Echinacea might be useful as a cold remedy or preventative, but science hasn't shown it yet.

A new study raises doubts about fractal patterns in animal behavior.

Scientists are developing a new branch of network theory to understand zebra communities.

Award-winning video reveals the simplicity and beauty of an abstract mathematical tool.

Award-winning video reveals the simplicity and beauty of an abstract mathematical tool.

Young children who show sophisticated story-telling skills go on to demonstrate greater mathematical ability.

A supercomputer model fed by real-time data is beginning to make sense of the seemingly unpredictable movement of wildfires.

A researcher uses game theory to predict the outcome of political and business challenges, including the current dispute with Iran over nuclear technology.

A theoretical study of the way skin, apple peel, and bedsheets wrinkle has won this year's Ig Nobel Prize in Physics.

A piece of string tumbled over and over quickly develops knots, explaining why your headphone cords are always in a tangle.

A long-lost work by Archimedes shows his subtle grasp of the notion of infinity, and how close he was to developing calculus.

Across some arid landscapes, sparse vegetation grows in fractal patterns that hold clues to its resilience.

Eruptions of open conflict between ethnic or religious groups have a lot to do with the way communities are geographically distributed.

Economic forces alone can explain why social segregation leads to inequalities in wealth and achievement.