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Salt, snowflakes and diamonds are all crystals, meaning their atoms are arranged in 3-D patterns that repeat. Today scientists are reporting in the journal Nature on the creation of a phase of matter, dubbed a time crystal, in which atoms move in a pattern that repeats in time rather than in space.

The speed at which a tiny ant evolves to cope to its warming city environment suggests that some species may evolve quickly enough to survive, or even thrive, in the warmer temperatures found within cities, according to a new study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University.

Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have created a new sponge-like material that can repeatedly soak up oil spills. The material, which can absorb up to 90 times its own weight in oil, could make it faster and easier to clean up offshore oil spills, the scientists said.

Projected increases in the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves in the desert of the southwestern United States are putting songbirds at greater risk for death by dehydration and mass die-offs, according to a new study.

The United States has managed to reduce the amount of air pollution it produces, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at and breathing in the air. That’s because pollution created in Asia is gradually making its way across the Pacific Ocean to the western hemisphere.

According to research published in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal, up to 65 percent of the newly created smog in the U.S. has actually drifted over from Asia. The country’s western states are most vulnerable to the increase in ozone due to their proximity to the continent.