All Stories
- Astronomy
Astronomers explain planets’ backward motion
Giant planets in distant orbits may be reversing the direction of their closer-in neighbors.
By Andrew Grant - Animals
How ticks get under your skin
A close look at a tick’s mouthparts reveals enviable burrowing tools.
- Life
Steroids boost muscles for the long haul
Experiments in mice suggest that effects don’t end when doping does.
- Climate
Tiny shells hint at hidden ocean warming
Pacific waters are heating up 15 times faster than in earlier eras.
- Animals
The daemon cat that never was
Buried in a volume published in 1904 is a description of a new species of cat found in Transcaucasia: Felis daemon, the Black Wild Cat.
- Cosmology
Dark energy search gets murkier
Supernova measurements muddle scientists’ efforts to explain universe’s accelerating expansion.
- Microbes
Prairie microbes could aid region’s restoration
Surveying the bacteria living in the soils of grassland ecosystems may help revive the habitats.
- Animals
Making a snake spectacle
Snakes have a thin layer over their eyes filled with blood vessels. A scientist has shown how snakes control those blood vessels to help them see.
- Psychology
Maybe mean girls’ mental games have a purpose
Science is just beginning to tap the wellspring of female competition.
- Health & Medicine
Exercise seems to limit bad falls in elderly
Regular exercise might limit broken bones due to bad falls in elderly people.
By Nathan Seppa - Life
Morel mushroom may grow crop of its own
A fungus could be a farmer itself, sowing, cultivating and harvesting bacteria.
By Susan Milius - Quantum Physics
Electron makes ultracold atoms move as one
Harnessing the strong particle-gas interaction is early step toward quantum optics applications.