WOMBAT SCAT Wombats are stout marsupials, native to Australia. They use their cubelike droppings to mark their territory.
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Magazine
In the Nov. 10 SN: Real benefits of virtual therapy, monkey malaria in humans, round electrons disappoint, mouse pups with two dads, bats’ hover techniques, Europa’s icy spikes, a vampire burial and more.
SPECIAL K Carefully secured under bell jars, a metal cylinder known as Le Grand K defines the kilogram. Now, scientists are doing away with that benchmark, instead relying on a fundamental constant, the Planck constant, to define the kilogram.
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FEED THE BEES Cannabis depends on wind for pollination, but it turns out bees are raiding male flowers (shown) in hemp fields to forage for pollen for babyfood.
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BOLDLY GOING Two briefcase-sized satellites, shown side by side in this artist’s rendering, will become the first tiny spacecraft to fly by Mars and act as communications relays for a lander.
JPL-Caltech/NASA
Science News
News
How Twitter bots get people to spread fake news
Automated bot accounts on Twitter help spread misinformation by strategically encouraging people to make it go viral.
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News in Brief
An exploding meteor may have wiped out ancient Dead Sea communities
An archaeological site not far from the Dead Sea shows signs of sudden, superheated collapse 3,700 years ago.
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Nuclear ‘knots’ could unravel the mysteries of atoms
Skyrmions might help loosen scientific snarls in studies of atomic nuclei.
Feature
How mammoths competed with other animals and lost
Mammoths, mastodons and other ancient elephants were wiped out at the end of the last ice age by climate change and spear-wielding humans.
News in Brief
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will look for ancient life in a former river delta
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is going to Jezero crater, the site of an ancient river delta that may harbor signs of life.
News
Tiny satellites will relay news of InSight’s Mars landing in minutes, not hours
NASA’s InSight Mars lander brought along two tiny CubeSats to send details about the spacecraft’s landing to Earth in almost real time.
News
A Bronze Age tomb in Israel reveals the earliest known use of vanilla
Residue of the aromatic substance in 3 jugs dates to around 3,600 years ago.
News in Brief
Gut bacteria may guard against diabetes that comes with aging
A friendly microbe in the gut may be the key to staving off insulin resistance, a study in mice finds.
News
Hemp fields offer a late-season pollen source for stressed bees
Colorado’s legal fields of low-THC cannabis can attract a lot of bees.
Mystery Solved
Wombats are the only animals whose poop is a cube. Here’s how they do it.
The elasticity of wombats’ intestines helps the creatures shape their distinctive poops.
News
Small doses of peanut protein can turn allergies around
After a year of careful peanut protein exposure, most kids in a clinical trial could tolerate the equivalent of two large peanuts.
News in Brief
A Bronze Age game called 58 holes was found chiseled into stone in Azerbaijan
A newly discovered rock pattern suggests that the game traveled fast from the Near East to Eurasia thousands of years ago.
News
FDA restricts the sale of some flavored e-cigarettes as teen use soars
The number of high schoolers who vape rose 78 percent from 2017 to 2018.
News
Astronomers spot another star that flickers like Tabby’s star
The irregular flickering of star VVV-WIT-07 is reminiscent of Tabby’s star, which brought speculation of alien megastructures.
News
It’s official: We’re redefining the kilogram
In May 2019, the system of measurement will be upgraded to rely on fundamental constants.
News
Lyme and other tickborne diseases are on the rise in the U.S. Here’s what that means.
A record number of tickborne diseases were reported in the United States in 2017. An infectious disease physician discusses that result and others.
News
Development near natural areas puts more Californians in the path of wildfires
As urbanization extends its reach into once-natural areas, more homes and people are at risk from wildfires.
News in Brief
Mini ‘solar panels’ help yeast shine at churning out drug ingredients
Microbes equipped with light-harvesting semiconductor particles generate useful chemicals much more efficiently than ordinary microbes.
News
Coffee or tea? Your preference may be written in your DNA
Coffee or tea is a bitter choice, a taste genetics study suggests.
Feature
Malaysia is ground zero for the next malaria menace
With deforestation in Malaysia, monkeys and humans are getting closer — and mosquitoes are infecting humans with malaria from monkeys.
News
A massive crater hides beneath Greenland’s ice
The discovery of a vast crater in Greenland suggests that a 1-kilometer-wide asteroid hit the Earth between 2.6 million and 11,700 years ago.
News
Skull damage suggests Neandertals led no more violent lives than humans
Neandertals’ skulls suggest they didn’t lead especially injury-prone lives.
News
Sound-absorbent wings and fur help some moths evade bats
Tiny ultrathin scales on some moth wings absorb sound waves sent out by bats on the hunt.
News in Brief
U.S. cases of a polio-like illness rise, but there are few clues to its cause
A total of 90 cases of acute flaccid myelitis have been confirmed so far this year, out of 252 under investigation.