All Stories
- Life
Treatment helps paralyzed rats walk
A combination of drugs, electrical stimulation and therapy can restore lost connections between lower limbs and brain.
- Humans
Depolarizing climate science
A study out this week attempts to probe why attitudes on climate risks by some segments of the public don’t track the science all that well. Along the way, it basically debunks one simplistic assumption: that climate skeptics, for want of a better term, just don’t understand the data — or perhaps even science. “I think this is sort of a weird, exceptional situation,” says decision scientist Dan Kahan of the Yale Law School, who led the new study. “Most science issues aren’t like this.” But a view is emerging, some scientists argue, that people tend to be unusually judgmental of facts or interpretations in science fields that threaten the status quo — or the prevailing attitudes of their cultural group, however that might be defined. And climate science is a poster child for these fields.
- Life
Blue-green algae release chemical suspected in some amphibian deformities
Retinoic acid levels high in waterways rich in cyanobacteria blooms.
- Earth
Supervolcanoes evolve superquickly
Huge underground chambers of magma appear and erupt within just several centuries, a study of California rocks suggests.
- Chemistry
Youngsters can sniff out old people’s scent
Body odor changes detectably with age, becoming mellower in men and not at all offensive in either sex — even to young people.
- Health & Medicine
Fever in pregnancy linked to autism
Pregnant women who run a high temperature that goes untreated may double their risk of having an autistic child, a study finds.
- Space
Alien hunter redirects her search to Earth-based funding
SETI scientist Jill Tarter retires from research to focus on raising funds to continue search for extraterrestrial life.
- Space
An interview with alien hunter Jill Tarter
The director of Center for SETI Research is retiring to focus on finding funds to continue the hunt for extraterrestrial life.
- Humans
Climate skepticism not rooted in science illiteracy
Cultural values are more important than science knowledge in shaping a person’s views on global warming.
- Animals
Bat killer hits endangered grays
The news on white-nose syndrome just keeps spiraling downward. The fungal infection, which first emerged six years ago, has now been confirmed in a seventh species of North American bats — the largely cave-dwelling grays (Myotis grisecens). The latest victims were struck while hibernating this past winter in two Tennessee counties.
- Humans
Harappans may have lived, died by monsoon
Waning of seasonal rains over millennia gave rise to a civilization and then doomed it, a new study suggests.
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