A new study suggests a half-ton bird roamed Europe nearly 2 million years ago, around when our Homo predecessors were first entering the region.

Octopuses “think” with neurons so distributed throughout their bodies that sometimes the left hand literally doesn’t know what the…left hand is doing.

In Côte d’Ivoire, employees at Fairtrade-certified cocoa cooperatives have higher salaries and better working conditions than those at non-certified organizations. Farm laborers, on the other hand, don’t fare as well.

Freezing soap bubbles look like snow globes. This whimsical effect could help us improve biological freezing techniques—and is incredibly fun to watch.

A study finds that close to a trillion trees could potentially be planted on Earth—enough to sequester more than 200 billion tons of carbon. But environmental change on this scale is no easy task.

A new analysis of a skull found in Greece decades ago suggests that early humans may have been in Eurasia as early as 210,000 years ago.

The breakthrough suggests that bots can navigate complex games involving multiple stakeholders and hidden information—situations that better approximate the real world than two-player board games.

Quantum physics impacts the technology students use every day. Use these resources from NOVA broadcasts, NOVA Digital, and What the Physics!? to introduce quantum concepts to your classroom.

Human-made shields that block UV rays and concentrate heat on the Martian surface could provide both liquid water and protection from radiation.

Neutron star innards are not your mom’s lasagna.

Girls are great at math. But if they’re even better at reading, they might be more motivated to choose a humanities-focused career.

Researchers are developing robots that use AI to read emotions and social cues, making them better at interacting with humans. Are they a solution to labor shortages in fields like health care and education, a threat to human workers, or both?

Even while still in their eggs, baby birds can hear their parents’ alarm calls. They then pass the message along to unhatched siblings so the entire clutch emerges aware of the dangers ahead.

Combining two insect-control techniques, researchers largely prevented reproduction in a mosquito species known to carry Zika, dengue, and yellow fever.

Researchers have built a prosthesis that enabled a man who lost his hand to text, pluck grapes from their stems, and stuff a pillow into its case.

The border collie achieved international fame for her remarkable grasp on vocabulary and sentence structure.

Physicists built a machine that might help explain how solar wind forms—all without leaving Earth’s atmosphere.

This crustacean-like critter stalked the seas half a billion years ago.

An AI chip designed to mimic certain aspects of the human brain has given a bicycle an unprecedented level of autonomy.

These two genes are all it takes to determine the sex of a kiwifruit.

With a goal to empower youth to tell stories about the world in new ways, NOVA Science Studio was able to give students exposure to a wide range of careers in STEM, journalism, and media production.

Researchers are using fluid dynamics to try to improve the study of crime scene blood spatter.

The burnt ruins of a Maya city in what’s now Guatemala hold clues to its untimely demise at the turn of the 7th century.

A rare iron isotope produced by exploding stars has been found in Antarctic snow.

Both treatments rely on infusing patients with antibodies that latch onto the virus and block it from invading cells.

The long-sought molecule could one day power high-energy electronics.

The LIGO and Virgo observatories appear to have picked up gravitational waves from a first-of-its-kind astronomical observation.

Experiments in Chile’s Atacama Desert point to a potential method of transportation for microbes on Mars—whether they exist there already, or we introduce them.

The virus simmered quietly in Cuba for about a year before infecting thousands.

But it’s not clear whether elevated cholesterol is bad for birds.

Scientists injected CRISPR gene-editing machinery into unfertilized eggs still developing in female lizards’ ovaries.

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.

The technology is still in its infancy, but could someday aid the development of faster, more energy-efficient electronics.

The feathery glint startles their rodent prey, making them easier to catch.

These nosy rodents may not speak bird-ese, per se, but they can still use avian chatter as a safety cue.

New findings suggest Neanderthals evolved their unusually broad fingers after they split from Denisovans, just 400,000 years ago.

Lava descending into Hawai‘i’s ocean drove an upward surge of deep sea nutrients, cultivating life at the surface.

That earns this fish, Electrophorus voltai, the title of the strongest known living source of electricity.

Two men born without arms showcase the brain’s extraordinary flexibility.

Delays during migration can imperil birds’ chances of a successful breeding season.

The gargantuan structures hint at a massive explosion in our galaxy’s past.

In the largest Arctic expedition yet, researchers will gather as much data as they can on the fading ice—and climate change.

That spells trouble for the entire planet.

They’re not as aloof as some think.

Gut microbes react differently to raw and cooked versions of the same foods.

Researchers used rabbits and antidepressants to search for a link between orgasm and ovulation in female mammals.

A pair of physicists think it’s possible that a tiny black hole left over from the universe’s early days lurks in the outer solar system.

A new analysis predicts that 3,196 animals will join the 5,579 already snared in the global wildlife market.

Light from nearby galaxies illuminated the web’s ‘threads,’ making them directly visible to telescopes on Earth.

Even forests that look green from space can show symptoms of impending decline.