MOLINE, Ill. — Snowflakes are frozen water crystals that can never be an exact replica of another. However, snowflakes can be classified into these broader types: dendrites, plates, columns, needles, ...

Engineers looked to nature to find a shape that could improve all kinds of slender structures, from building columns to bicycle spokes -- they found an answer in sea sponges. Judging by their name ...

When looking at a house, garage, store building or factory, or any of the other thousands of structures we live, work, and play in, look for the simple shapes. Look at the front of a house, and you ...

SNOWFALL in Pasadena, California, is so rare, it’s almost unheard of. Except, that is, at the California Institute of Technology, where Kenneth Libbrecht can conjure it up using the world’s most ...