Prime numbers are sometimes called math’s “atoms” because they can be divided by only themselves and 1. For two millennia, mathematicians have wondered if the prime numbers are truly random, or if ...

When astronauts returned from NASA's final Apollo moon mission in 1972, some of the samples they collected were sealed and carefully stored away in the hope that future researchers using advanced ...

New studies of the “platypus of materials” help explain how their atoms arrange themselves into orderly, but nonrepeating, patterns.

Virtual particles may not be real, but they help physicists track how forces move, and allow for incredibly precise measurements in particle physics.

A clever mathematical tool known as virtual particles unlocks the strange and mysterious inner workings of subatomic particles. What happens to these ...

Uncover the groundbreaking contributions of these famous scientists. Discover how their innovative discoveries and inventions profoundly shape our world today ...

In a new study, scientists have shown that chemical receptors that plants use to recognize nitrogen-fixing bacteria have developed the same function independently on at least three separate occasions ...

Low nitrogen availability is the number one limitation to plant growth in most ecosystems. Farmers compensate by adding nitrogen-rich fertilizers to their crops, which is expensive and harmful to the ...

“Negative time” might sound like science fiction, but an international team of theorists and experimentalists has determined that a photon can, in fact, spend a negative amount of time in an excited ...