Born Dec. 9, 1906, Grace Murray Hopper was, among other things, a brilliant mathematician and computer scientist; a high-ranking U.S. Navy officer; and a gifted teacher and communicator. So it’s not difficult to understand why she was nicknamed “Amazing Grace” by her subordinates in the Navy once upon a time. The New York native died in 1992 at age 85, but her trailblazing contributions left an indelible impression on the world.  Hopper’s academic reputation was nothing short of dazzling....

Archaeological secrets from thousands of years ago in northeast Africa have been unearthed thanks to modern-day scientific innovations. A process known as chemical imaging recently revealed “hidden mysteries” about ancient Egyptian paintings located in tomb chapels close to the Nile River — and portable devices made it possible to analyze the 3,000-year-old art on-site in its original locations. As announced in the peer-reviewed publication PLOS One on July 12, the portable devices enable...

The late Fred Rogers, star and host of the long-running television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, once gave a touching endorsement of the importance of caring. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping,’” he shared.

For those of us who aren’t scientists, a chance encounter with an inert ground-dwelling rodent probably wouldn’t turn into a decades-long quest for knowledge about the animal that is now linked with making space exploration safer for humans. But in 1992, for Kelly Drew, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Alaska, that’s how it all started, after a colleague unexpectedly placed a hibernating squirrel in her hands.

On May 9, Ecuador’s record-breaking “debt-for-nature” deal made history: The country sold $1.6 billion worth of bonds to the bank Credit Suisse, which freed up funds that will be used for conservation of its renowned Galapagos Islands. This marked the world’s largest “debt-for-nature” swap to date. The Galapagos Islands is an archipelago celebrated for its wealth of distinct flora and fauna. Many Galapagos species — including its giant tortoises and marine iguana — exist nowhere else on the p...

The concept of love languages has been around for over three decades now. But did you know we humans also have “sleep languages”? There are five of them, and knowing yours can prove helpful in optimizing this vital biological function. Many of us are at least somewhat aware of the importance of sleep — we’re certainly aware of how lousy we can feel when we don’t get enough. But given the many and often relentless stressors of modern life, it can be all too easy to sacrifice those Z’s in favor...

In Kerala, India, a previously neglected river that was biologically “dead” has since been revived, thanks to the combined efforts of the state government, a village council, and the river’s surrounding communities.

A stroke, which takes place when a blood vessel is either blocked by a clot or bursts, depriving the brain of blood, oxygen, and nutrients, can be devastating. According to the American Stroke Association, strokes are the fifth-leading cause of death in the U.S. and a leading cause of disability. Worldwide, the medical emergencies are the second-leading cause of death and the third-leading cause of death and disability combined, based on statistics from the World Stroke Organization.

During World War II, England was faced with an urgent need to increase training among its troops in target practice and military maneuvers. Its Ministry of Defense elected to take over a number of villages for this purpose, at the time offering residents hope that the requisition would be a temporary one. Alas, promises made about an eventual return would remain unfulfilled, and a handful of those sites — including the villages of Imber, Tyneham, and Balsdean — would become “ghost villages,” lin...

You may have heard of a practice called “Swedish death cleaning” — a name that’s both intriguing yet fairly straightforward. Perhaps one of the more succinct and accurate summaries of the concept comes by way of comedic actor Amy Poehler’s narration in this amusing trailer for the TV series The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: It’s “basically cleaning out your crap so that others don’t have to do it when you’re gone.”