All Stories
- Humans
For a rare few, driving and cell phones go well together
Some people do well at combining driving with cell phone use, raising questions about the nature of attention.
- Life
First songbird genome arrives with spring
The genome of a songbird has been decoded for the first time. Zebra finches join chickens as the only birds to have detailed maps of their genetic blueprints.
- Health & Medicine
Putting African sleeping sickness to bed
Experiments in mice find a protein that could lead to a safer and more effective treatment for parasitic disease.
- Planetary Science
Warmth in the dark age
Lower reflectivity kept Earth from freezing under a fainter young sun.
- Life
Tortoise see, tortoise do
Though they rarely meet, solitary creatures can pick up skills by example.
- Planetary Science
Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores
An uptick in ammonium may be evidence of a 50-billion-ton strike at the end of the ice age.
- Physics
LHC revs up
The world’s most powerful atom smasher achieves its most energetic collisions yet.
- Health & Medicine
Junk food junkies, round two
Laura Sanders follows up on a story first reported from the Society for Neuroscience’s 2009 meeting.
- Health & Medicine
Identical twins may not be so identical when it comes to gut bacteria
A new study suggests that intestinal microbe populations vary widely from one person to another.
- Life
Elephant legs bend like ‘big human limb’
Mechanics suggests the creatures are more limber than thought and use all their legs to come to a four-way stop.
- Chemistry
Mothballs deserve respect
I don’t use mothballs — except sometimes to sprinkle down the burrows of animals excavating tunnels beneath the deck floor of my pergola. It’s the most effective stop-work order for wildlife that I’ve found. But I won’t use these stinky crystals inside my home because they scare me. And those fears appear justified, according to Linda Hall of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
- Health & Medicine
Cap or cork, it’s the wine that matters most
Comparative study finds that screw tops can perform just as well in regulating the aging process.
