These wings from a Morpho butterfly are normally bright blue thanks to structural color. Because the nanosized spacing between the wings’ scales (micrograph) matches blue light’s wavelength (between ...

Is the 2004 Ashton Kutcher vehicle The Butterfly Effect a good movie? Definitely not, no—but try telling that to me at age thirteen. And then wrap your head, once more, around the fact that if you had ...

Like the burnt toast theory, the butterfly effect isn't just some buzzword trending on TikTok. At its core, the theory is a powerful reminder that you can have more influence over your life than you ...

Small changes can have incredibly large and unintended consequences, whether for good or for ill. And no matter how smart you (think you) are, there’s absolutely no way that you can predict all of the ...

In 1961, MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz was inputting numbers into a weather prediction program. His model was based on a dozen variables, the value of one being .506127. When he ran the model again, ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. As the first North ...

There is an iconic scene in “Jurassic Park” where Jeff Goldblum explains chaos theory. “It simply deals with unpredictability in complex systems,” he says. “The shorthand is ‘the butterfly effect.’ A ...