News

  1. Archaeology

    Spicy finds from before Columbus

    Ancient Americans cultivated and ate chili peppers at least 6,100 years ago, setting the stage for the spicy condiment to spread throughout the world after Columbus' voyages to the New World.

    By Bruce Bower
  2. Earth

    DNA pinpoints poached ivory tusks

    Scientists tracked the origin of an illegal ivory shipment to Zambia by using an improved DNA-analysis technique to study the confiscated tusks.

    By Patrick Barry
  3. Planetary Science

    A crack at life

    New images of ancient cracks on Mars suggest that liquid may have percolated through underground rock on the Red Planet, providing a possible habitat for primitive life.

    By Ron Cowen
  4. Paleontology

    Ancient slowpoke

    A 1-centimeter-long, 505-million-year-old fossil from British Columbia represents a creature that joins two lineages of marine invertebrates from that era that scientists previously hadn't linked.