All Stories
- 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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- Life
How not to eat the wrong frog
Panamanian bats use an array of senses to keep from ingesting poison prey.
- Life
Blue light tells plants when to flower
Protein that marks day length also coordinates blooming genes.
- Climate
Rising CO2 promotes weedy rice
There has been a lot of research, recently, showing how global change — especially warming — can alter the habitat and preferred range of marine and terrestrial species. But rising levels of greenhouse gases can also, directly, do a number on agricultural ecosystems, a new study shows. At least for U.S.-grown rice, rising carbon dioxide levels give a preferential reproductive advantage to the weedy natural form — known colloquially as red rice (for the color of its seed coat).
- Humans
Family labels framed similarly across cultures
Despite differing languages, a trade-off between simplicity and usefulness of words defining kin relationships might be universal.
