Nell Greenfieldboyce

A Black driver is more likely to face being searched, handcuffed, or arrested when a police officer's first words are commands rather than a greeting or an explanation.

Astronomers pointed the James Webb Space Telescope at a common kind of planet that's bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. What they saw wasn't what they expected.

For the first time, astronomers have caught a star in the act of swallowing a planet, providing a glimpse into how the sun may eventually eat up Earth.

Researchers have examined the genomes of 240 mammal species. The project reveals when mammals evolved, how some developed the ability to hibernate, and clues that may help explain humans' brains.

Congress set aside $2.5 billion for victims of New Mexico's biggest wildfire, started by accident by the U.S. Forest Service. A year after the fire, distributing that money is still in the works.

A study of plastic trash hauled out of the Pacific Ocean found that most of it had been colonized by coastal life that was thriving right next to species that normally live in the open sea.

Scientists have created a new version of a historic black hole image that was first unveiled back in 2019. The central black nothingness now looks larger and darker.

NASA has assigned astronauts to the first mission to bring humans to lunar orbit since the Apollo program more than a half century ago.

A strange comet-like object discovered over five years ago was the first known visitor from another solar system. Its movement was so odd that scientists struggled to explain it, until now.

Monkeys using stones to crack open nuts generate many stone flakes accidentally that look exactly like the ones archaeologists have long thought early humans made intentionally as tools. Oops.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid, directly altering its path through space. Scientists are still studying the space rock to learn more.

Researchers have found evidence of horseback riding in skeletal remains of people who lived about 5,000 years ago, adding to a body of research on when people first started using horses to get around.

Scientists are finally publishing all the details of what happened when a NASA spacecraft smashed into an asteroid to try to push it off course in September of 2022.

A plane loaded with scientists and their equipment has been flying through frozen skies this winter, sampling cloud particles to improve predictions of which storms will wreak havoc on the ground.

The first astronomer to discover moons around Jupiter was Galileo, back in the year 1610, but astronomers are still finding more and more moons around this gas giant.

Astronomers are debating how quickly the observations of the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope should be made public.

Astronomers who win time to use space telescopes typically get a period of time when they alone can see the resulting data. But telescope managers are considering making all data public immediately.

Policymakers have long grappled with how to handle experiments that might generate potentially dangerous viruses. Now, officials are considering whether oversight needs to be expanded.

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, a group of scientists decided to dig up his body and sequence his DNA.

The year 2022 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gregor Mendel. He's known as the father of genetics, so scientists exhumed Mendel's body and examined his DNA.