Author: Holly Fortini

Elephant dung perfumes the air, a fresh, sweet smell, with undertones of sour vegetation. These balls of waste, scattered across the Kenyan savanna, carry the aroma of the bush, an open sea of acacia trees, aloe vera, Sansevieria, and drapes of elephant pudding, a succulent vine that tastes like salty snap beans but smells like […]

Theoretical physics milks symmetry to power its newest tool.

A neuroscientist studies ant colonies to understand feedback in the brain.

SATs are on their way out, but new tests aren’t quite ready.

Agriculture inspector Jim Conacher photographed these earthquake lights over Tagish Lake, in Canada’s Yukon Territory, in 1972Jim Conacher For centuries, people have been reporting mysterious lights along the ground and in the sky soon before an earthquake hits. But it wasn’t until 1966 that there was some solid evidence of the lights, when one man […]

Smart LEDs are installed in Newark Liberty International AirportThe Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Not so long ago, LEDs were like the slide rule of the lighting world, found mostly in the lovably geekiest of places: front panels of technical equipment, scientific kits for kids, and of course Radio Shack. But over […]

Technology has fed our addiction to light, and might help us end it.

Galapagos Finches are famous, yet Darwin learned more about evolution from the plants.

Sean Carroll and Alan Guth talk about time.

If the constitution of nature itself were changing in time, how would you know?