New evidence links the origin of these very energetic particles to massive explosions of distant stars.

Sensor wired into a rat’s brain lets it detect light the animal can’t see.

Scientists use poop from living animals to estimate the size of dung dropped by T. rex and other dinos.

Fluids in the inner ear can actually power an electronic device, such as an implant.

Scientists find shallow source of water for volcano’s hot springs.

These researchers don’t miss a clue.

Distant, carbon-rich world could contain one-third its weight in gems that are relatively rare on Earth.

When Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, he probably didn’t think much about the students who would painstakingly slog through the text hundreds of years later. This literary classic is loaded with references and expressions specific to its author’s time — part of what makes it so difficult to read, even with CliffsNotes to serve as a decoder ring. Likewise, people of the future will no doubt face tremendous challenges interpreting the texts of today. Far enough forward in time, it won’t just be an issue of literary style. To be understandable tens of thousands of years from ... (p. 26)

Ever make a big error on your homework? A really embarrassing one? Don’t worry. Even well-trained scientists can make a whopper of a mistake now and again. In the 1890s, paleontologist Florentino Ameghino began studying a small fossil skull that had been given to him by a local collector in Argentina. At first glance, the broad, chisel-like teeth at the front of the skull — the only part not covered with rock — looked like those belonging to lemurs. A distant relative of apes and monkeys, lemurs are a type of mammal that now lives only on the island off the eastern coast of Africa....

Diamonds have long been considered the world’s hardest material. Scrape one across any surface, and it will leave a scratch. Press one into any surface, and it will make a dent. But the prized mineral’s record status now appears in peril: Researchers have created a new material that may be even harder than diamond. Visit the new Science News for Kids website and read the full story: Harder than diamonds?