SCARRED SURFACE The moon held on to almost all the craters it’s ever acquired in 4.5 billion years of impacts. This lunar map is surrounded by images of 111 craters wider than 10 kilometers and younger than a billion years.
Dr. A. Parker/SWRI
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Magazine
In the Jan. 19 SN: Celebrating 150 years of the periodic table, daredevil asteroid missions, early plague evidence from Sweden, more black hole collisions, hybrid rice can clone itself, corals go deep and more.
SKEETER STYMIED The Aedes aegypti mosquito can transmit viral diseases like Zika and dengue. Molecules produced by an insect-killing bacteria appear to keep these mosquitoes at bay as effectively as DEET.
Guilherme Omella Mainieri/Alamy Stock Photo
CHYTRID SURVIVOR After a decade in which people feared they were extinct, five Sehuencas water frogs have been discovered in Bolivia, including this female named Juliet. Researchers plan to introduce her to Romeo, a frog in captivity that until now was the last known survivor of his species.
Robin Moore
ROAMING BOT Researchers designed a robot called OroBOT to re-create and analyze different gaits that Orobates pabsti, a four-legged creature that lived about 290 million years ago, might have used.
Tomislav Horvat and K. Melo/EPFL Lausanne
Science News
News in Brief
Cryptic remains of tiny animals have turned up in an Antarctic lake
Researchers were surprised to find vestiges of what appear to be tiny animals in mud from Antarctica’s ice-covered Lake Mercer.
Science Stats
Prosecco production takes a toll on northeast Italy’s environment
The soil in Northern Italy’s prosecco vineyards is washing away.
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News
This honeybee parasite may be more of a fat stealer than a bloodsucker
Inventing decoy bee larvae prompts a back-to-basics rethink of a mite ominously named Varroa destructor.
Feature
Two daring spacecraft aim to bring asteroid dust back to Earth
A pair of daredevil spacecraft that aim to bring asteroid dust back to Earth have reached their targets and are scouting for the best sampling spots.
News
A new gravitational wave detector is almost ready to join the search
Buried deep underground, Japan’s KAGRA detector relies on components cooled to just 20 degrees above absolute zero.
Feature
150 years on, the periodic table has more stories than it has elements
The organized rows and columns of the Periodic Table hide a rich and twisting history.
News
The moon’s craters suggest Earth hasn’t erased lots of past impacts
A new look at moon craters suggests the Earth and moon suffered more impacts in the last 290 million years, and the Earth retains its biggest scars.
Essay
How the periodic table went from a sketch to an enduring masterpiece
150 years ago, Russian chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev created the periodic table of the elements, revolutionizing chemistry.
News
New ways to image and control nerve cells could unlock brain mysteries
Methods that target single nerve cells in mice and fruit fly brains are starting to tease apart the brain’s complexity.
News
Overdose deaths tied to antianxiety drugs like Xanax continue to rise
Benzodiazepines, widely used but addictive drugs to treat anxiety and insomnia, are contributing to a growing number of overdose deaths.
News
This rediscovered Bolivian frog species survived deadly chytrid fungus
Scientists recently rediscovered a frog species in Bolivia that hasn’t been seen in 10 years — and it could be used to better understand a frog-killing fungus.
News
Bacterial compounds may be as good as DEET at repelling mosquitoes
A bacterium’s metabolic by-products are as effective as DEET in deterring Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
News
An ancient child from East Asia grew teeth like a modern human
Choppers from a youngster with an unknown evolutionary background indicate that hominids evolved a humanlike life span in East Asia by 100,000 years ago.
News in Brief
These robots can follow how-to diagrams
Robots capable of reading diagrams could work in more varied environments and be easier to communicate with.
News
A four-legged robot hints at how ancient tetrapods walked
Using fossils, computer simulations and a life-size walking robot, researchers re-created how an early tetrapod may have made tracks.
News
A new 3-D printed ‘sponge’ sops up excess chemo drugs
Researchers have created “sponges” that would absorb excess cancer drugs before they spread through the body and cause negative side effects.
News in Brief
The first suspected exomoon may remain hidden for another decade
The discoverers of the first evidence for a moon orbiting a planet around a distant star are still trying to confirm the object’s existence.
News
Easing test anxiety boosts low-income students’ biology grades
Wealthier students outperform their less advantaged peers in math and science. Decreasing test anxiety may help even the playing field.
News
A cosmic flare called the ‘Cow’ may reveal a new way that stars die
A burst of light from far away may have been an odd type of exploding star or a white dwarf being eaten by a black hole.
News
Desalination pours more toxic brine into the ocean than previously thought
Desalination plants help offset the world’s growing water needs, but they also produce much more supersalty water than scientists realized.
News in Brief
Your phone could reveal your radiation exposure after a nuclear disaster
Examining personal electronics may help gauge people’s radiation exposure in the event of a nuclear accident or attack.
News
Here’s how the record-breaking government shutdown is disrupting science
The partial government shutdown is taking many U.S. scientists out of commission and putting up hurdles to their research.
News
A drill built for Mars is being used to bore into Antarctic bedrock
An autonomous drill originally designed for work on Mars has its first mission in Antarctica.
News
How worm blobs behave like a liquid and a solid
Blobs of worms flow like a fluid, plop like a solid and fascinate scientists.