All Stories
- Chemistry
Ancient bond holds life together, literally
The chemical link between sulfur and nitrogen in animal tissues and organs may have sparked the assembly of single cells into complex animals.
- Health & Medicine
Dog dust may benefit infant immune systems
Microbes from pet-owning houses protected mice against allergy, infection.
- Animals
Protecting wildlife with legal hunting is a complicated issue
Trophy hunting is legal in some African nations, but making the system work can be difficult, especially when data is lacking on how many animals exist.
- Archaeology
Easter Island’s farmers cultivated social resilience, not collapse
A Polynesian society often presumed to have self-destructed shows signs of having carried on instead.
- Astronomy
China’s Chang’e-3 craft lands on the moon
The unmanned Chang’e-3 lunar lander and Yutu rover have made it to the moon's surface.
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- Animals
A gory 12 days of Christmas
Insects and spiders are among the biggest gift-givers, often as part of mating, and anything from cyanide to a wad of saliva can be a present.
- Science & Society
Top 25 stories of 2013, from microbes to meteorites
This year, careful readers may have noticed a steady accumulation of revelations about the bacterial communities that call the human body home.
- Climate
Tornado intensity climbs in the United States
Larger paths of destruction may be tied to climate change.
- Genetics
You are what your dad ate, perhaps
Your development is affected by what your mother ate while she was pregnant with you. Is it also affected by what your father ate? A new study suggests that folate deficiency in dads can affect their offspring through epigenetic changes.
- Animals
Before a fight, chameleons engage in colorful communication
Before one chameleon rumbles with another, he’ll display his side and change his stripes, indicating his willingness to fight.
- Microbes
Virus-thwarting mosquitoes decline on Vietnamese island
Scientists plan to release second generation of mosquitoes that stop the spread of dengue fever.
