At the core of quantum computing is the qubit. The best ones have a few defining traits, and scientists are looking to everything from lasers to Russian diamonds to help refine the best qubits for the next generation of quantum computing.

A bacterial “probiotic” may enhance athletic performance. But it’s a long way from being ready for use in humans.

In the late 1970s, a harbor seal named Hoover began catcalling passersby at the New England Aquarium in a thick Maine accent. A new study confirms seals’ uncanny ability to copy human speech.

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.

A new study reveals that some European Neanderthals might have displaced their relatives in Siberia, while others mingled with another, still mysterious, ancient human population.

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.

Two research teams went into the weeds to quantify the magic behind the flight of the dandelion seed.

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.

Good news for bugs that weigh less than a sesame seed.

How “change blindness” prevents you from seeing this 10 of clubs turn into an ace of spades.

Deep sleep and REM sleep could be universal among vertebrates, stretching 450 million years back in evolutionary time.

A swine virus that appeared in the U.S. in 2013 has proven hard to track. But an algorithm might help researchers predict the next outbreak.

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.

A chicken-sized raptor relative adds credence to the idea that flight evolved multiple times among ground-faring dinosaurs.

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?

There are a heck of a lot of reasons not to.

A new fossil find may help pinpoint the origins of mammals’ uber-flexible hyoid bone, which anchors the tongue and gives us our signature swallowing style.

Killing red tide cells en masse can unleash their potent toxin. That means researchers need to get creative.

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.

A new analysis pinpoints some of the most ancient stars in our galaxy—and tells the story of the Milky Way’s ravenous past.

A sobering analysis suggests that animal species aren’t adapting fast enough to maintain their numbers in the face of rising temperatures.

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

Under extreme conditions, a human can produce more than three gallons of sweat in a single day.

PBS leads the list with 47 nominations.

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.

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

The trifecta, discovered by NASA’s TESS, includes a “super-Earth” and two “sub-Neptunes” in a system called TOI-270.

Using data from an especially bright population of stars, astronomers have reconstructed the Milky Way’s peaks and valleys like never before.

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.

Two kinds of glow-in-the-dark catsharks convert blue light to green, and now we know how.

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

Researchers eroding clay in water may have uncovered secrets of meteorites’ aerodynamic stability.

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

A computer simulation suggests that a massive collision may have caused Jupiter’s core to shatter into a gassy, borderless cloud.

Scientists studying diamonds from deep within Earth’s mantle found evidence of a reservoir of rocks and gas that may be nearly as old as the planet itself.

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

For Anelosimus studiosus spiders, the storm survival checklist apparently includes a combative personality.

With the right kind of care, plenty of plants actually do just fine in microgravity.