Since the first fiber optic cables rolled out in the 1970s, they’ve become a major part of everything from medical devices to high-speed internet and cable TV. But as it turns out, one group of marine mollusks was way ahead of us. A new study reveals that clams called heart cockles have unique structures in their shells that act like fiber optic cables to convey specific wavelengths of light into the bivalves’ tissues.

An Oregon State University researcher has helped create a new 3D printing approach for shape-changing materials that are likened to muscles, opening the door for improved applications in robotics as well as biomedical and energy devices

More than a million years ago, on a hot savannah teeming with wildlife near the shore of what would someday become Lake Turkana in Kenya, two completely different species of hominins may have passed each other as they scavenged for food.

Scientists know this because they have examined 1.5-million-year-old fossils they unearthed and have concluded they represent the first example of two sets of hominin footprints made about the same time on an ancient lake shore. The discovery will provide more insight into human evolution and how species cooperated and competed with one another, the scientists said.

UVA researchers’ new polymer strategy shifts a centuries-old engineering paradigm with a molecular design that doesn’t sacrifice stretchability for stiffness.

Paleoindians at Wyoming's LaPrele mammoth site made needles from the bones of fur-bearers, likely to creat garments from the animals' furs to keep warm in a cool climate.

Amphibians hold a significant place in evolution, representing the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. They are crucial for understanding the brain and spinal cord of tetrapods—animals with four limbs, including humans. A group of scientists led by a team at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now shows how harmless viruses can be used to illuminate the development of the frog nervous system. The results have now been published in Developmental Cell.

A paper published in Gravitational and Space Research unveils insights gained from International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) National Laboratory-sponsored research on transport phenomena, fundamental physical processes involving momentum, energy, and mass transfer. Transport phenomena describe the ways in which heat and matter move through their surroundings, for example, how heat radiates from a stove or how a scent fills the room. Exploring these dynamics outside Earth’s gravitational forces could lead to revolutionary advances in pharmaceuticals and other commercial applications.

When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune 40 years ago, astronomers were surprised that it detected no global dipole magnetic fields, like Earth's. The explanation: the ice giants are layered and unmixed, which prevents large scale convection to create a dipole field. But what substances would remain immiscible? A UC Berkeley scientist modeled the interiors and found that water-rich and hydrocarbon-rich layers naturally form at extreme pressure and temperature, and they do not mix.