothing like a pretty sunset. As the sun sets, the heavens above are like cotton candy: lighting up with a beautiful display of deep reds, vibrant oranges, and intense pinks. Simply put, ...

Artifacts unearthed in Idaho challenge the idea that the first people to populate the Americas made the journey on foot around the end of the Ice Age. An Oregon State University field school student ...

What if the fundamental “stuff” of the universe isn’t matter or energy, but information? That’s the idea some theorists are pursuing as they search for ever-more elegant and concise descriptions of ...