NASA's next Mars rover has passed its first driving test. A preliminary assessment of its activities on Dec. 17, 2019, found that the rover checked all the necessary boxes as it rolled forward and backward and pirouetted in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The next time the Mars 2020 rover drives, it will be rolling over Martian soil.

Researchers said Wednesday they believe they may have found the cause of mad cow disease, while stressing the need to maintain precautionary measures to avoid a potential re-emergence of the illness.

A fast, inexpensive yet sensitive technique to detect cancer markers is bringing researchers closer to a "liquid biopsy"—a test using a small sample of blood or serum to detect cancer, rather than the invasive tissue sampling routinely used for diagnosis.

While DNA sequencing is a useful tool for determining what's going on in a cell or a person's body, it only tells part of the story. Protein sequencing could soon give researchers a wider window into a cell's workings. A new study demonstrates that nanopores can be used to identify all 20 amino acids in proteins, a major step toward protein sequencing.

A new study published in Nature reports the 409-megabase genome sequence of the blue-petal water lily (Nymphaea colorata). The conclusion of the 47 coauthors is that although a rose is a rose, most flowering plants may owe their success, including employing floral scent for attracting pollinators, in part to the genetic innovations observed in the delicate water lily.

A new analysis of the changing character of runoff, river discharge and other hydrological cycle elements across the North Slope of Alaska reveals significant increases in the proportion of subsurface runoff and cold season discharge, changes the authors say are "consistent with warming and thawing permafrost."

Boeing's shiny new Starliner crew capsule makes its debut this week with a launch to the International Space Station, the company's last hurdle before flying astronauts for NASA next year.

Whether children will enjoy academic success can be now predicted at birth, a new study suggests.

India leads the world in pollution-linked deaths followed by China and Nigeria, according to a report published Wednesday that estimated the global impact of contaminants in the air, water and workplace.

Budgeting resources isn't just a problem for humans preparing a holiday dinner, or squirrels storing up nuts for the winter.

It's been nearly 350 years since Sir Isaac Newton outlined the laws of motion, claiming "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." These laws laid the foundation to understand our solar system and, more broadly, to understand the relationship between a body of mass and the forces that act upon it. However, Newton's groundbreaking work also created a pickle that has baffled...

How can predators coexist with their prey over long periods without the predators completely depleting the resource that keeps them alive? Experiments performed over a period of 10 years by researchers from McGill University and the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam have now confirmed that regular oscillations in predator-prey populations can persist over very long periods

Ancient Neolithic villagers on the Carmel Coast in Israel built a seawall to protect their settlement against rising sea levels in the Mediterranean, revealing humanity's struggle against rising oceans and flooding stretches back thousands of years.

Alone, as a pair or in groups—the diversity in social systems of primates is interesting because it may also provide insights into human social life. An evolutionary biologist from the German Primate Center—Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, together with a colleague from the University of Texas at San Antonio, investigated how different primate societies evolved and which factors may be...

A fresh, comprehensive look at archaeological data suggests that seafaring South Americans settled first on the large northernmost islands of the Greater Antilles rather than gradually moving northward from the much closer, smaller islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Domesticated rice has fatter seed grains with higher starch content than its wild rice relatives—the result of many generations of preferential seed sorting and sowing. But even though rice was the first crop to be fully sequenced, scientists have only documented a few of the genetic changes that made rice into a staple food for more than half the world's population.

Experiences of racial discrimination are a common source of stress for African Americans, and research shows discrimination can have a damaging impact on the physical and emotional health of African American individuals.

A feature resembling a candy cane appears at the center of this colorful composite image of our Milky Way galaxy's central zone. But this is no cosmic confection. It spans 190 light-years and is one of a set of long, thin strands of ionized gas called filaments that emit radio waves.

All of a sudden, a tiny NASA-funded satellite, one of many passengers aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, shot into the sky on a mission to prove its new technology could change the way we measure Earth, and eventually, the Moon.

Cities in the "global south"—densely populated urban areas that are part of low-income countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America—should phase out pit latrines, septic tanks and other on-site methods of human waste management.

Scientists have long known that platinum is by far the best catalyst for splitting water molecules to produce hydrogen gas. A new study by Brown University researchers shows why platinum works so well—and it's not the reason that's been assumed.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing a statewide ban on plastic foam containers, including products like coffee cups and packing peanuts.

Data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite revealed that an explosion in a natural gas well in Ohio in February 2018 released more than 50 000 tons of methane into the atmosphere. The blowout leaked more of this potent greenhouse gas in 20 days than the majority of many European nations do in a year from their oil and gas industries.

Are you ready to get entangled in the science of the very small? That's the thread running through a new anthology, Quantum Shorts: Collected Flash Fiction Inspired by Quantum Physics.