Geoff Brumfiel

Space is a dangerous place. That message resonated again on Monday, when the Russian Federal Space Agency — Roscosmos — announced that a team of experimental geckos tasked with copulating while in orbit did not survive their journey.

"All geckos, unfortunately, died," the space agency said in a ...

One of the worst byproducts of our industrial society is air pollution. It's a global problem that humans have yet to get under control. One scientist thinks we might not be alone, th...

Air pollution is clogging the skies of our planet. Now one scientist thinks Earth may be just one of many polluted worlds — and that searching for extraterrestrial smog may actually be a good way to search for alien intelligence.

"People refer to 'little green men,' but ETs that are ...

President Obama has announced that the U.S. has completed disposal of the most sensitive parts of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. The successful disposal is an impressive technical ...

Researchers created a swarm of 1,024 tiny robots to do their bidding. So far, the only job they're given is to arrange themselves into a shape. But future versions could perform all sorts of tasks.

The International Mathematical Union has announced the four winners of its prestigious Fields Medal. The group includes Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the prize in its long history.

In November, Rosetta will release a lander about the size of a small refrigerator that will attempt to secure itself to the comet's surface using harpoons.

The European Rosetta mission arrives at its target comet Wednesday morning. In the coming months, its lander unit will harpoon the space rock.

It's been a long journey, but it's nearly over. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will finally arrive at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Humans have sent spacecraft hurtling past comets before, but Rosetta is doing something very different. It's sidling up next to 67P to join ...

Earlier this week, NPR ran a short series I did on America's land-based nuclear missiles. One diagram in particular raised a few eyebrows: It showed the location of a Missile Alert Facility, along with the silos for 10 nuclear weapons.

Ken Albertson summed up what several of our ...

I spent months working with the U.S. Air Force to get access to a remote underground nuclear bunker in Nebraska for our radio series on America's missile forces. There was only one question left to answer before I left.

What did I want for lunch?

The menu provided by ...

The worst thing about making a post-Avengers Marvel movie is how far ahead of the game you are when you start. Your film will be marketed with brute force, treated as arguably the biggest opening of the summer, reviewed everywhere, and very likely to land among the most commercially successful ...

The U.S. arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles is decades old and will have to be replaced. Now some are questioning whether the weapons are worth the cost.

A small cadre of officers is responsible for keeping America's nukes on alert 24/7. Here's a peek into their world, and what it takes to do the job.

A switch to pass-fail grading is curbing the "perfection" culture among U.S. nuclear missile forces. Critics of the old way say striving to be perfect invited cheating by those who launch the nukes.

Shortly after news broke that a Malaysia Airlines flight crashed in eastern Ukraine, suspicions began to swirl that the plane had been shot down.

It's not a plot from a Bond film: Zapping diamonds could tell researchers more about the insides of giant planets.

Federal health officials have found six vials of smallpox apparently forgotten in a lab storeroom. Officials want to know where the deadly virus came from and why it was left unsecured for so long.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health made an unpleasant discovery as they cleaned out an old laboratory: The lab contained vials of the smallpox virus, previously unknown to authorities.

NASA is preparing to launch a new satellite to observe carbon dioxide from space. The satellite could revolutionize our understanding of where this greenhouse gas comes from and where it goes.