Election officials have braced for an unprecedented wave of mail-in ballots. What safeguards are in place to track individual ballots as they travel to voters and back to the election office?

As global temperatures rise, scientists are exploring solutions from planting trees to sucking carbon out of the air to geoengineering. But would they work? And what are the risks of engineering Earth's climate?

Scientists propose putting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect the sun's rays. But will this have unintended consequences?

This visualization uses Washington D.C.'s National Mall to show the scale of human coal consumption—and how much CO2 it adds to our atmosphere.

Using laser technology aboard the International Space Station, Lola Fatoyinbo can get a 3D measure of forest carbon—making it the first near-global dataset.

Scientists found bits of rock and dust flying off the asteroid Bennu. Is the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in danger?

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched and collected a sample from the surface of asteroid Bennu—without a human at the controls.

The last remaining master animal-skin parchment maker in the world demonstrates how paper was made in medieval Europe (and why it wasn’t for vegetarians).

The European printing revolution began in Germany in 1448 when goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg began casting letters in metal.

Just as handwritten records changed how societies work, the printing press transformed the spread of information, igniting the Industrial Revolution. How did technologies–from pen to paper to printing press—make it all possible?

Christian Cooper, board member of the New York City Audubon, hands out yearbook-style superlatives to numerous bird species and shares some memorable birding encounters.

Almost all the letters of the Latin alphabet are derived from the hieroglyphs that the Canaanites of Serabit chose to represent the sounds of their tongue.

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal culture has been handed down orally through song and poetry without the need to write anything down.

Meet COVID-19 patients who lost their sense of smell and doctors working to determine whether the condition, called anosmia, is permanent.

Writing shaped our world and the rise of human knowledge, from the trading of goods to tales of ancient goddesses and kings. Follow the evolution of the written word, from 4,000-year-old carvings in an Egyptian turquoise mine to modern-day alphabets.