Charles Q. Choi is a science reporter in New York who has written for Scientific American, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Science, and Nature, among others. In his spare time, he has traveled to all seven continents, earned the rank of yondan in the Toyama-ryu battodo school of Japanese swordsmanship, and has had science fiction appear in Analog magazine.
Origin of Life: Scientists may have found a missing link between the primordial world and modern life
How the chemistry of life moved beyond the RNA world isn’t fully understood.
These galaxies have no dark matter — and astronomers may finally know why
A galaxy 65 million light years away holds secrets to an ancient traffic jam, which may have kicked out dark matter in the process.
45 years later, scientists hone in on a mysterious alien signal's origin
A new study finds a few possible sources for the Wow! Signal, detected in 1977.
China finds recent water flows on Mars, with big implications for alien life
China's Zhurong rover found geologically recent water on Mars, billions of years after it should have been gone.
Astronomers find a puzzling parasitic object — is it a black widow pulsar or something else entirely?
A strange object in space could be a pulsar devouring a brown dwarf, or it could be something we don't yet understand.
Chemists find a way to turn industrial waste into life saving medicine
The advance could cut back pollution while also benefiting the greater good.
This nearby exoplanet may be habitable, but only sometimes
The planet, Gliese 514 b, could test the limits of where we can find Earth-like worlds.
How a ridge of ice in Greenland could help us find alien life in Europa’s ocean
Europa, one of Jupiter's four largest moons, is believed to be one of the likeliest places for life beyond Earth.
One thing cosmonauts do (and astronauts don't) could be the key to getting to Mars
Study after study has shown astronauts' eyesight decline after spaceflights. A new study could tell us why.
66-million-year-old dinosaur fossil reveals injuries that suggest the dinosaur fought with its own kind
The famous Triceratops called 'Big John' probably fought with other Triceratops, its fossil suggests.
New data on an elusive particle could upend physics as we know it
The W boson measurement provides insight into existing physics and opens the door to new arenas.
Scientists just taught a robot to complete this deceptively simple task
A team of researchers successfully programmed a robot to dress a mannequin.
Look! Astronomers spot a “heretical” massive planet forming where it shouldn’t be
The gas giant is only a few million years old and points to more than one way to form a planet.
Study: Pluto has ice volcanoes like "nothing else" in the Solar System
This could change how we view icy worlds in the outer Solar System.
Dense bones enabled this dinosaur to capture prey underwater
Scientists discovered a clear link between dense bones and aquatic foraging.
Astronomers use "galactic archeology" to solve a mystery about the Milky Way's origins
CSI: Milky Way
Alien life could survive in more places than we expect, a new theory reveals
Could someone be out there?
Scientists weigh one of the most mysterious particles in the universe
By getting a neutrino mass, we can fine tune our understanding of the universe around us — and maybe find hints to dark matter.
Bleeding edge tech could help us find unusual alien life
The unusual approach could blow open the doors to life in the universe.