A laser microscope made two nearly invisible fossils in one piece of amber legible enough to redraw a family tree.

A rock can spare a sea otter the dental cost of opening dinner.

The gel works like a two-part trap: salt attracts vapor, then a swelling polymer keeps the captured water from pooling away.

Anna Atkins laid seaweed on light-sensitive paper and let sunshine leave a white botanical ghost in a field of Prussian blue.

Most robots move their whole bodies through the world.

The battery can wait dry and quiet on a scrap of paper.

The recipe begins with egg white, but what enters the water is a black carbon aerogel—not breakfast floating in a pitcher.

Address a letter with the right floating ZIP Code, and a 45-foot boat can chase down the freighter carrying its recipient.

When Wikie produced a rough, breathy version of “hello,” the remarkable part was not conversation.

Researchers are slipping electrodes into fungal threads beneath a forest—not to eavesdrop on tree gossip, but to learn what the signals actually mean.