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Photograph of ruined buildings and piles of rubble with an intact clock tower still standing in the background. People walk among the rubble.

AI is changing our understanding of earthquakes

Machine learning is expanding scientists’ catalogs of quakes and refining maps of underground faults. It also promises to improve quake forecasts.

Photograph of snow-capped mountains with forests and snowy landscape in foreground.

Physical World

How did eastern North America form?

With many collisions and much crumpling of rock, down the ages. The story holds lessons for how the edges of continents are built and change over time.

Aerial photo shows a coral atoll in the Maldives. A depression is visible in the middle of the coral ring.

Physical World

How coral atolls get their gorgeous ring shapes

Sea levels rising and falling over hundreds of thousands of years helped build up these special islands

Photo tracks the flight patterns of a flock of jackdaws, each flight path shown as a black ribbon, with the ribbons folding and turning in parallel. Oscillations in the ribbons reflect the wingbeats of each bird.

Living World

Collective behavior: How animals work together

Studies of birds, fish and ants reveal the hidden ways groups coordinate movement, which might influence engineers designing drone armadas and efficient information flow

Photo of the Rising Tide sculpture by artist Jason deCaires Taylor installed within the tidal range on the Thames River in 2015; the sculpture was composed of four large, cement-gray horses with riders, the river’s high tide submerges the horses’ flanks.

Physical World

The tides they are a-changin’ — and it’s not just from climate change

Dredging rivers, filling in wetlands and other human acts of engineering have shifted coastal ebbs and flows worldwide. Add rising sea levels, and the threat of storm surges and floods will worsen in some places.

Photo shows a GPS station atop a rocky outcrop in the foreground. A snowy plain extends beyond it, under blue sky.

Physical World

GPS is going places

Here are five things you didn’t know the navigation system could do

Photo shows a line of flames along the hills at night.

Physical World

Firenadoes and drifting embers: The secrets of extreme wildfires

Researchers probe the weather-like physics of deadly infernos

A photo shows an aerial view of a portion of the rim of the Grand Canyon with part of the Colorado River visible. The national park turns 100 this year.

Physical World

A deeper understanding of the Grand Canyon

After 100 years as a national park and eons as a geological wonder, the American icon continues to reveal layers of its past and of the landscape ahead

A view of the Altiplano in the Lauca National Park, Chile.

Physical World

How to build a mountain range

Geologists explore the rise of the Andes, whose high-altitude peaks and plateau alter global climate

Physical World

Building planets, piece by piece

The theory of “pebble accretion” explains how infant worlds got so big so quickly

Society

How to detect clandestine nuclear weapons programs

A “policy physicist” explores practical ways to sniff out uranium processing from afar

Physical World

Thar she blows: The what, why and where of geysers

Scientists make progress in mapping the hidden force behind the watery eruptions

Eighteen images, arranged in a spiral, show how a lab-grown snowflake develops over 58 hours.

Physical World

How snowflakes grow

The cold, finicky science of ice crystal formation

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