After decades of chasing after a rare hexagonal diamond, a Chinese team says their iteration of the elusive material is the most important yet.

Planetary alignments happen more often than you might think. Here’s why this one is special.

The seven states that share the Colorado River did not meet a deadline for an agreement on water cutbacks. What is next for this vital water source in the West?

Since mid-November, bird enthusiast Skye Marsh of Las Vegas had been hoping to get the call she received Wednesday afternoon. The lost toucan, appropriately named Sam, had been found.

An assistant professor from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose work focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), has been named the first recipient of the MDA Research Momentum Award, a new honor from the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) for early-career scientists.

When you picture a desert, you probably imagine a vast, empty landscape far from any water. But surprisingly, some of the driest places on Earth lie right beside the ocean. Both the Atacama, in Chile, and the Namib, in southern Africa, stretch along coastlines. So how did these extreme deserts form in places bordered by so much water?

Birding experts say your outdoor space could be missing several key elements.

Las Vegas is not a good environment for a toucan to be in the wild with its too-hot summers and cold winters, said Donald Price, a professor and biologist at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas who studies how winged animal species adapt to different environments.

Red Rock Canyon draws climbers from around the world, offering towering sandstone cliffs just minutes from the Las Vegas Strip. However, after rainfall, those iconic red walls can be more dangerous than they appear — even when the rock looks dry. According to Zach Perzan, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the sandstone at Red Rock — known as Aztec sandstone — is made up mostly of quartz grains held together by a relatively small amount of natural cement.

Rising temperatures, diminished rainfall and steadily increasing usage have taken a serious toll on the Colorado River and the water it contains. Some question whether the Las Vegas Valley will have enough water to last into the future.

When someone talks about frozen water, they typically mean the ice cubes in a cold drink or the vast glaciers in Earth’s coldest corners. What most people don’t know, however, is that H2O molecules can arrange themselves into many different types, or phases, of ice with various structures. Researchers have discovered more than 20 of these phases, the latest of which—called Ice XXI—a team recently created under extreme pressure, allowing water to turn to ice at room temperature.

Gold briefly topped $5,100 per ounce for the first time Monday, and as the fifth-highest gold producer in the world, this is good news for Nevada. With gold hitting a record on the global market, for Nevada, this means more jobs, more tax revenue and more gold exploration, according to mineral and mining experts.