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The 1903 Flyer was the first aircraft to make a successful, controllable, heavier-than-air flight. View the Flyer at different angles, the customized lightweight motor, and other related images for a complete picture of this breakthrough in aircraft…

Humans have used dried bovine dung (manure) as a fuel source since prehistoric times. In India, for example, many people burn cow or buffalo dung for cooking fuel. This bioresource provides a low-cost fuel as well as an efficient means of waste…

Mitosis is the series of visible changes that occur in the nucleus and chromosomes of non-gamete-producing plant and animal cells as they divide. This Image Gallery exhibit depicts these events using state-of-the art microscopy and digital image…

Wind-pollinated plants—including trees, grasses, and weeds—produce most of the pollen that affects seasonal allergy sufferers. Wind-pollinated plants produce great amounts of pollen grains that are very small in size. For example, one ragweed plant…

Neuroscientists have long sought to explain how the brain correctly recognizes a stimulus despite the stimulus appearing under different circumstances with widely variable external factors. For example, with regard to olfactory stimuli, humans can…

A newly identified coronavirus, provisionally termed 2019-nCoV (an acronym for 2019 novel coronavirus) and subsequently named "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), emerged in central China in November 2019. The disease…

From the inspiration of a toy helicoptor to glider tests at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, view photographic documentation of the Wright Brothers' attempts at human flight and the stages toward a final successful aircraft. View launches and landings,…

Renowned as adept fliers and as some of the first insects to have ever developed wings, with a fossil record going back more than 300 million years, dragonflies (class Odonata) have long interested scientists across interdisciplinary lines. A recent…

The Mesozoic Era (about 250 to 65 million years ago) is a geologic time period that is known as the "Age of the Dinosaurs." However, paleontologists are finding more evidence of varied abundance of life during this age, tracing the common ancestor…

Researchers are learning more about how plants respond to "alarm signals" released by other plants that are under attack by herbivores. To warn conspecifics about predators, many animals issue alarms by vocalizing or emitting odors. In the case of…

Studies have shown that all classes of vertebrates—and even some invertebrate species—have the cognitive ability to discriminate among different quantities. For example, many kinds of studied animals can distinguish specific numbers of objects in…

On December 26, 2004, a giant earthquake of magnitude 9.3 on the Richter scale was triggered in the deep ocean off western Indonesia. Simultaneously, a devastating tsunami was generated, causing destruction and loss of life around Indian Ocean…

Two new studies offer insight into why infection with SARS-CoV-2—the coronavirus that causes COVID-19—often leads to loss of smell, as well as why some people experience debilitating symptoms months after infection—a condition known as long COVID.…

NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity set down on the surface of Mars in January 2004. After meeting the 90-day goal, both rovers continued to dig, measure, observe, photograph, and explore the rough terrain. This Image Gallery showcases images…

The European Space Agency's (ESA) first mission to Mars, called Mars Express, was launched June 2, 2003 and entered an orbit around the planet by December 25. This Image Gallery exhibits a number of images of Mars captured by the High Resolution…

Spanish histologist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), is credited with establishing modern neuroscience in the early 20th century. Some of Cajal's earliest illustrations of the structures of the nervous system are reproduced in this gallery along…

Glaciers in cold mountain regions are key indicators of global climate change. This Image Gallery exhibits glaciers, their behavior, and influence on the surrounding environment. View mountain glaciers dramatically shaping our landscapes around the…

Mercury and its compounds are highly toxic—that is, they cause harmful effects to living organisms. Mercury pollution is found in water, air, and soil worldwide. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the top anthropogenic sources of…

Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute were the pioneers of flight who most influenced and inspired Orville and Wilbur Wright. Photographs of Lilienthal, a German engineer, depict his flying attempts in various gliders before his career was cut short in…

Among the non-human animals that can be infected with—and become sick from—humans who have the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 are deer, mink, hyenas, pigs, ferrets, dogs, cats, and primates such as rhesus macaque monkeys, baboons, and…

On January 15, 2022, in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga, the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai submarine volcano violently exploded, sending ash 58 kilometers (36 miles) high into the mesosphere and triggering a tsunami with waves towering 15 m (49 ft)…

A supernova is the explosive death of a star. This Image Gallery exhibit shows optical, x-ray, and radio images of five famous supernova remnants of varying ages, from the extremely young (SN 1987A, at just over 15 years old) to the very old (Vela…

Food packaging prevents contamination and extends the shelf-life of food products, making food safe and available to the public. Common food-packaging materials include metals, glass, paper, and plastics. Of these, metals, glass, and recyclable…

In 2006, evolutionary biologists at the American Museum of Natural History conducted a phylogenetic analysis of spiny-rayed teleost fishes. They discovered that at least a thousand more venomous fish species inhabit worldwide aqautic ecosystems—a…

Wilbur Wright asks for help from the respected engineer, Octave Chanute, in May of 1900. View all five pages of this original handwritten letter, which provides remarkable insight into the approach the Wright Brothers were planning to take in…

To bolster food security in a warming world, engineers are developing a coating that could better protect seeds, such as beans, from drought in semiarid regions. The coating mimics a mucilage-based hydrogel produced naturally by some seeds, such as…

Bats are members of the order Chiroptera, which is the second-largest order of living mammals. The geographic distribution of these flying mammals is tremendous as well, ranging from the limit of trees in the Northern Hemisphere to the southern tips…

Although cats are the number one lethal threat to birds, collisions with building glass are not far behind. The number of birds killed each year by glass collisions worldwide is estimated to be in the billons. In the United States, the U.S. Fish &…

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) exclusively consume milkweed plants (genus Asclepia) both for nutrition and to help deter predators. Milkweed plants contain toxins that accumulate in the butterfly larva, or caterpillars, as the insects feed;…

Genealogists and anthropologists have long disputed the provenance of domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Although genetic analyses and fossil evidence indicate that the domestic dog descended from the gray wolf (Canis lupus), the exact location…

Food waste occurs at all levels of the supply chain and beyond, from farm to table, for reasons ranging from spoilage to over-buying. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service defines food waste as “the edible amount of…

A serious outbreak of equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1), an infectious viral disease, is currently spreading among horse populations in Europe. This outbreak was first detected in Valencia, Spain, in February 2021 during a month-long equestrian…

Many new-model electric vehicles (EVs) now have a driving range greater than 320 kilometers (200 miles). Consequently, range anxiety—the fear of running out of battery power before completing a trip or reaching a charging station—is becoming less…

Approximately 75% of flowering plants—including about a third of agricultural food crops—depend on the distribution of pollen by an array of animals known collectively as pollinators. These animals include insects such as bees and wasps…

The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest remnant of previous ice-age glaciations. Glaciers flow out from this ice sheet and feed into floating ice shelves along one-third of the Antarctic coastline. One of the largest ice shelves is the Filchner-Ronne…

In a breakthrough in the global fight against malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending widespread administration of the first-ever malaria vaccine. This first-generation vaccine is intended for children considered to be at high…

Pasta comes in various sizes and shapes, ranging from long and flat (such as linguine and spaghetti) to short types in the shape of shells (conchiglie), corkscrews (fusilli), and many others. Shaped pastas contain a larger volume of air, resulting…

In recent years, researchers have made considerable progress toward producing renewable energy in the form of hydrogen fuel through the electrolysis of water. In the most basic electrolytic cell, an electric current drives a chemical reaction at two…

Black holes pack an extraordinary amount of mass into a small spatial volume, resulting in gravitational fields so powerful that not even light can escape. These extreme objects occur as two distinct populations in the universe. The first, called…

The Hudson River estuary in the United States experiences a tide from New York Harbor (river kilometer 0/river mile 0) to Troy, New York (river kilometer 244/river mile 152). In the lower 60 kilometers (37 miles) of the Hudson River, the water is…

Atmospheric ozone plays a critical role in the biosphere by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation in the stratosphere—the layer of the atmosphere about 10 to 50 km (6 to 30 mi) above Earth’s surface. Since the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in…

The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)—one of three species of hyenas found in Africa—is a highly social mammal that lives in large groups, or clans, containing at least 90 individuals. The social organization of spotted hyenas is more complex than the…

In a potential watershed moment for physics, the first results from the Muon g-2 (pronounced gee minus two) experiment have strongly indicated that particles called muons deviate from precise predictions of their behavior in the standard model of…

The diverse totality of microorganisms regularly found on and in the human body is collectively referred to as the human microbiota or microbial flora, with the largest microbial community in the body residing in the large intestine, or colon.…

In the future, will global demand for coffee outstrip supply? The International Coffee Organization thinks so, based on droughts in Central America, crop-destroying freezing weather in Brazil, and global climate change. In general, coffee is a very…

In many animals, including humans, the sense of smell performs an important threat-detection function by helping to identify potential sources of harm, such as rotting food and toxic fumes. Little is known, however, about the initial neural…

A new mathematical approach called emulation dramatically decreases the amount of time necessary to solve equations describing key properties of atomic nuclei. The approach will help physicists run simulations far more quickly—and without the need…

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to avoid the major impacts of climate change, such as deadly heat and decreased crop yields, will require limiting global warming to a maximum increase of 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius.…

The American bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) was once on the brink of extinction in North America. As a result of concerted conservation efforts, including the elimination of use of the pesticide DDT in the United States in 1972, the bald…

Alpha particles, consisting of two protons and two neutrons but no electrons, are abundant in nature as radioactive decay products of heavy elements and familiar to us for the health risks they pose. Yet despite more than a century's-worth of…