For decades, people have been telling each other, “You are what you eat” — meaning that the nutrition in a person’s diet affects his or her health. It doesn’t mean, for example, that if you eat a plant, you become a plant. At least, not for people. For a certain kind of sea slug, however, those words are more than just a reminder to eat well. The Elysia chlorotica is a sea slug that looks like a leaf and eats by sucking the insides out of strands of algae. (Yum!) These algae, like plants, get their food by using sunlight to help make sugar. At a recent meeting of scientists, a bio...

It’s an important question: “On an average school night, how many hours of sleep do you get?” More than 12,000 high school students were recently asked that during a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall answer: not enough. Studies have shown that teenagers really need at least nine hours of sleep, with eight hours considered a “borderline” acceptable amount. In the CDC study, however, only around 900 of the surveyed students reported getting the ideal amount, while an additional 2,800 reported averaging eight hours of shut-eye nightly. Danice Eaton...

A vicious cancer has wiped out 70 percent of the world’s population of wild Tasmanian devils, and if nothing changes, these animals might be extinct in the wild in 30 to 50 years. But there may be hope: In a new study, scientists have identified the cancer and can point to where it starts. The scientist who led the study is Elizabeth Murchison, who grew up seeing these animals in the wild. “I didn’t want to sit back and let the devils disappear,” she told Science News. Murchison, who now works at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England, comes from Tasmania, an Austral...

Florian Altermatt likes to chase butterflies, but he’s also a scientist who thinks that butterflies might have something to tell us about the effects of global warming. Altermatt is an ecologist — a scientist who studies how creatures interact with their environment — who works at the University of California, Davis. In a new study, he and other researchers looked at changes in the reproduction patterns of butterflies and moths in Central Europe. Over the last 30 years, the average temperature in Central Europe has gone up about 1.5 degrees Celsius. During that same time, 44 species of...

Ten years ago, scientists discovered a well-preserved set of dinosaur remains in China. This dinosaur, which walked on Earth about 125 million years ago, had feathers and was about the same size as a turkey—but don’t be fooled. This dino’s bite was a lot worse than a turkey’s gobble. After a close (and careful!) examination of the dino’s teeth, scientists recently concluded that this dinosaur was probably poisonous. The study was led by David Burnham, who works and teaches at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Burnham is a paleontologist — a scientist who studies fossils to ...

It’s easy to imagine catching a ball, holding it for a moment and then throwing it in the air again. It’s also easy to imagine scooping up a handful of water — say, from the ocean — and then releasing it again. But what about light? Is it possible to “catch” light — and then let it go? Scientists from Harvard University recently demonstrated a way to catch and release light—but it’s not easy. In other words, no one will be using the new method to play a game of catch with flashlight beams anytime soon. The researchers were able to build a trap that held light for about 1.5 s...

Anyone on Earth can look up and see the moon or stars, but it takes a telescope to get a glimpse of planets and the other bright and strange things that share our universe. Astronomers are always finding new ways to observe far-off galaxies and study the mysteries of deep space. That’s why, on December 14, NASA blasted a small but mighty telescope into space. The telescope is called WISE and is about as wide around as a trashcan. Don’t let its small size fool you: WISE has a powerful digital camera, and it will be taking pictures of some the wildest objects in the known universe, includin...

What’s good for one may not be good for all, especially in the animal kingdom. Consider the case of ketoprofen. Ketoprofen is a drug that, like ibuprofen, provides pain relief and reduces swelling. In India, some farmers give ketoprofen to their cattle and other animals for pain relief. But giving ketoprofen to cattle may ultimately poison vultures, according to a recent study. Vultures are giant, flying scavengers that eat the carcasses of dead animals, including cattle. For farmers, vultures act like nature’s janitors. The birds’ feasts mean that farmers don’t have to figure out how...

Most people who love snow have to wait for winter. But that’s not the case for Kenneth Libbrecht, a scientist in sunny southern California. In his laboratory, he’s got snow all year long. But the light white stuff is not falling from the sky—it’s growing in a lab. Libbrecht studies the science of snowflakes at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He is a physicist, or a scientist who studies motion, matter and energy. In a recent experiment, Libbrecht and another physicist, Hannah Arnold, solved an old mystery about the shape of snowflakes. They were able to figure ou...

People who take the illegal drug called ecstasy report feelings of great happiness or well-being while they’re high, but those same people may be finding it hard to breathe when they sleep. When a person stops breathing while sleeping and has to gasp for air, that’s called sleep apnea. And a new study found that regular users of ecstasy are more likely to suffer from sleep apnea than people who had never touched the drug. Sleep apnea can cause a wide variety of other problems, including headaches, drowsiness and low energy. It is also linked to more serious problems like stroke and heart...