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Sometimes science advances at a snail’s pace, but in this case that’s a good thing: researchers have created a squishy material that combines polymers with liquid metal, demonstrated in a snail-like robot. Developers say this electrically conductive gel could be used to make self-healing electronic circuits and biological monitors for measuring heart and muscle activity—and […]

Thirty years ago, Blue Mountain Clinic Director Willa Craig stood in front of the sagging roof and broken windows of an abortion clinic that an arsonist had burned down early that morning in Missoula, Montana. “This morning, Missoula, Montana, learned that there is no place in America that is safe from hateful, misguided groups,” she told the […]

After several weeks of deliberation, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk handed down a decision that could alter the lives of the millions of Americans who can get pregnant. Kacsmaryk, an antiabortion jurist nominated by Donald Trump, issued a ruling staying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone, the most effective medication […]

Two high school students have proved the Pythagorean theorem in a way that one early 20th-century mathematician thought was impossible: using trigonometry. Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, both at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, announced their achievement last month at an American Mathematical Society meeting. “It’s an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there’s just nothing […]

Editor’s Note (4/10/23): On Friday a federal judge in Texas ordered a hold on federal approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for more than 20 years. The ruling is set to take effect within seven days of that order. On the same day a federal […]

Creatively tiling a bathroom floor isn’t just a stressful task for DIY home renovators. It is also one of the hardest problems in mathematics. For centuries, experts have been studying the special properties of tile shapes that can cover floors, kitchen backsplashes or infinitely large planes without leaving any gaps. Specifically, mathematicians are interested in […]

Allison Parshall: You’re listening to Science, Quickly. I’m Allison Parshall. [CLIP: Show theme music] [CLIP: Ambient sound from New York Botanical Garden visit, rain and faint voices of tourists] Parshall: It’s a rainy, early spring afternoon, and I’m at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Everyone else is here to see the orchids. […]

Scientists exploring a marine trench near Japan were astonished to find a fish in one of the deepest parts of the ocean, at 8,336 meters (about five miles) below the surface. The tadpole-shaped, translucent creature is a type of snailfish, and it’s probably the deepest fish anyone will ever find. “They can’t really go any […]

Public education has long been a battlefield in the U.S., from the Scopes trial to desegregation to climate change. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s recent demands for greater control over public education—and students’ bodies—in the guise of “parent’s rights” accelerates this conflict, rejecting the importance of learning as a public good in itself in favor of […]

GUATEMALA Scientists fired lasers from an airplane to map nearly 1,000 ancient Maya settlements underneath the rain-forest canopy. The technique revealed pyramids, reservoirs and canals, laying bare the stunning breadth and interconnectivity of the civilization around the millennia-old city of El Mirador. INDIA Geologists discovered 92 fossilized nests filled with 256 titanosaur eggs—one of the […]