Joe Palca

A team of Indian physicists has made a mathematical model that purports to explain why ants don't have traffic jams. NPR's Joe Palca explains as part of his series, Joe's Big Idea.

Ants don't show road rage. In fact, some research shows they rarely get into traffic jams, able to maintain a steady speed even as their numbers swell. Can physics explain it?

It was 15 feet long, with a snout shaped like a dolphin's. This newly identified meat-eater swam the seas near the Isle of Skye in the time of dinosaurs.

Using a giant pulsed powered machine in New Mexico, researchers have recreated the conditions inside the Sun, and their results help reconcile theoretical models with how the Sun behaves.

Of course they don't, but they do have the genetic machinery to make fingers — something that shows how similar fish are to modern mammals.

NASA's next big space telescope costs $8 billion and is very heavy. New York scientists think they may have found the makings of a cheaper, lighter answer for future space scopes — in a crafts store.

The Russian ruble continued to drop in value against the U.S. dollar and the Euro on Tuesday — but the impact of its calamitous decline has yet to be seen on the streets of Moscow.

Scientists have seen mysterious bursts of methane in the Martian atmosphere, and they can't rule out the possibility that the methane was made by something that was once alive on Mars.

It turns out that when scientists collaborate internationally, they are more like to have an impact on science than purely domestic collaborations.

Most telescope cameras can only capture a small patch of sky at a time. But a new camera has a much larger field of view, and its backers are hoping for help in deciphering its reams of data.

Dr. Prabhjot Singh lives and works in Harlem, a neighborhood plagued by chronic disease. He thinks an African model of health care can help — training people in the community to be health educators.

People who grow tomatoes want varieties that produce as much saleable crop as possible. People who eat tomatoes are less interested in yield, and more in taste. The tension between taste and yield can get pretty intense. What's a poor tomato plant to do?

Enter Zach Lippman, a plant ...

Bryan Shaw showed it was possible to detect early signs of eye cancer from a family photo album. Now, he and his research team have made an iPhone app.

Jennifer Doudna used to worry that her science wasn't doing anything important. Then some basic research led her team to a discovery that could one day be crucial in healing some genetic diseases.

A carnivorous plant has inspired an invention that may turn out to be a medical lifesaver.

Nepenthes, also known as tropical pitcher plants or monkey cups, produce a superslippery surface that causes unfortunate insects that climb into the plant to slide to their doom.

Scientists at Harvard's Wyss ...

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft on Sunday night fired its six main rocket engines for 33 minutes. That slowed the probe down enough so it could be captured by the Red Planet's gravity.

Scientists hope NASA's MAVEN probe, which went into orbit Sunday night, will provide insight into why the Martian climate changed drastically billions of years ago.

Engineers at Stanford University have designed a microscope that fits in your pocket and costs less than a dollar to make. Here's the best part: You put the microscope together yourself.

You think bringing a new toothbrush to market is easy? The seven-year saga of two dental entrepreneurs struggling to bring their patented brush to consumers suggests otherwise.

What happens when you add folds to materials that are only a few atoms thick? Several scientists set out to find the answer — and discovered that these nano-wrinkles can be quite useful.