Found: Three new planets

Not all solar systems are as tidy as ours, but a new discovery means we're not quite so alone anymore.

Crop Insurance Helps Farmers, Hurts Others During Drought

Crop insurance helps ease the pain for the agricultural sector -- but increases it for everyone else

Tribute: Sally Ride, First American Woman in Space

Here's how Sally Ride knew she was special: The day she was assigned to her first space flight, she was summoned to meet with Chris Kraft. Kraft was the soon-to-retire director of the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston

Artificial Jellyfish Created to Study Human Tissue Repair

A synthetic version of the common critter could be a boon to human health

Found: A Baby Galaxy

Galaxies are supposed to out clumpy and, well, kind of ugly. But a new find changes all that.

Running Across a Gooey Pool

A familiar party game involving cornstarch, water and a wading pool is explained at last

The Power Grid: From Rickety to Resilient

Blackouts will become more common unless we build a system that can bend but not break

What is Life? Venter Explains

The man who sequenced the genome and invented a bacterium tackles the ultimate question

Venter on the meaning of life

The man who cracked the human genome and invented his own bacterium, gives an historic talk in an historic place

Found: Invisible Galaxies

They're out there -- perhaps a lot of them -- and now there's a way to find them

Q&A with Higgs discoverers

Thousands of scientists from dozens of countries helped find the Higgs boson, but these three took the lead

Mystery of the Stardust Cloud That Vanished

A shrouded star suddenly turns clear. Are baby planets involved?

Now Do You Believe in Global Warming?

A blistering summer is at last changing some minds -- but the story remains complicated

Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Fills a Cosmic Void

Black holes once came only in tall and venti; not there's a grande in the middle

Fireworks for the Physicists: A Higgs Is Found

An elementary particle that is the cornerstone of of physics has at last been confirmed

Higgs Boson: Geneva Announcement Coming on 'God Particle'

An announcement in Geneva could confirm a century's worth of physics -- or turn it on its head

New York City's Bicycle Wars

The mayor's bike-share plan should get more riders out there -- but that can spell trouble

Why Tomatoes Taste Bad: Science at Root of Missing Flavor

A single gene that codes for color and general loveliness also codes for blah

Ocean in Space -- on Titan

One of the solar system's most complex moons has a warm and watery heart

Physics of the Love Parade Stampede

A disaster at a German music festival was the result of bad planning, bad luck -- and fluid dynamics

What the Failure of Rio+20 Means for the Climate

Expectations were extremely modest for the Rio+20 Earth Summit that ended last week -- and the best thing that might be said about the conference is that it managed to clear that low bar

Quasars on a diet

Some of the universe's most brilliant objects get by on a surprisingly spartan diet

As Rio+20 Unfolds, A U.N. Report Shows How Far We Have to Go to Save the Planet

An environmental report card

Rio+20 Earth Summit: Little Action Expected on Environment

Even as the world burns, the leaders of the great nations dither -- and that hurts us all

Moondust: Nanoparticles in Lunar Soil May Solve Mystery

Nanoparticles in lunar soil may explain its behavior -- offering help for future colonists

Lakes found on Titan

Saturn's biggest and most complex moon has a some decidedly Earth-like features

More Earths? Even Metal-Poor Stars Can Build Good Planets

The Kepler space telescope once again expands the population of planets that could be home to life

A Planet in Peril: Is Earth Approaching a Tipping Point?

It's not the fact that the global environment and the climate are changing that so worries many scientists. It's the rate of change

Rocket Man Elon Musk: The Man Who's Leading America's Charge Back to Space

The second space age, unlike the first one, is being driven by the private sector

NASA weighs asteroid -- really

An improbable set of calculations help NASA determine if Earth will get clobbered by a rogue rock