Geoff Brumfiel

After a botched redesign in 2010 caused the ball to behave erratically, independent scientists have carefully studied the new ball.

The U.S. military is closing a facility scientists have used to study the edge of Earth's atmosphere. Conspiracy theorists suspect it's also been used for nefarious activity — like mind control.

Workers are building an underground ice wall around the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. The wall is the latest attempt to try to keep radioactive water from leaking out of the plant.

Yesterday, entrepreneur Elon Musk sauntered on to stage and unveiled his latest product: not a smart phone, but a spaceship.

The Dragon V2, as it's called, looks like a giant shuttlecock with feet. It's set to be the first all-new U.S. spacecraft to take astronauts into orbit since the

The private space flight company SpaceX has unveiled the manned version of its Dragon space capsule at its California headquarters. Founder Elon Musk has promised to make space flight inexpensive.

Amid California's drought, some big farmers and corporations have unrestricted water because of special deals. David Greene talks to Jay Lund, a water resources professor at UC Davis.

For a few hours Tuesday, cosmic storm chasers thought they'd detected a huge explosion in the Andromeda galaxy.

The release came in response to pressure from families, who have been mistrustful of the official investigation. What do the documents show, and where are they in the search for the missing plane?

The release of plutonium at a New Mexico nuclear dump may have been caused by a bad purchase at the pet shop.

Fifty years ago today, two astronomers in New Jersey accidentally discovered the Big Bang's afterglow. The roaring space static their hilltop antenna detected came from the birth of the universe.

The California-based maker of the Falcon 9 is hoping to break up a monopoly on the launch market for national security satellites.

The wave of expectations that marked Hassan Rouhani's rise to power has given way to impatience from his supporters and attacks from his critics.

NASA's Curiosity rover is on an epic trip to a distant mountain, but it took a brief break Wednesday to dip its drill into the Martian soil.

The drilling is taking place at a place called Waypoint Kimberley. The area is a point of convergence for several different types of ...

For decades, a mysterious quacking "bio-duck" has been heard roaming the waters of the Southern Ocean. Now scientists say the source is a whale.

In the '60s, submarines picked up a mysterious quacking sound in the Southern Ocean. New research shows that the quack is coming from minke whales, but researchers still don't know why.

A 325 million-year-old fossil find shows that the gill structures of modern sharks are actually quite different from their ancient ancestors.

One month ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. An international search team has spent weeks combing the Indian Ocean for signs of the missing Boeing 777. Here's a summary of where we are with the hunt for the jetliner.

What ...

It's been one month since Malaysian Air flight 370 vanished with 239 people aboard. Even after combing thousands of miles of ocean for wreckage, the jetliner's disappearance remains largely a mystery.

Australia and China both claim to hear underwater pings from the missing Malaysian jet's black boxes. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel explains the pings, why they're tough to verify and what might happen next.

One researcher who participated in the latest U.N. report on climate change says the final product is simply too depressing. Others say the somber tone is justified — but that humans can also adapt.