Homicide spreads like the flu, says study

Homicide moves through a community like an infectious disease, a finding that may help police track and even prevent murders.

Inspiration from a porcupine’s quills

Understanding the mechanisms behind quill penetration and extraction could help engineers design better medical devices.

Tiny structure gives big boost to solar power

Researchers have found a simple and economical way to nearly triple the efficiency of organic solar cells.

Want to help identify star clusters in Andromeda galaxy?

Astronomers are inviting the public to search Hubble Space Telescope images of the Andromeda galaxy to help identify star clusters.

New study reveals lions are rapidly losing ground in Africa

Suitable lion habitat reduced by 75 percent and wild lion population under decline.

Like us, great apes suffer mid-life crisis

They may not go out and buy a shiny sports car, but chimpanzees and orangutans can experience a mid-life crisis, just like humans.

NASA Mars rover fully analyzes first soil samples

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has analyzed Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil.

Have Venus volcanoes been caught in the act?

Astronomers have speculated for decades about active volcanoes on Venus. Do volcanoes erupt beneath Venus' clouds?

MESSENGER finds new evidence for water ice at Mercury’s poles

New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide compelling support for the long-held hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice in its polar craters.

For pandas, bamboo buffet may run short

China’s endangered wild pandas need bamboo to survive, but models show that climate change may kill it off in swaths.