All Stories
- Animals
Giant, deep-sea roly-polies steal a gene to endure starvation
The enormous deep-sea cousins of your garden’s pill bugs can go five years without food. A gene they pilfered from bacteria may be part of the secret.
- Neuroscience
Brains break and repair DNA to grow
Newborn mice neurons can snap both DNA strands to migrate, then repair the breaks within a day. The process may be a normal part of brain development.
- Microbes
New science on algae die-offs is too late for the Reflecting Pool
Iron and hydrogen peroxide trigger cell death via ferroptosis, which cascades killer molecules through the population, causing mass die-offs of algae.
- Paleontology
Ancient flowering plants may have used dinosaurs to spread their seeds
Scientists thought angiosperms didn’t use animals to spread seeds until after the Age of Dinosaurs. Fossilized fruits from these plants challenge this idea.
- Archaeology
We’ve had fire for longer than we thought
Archaeologists have unearthed new evidence that indicates hominids used fire up to 1.79 million years ago.
- Planetary Science
A Mars rover found organic carbon just sitting on a rock
The organic molecules could come from life or from ordinary chemistry — only samples returned to Earth can settle it.
- Physics
A potential hindrance to fusion power may help instead
Researchers were unsure whether alpha particles would aid or hinder fusion. Simulations suggest they help, by dampening turbulence.
- Paleontology
The world’s largest scorpion lived 415 million years ago
A prehistoric scorpion was the largest ever to exist, and it may have preyed on land and freshwater species.
- Neuroscience
The ‘little brain’ may give the aging mind a big boost
Most known for its role in movement, the cerebellum could compensate for flagging mental functions elsewhere in the brain.
- Health & Medicine
Even ‘safe’ air pollution levels may affect heart health
An imaging study found early signs of coronary artery disease in people in Canada breathing air that regulators consider clean.
- Paleontology
A new dino fossil may solve an ancient murder mystery
A newly-described dinosaur, Jian changmaensis, may have glided through northwestern China about 120 million years ago, wreaking havoc on birds.
- Health & Medicine
The New World screwworm has returned to the U.S. Now what?
At least a dozen animals have been found with the flesh-eating maggots. It could take more than a year to eradicate the parasite again, experts warn.
