The hard drive installed in your Windows or macOS system is where all of your apps and files live—so as computer components go, they don’t get much more important. You might even have more than one drive installed to cover all storage duties. Whether it’s a solid-state drive (SSD) or…

A newly discovered extinct mollusk species that skulked along the ocean floor half a billion years ago is offering new insights into the early days of this diverse group of animals. Fossils from Shishania aculeata indicate that some early mollusks were flat, armored, slug-like creatures that didn’t have the signature shells we see on today’s snails…