All Stories

Oceans

Sharks face rising odds of extinction even as other big fish populations recover

Over the last 70 years, large ocean fishes like tuna and marlin have been recovering from overfishing. But sharks continue to decline toward extinction.

Physics

Zapping tiny metal drops with sound creates wires for soft electronics

Wearable medical devices and stretchable displays could benefit from a way to use high-frequency sound to create liquid metal wires.

Health & Medicine

This child was treated for a rare genetic disease while still in the womb

Babies born with infantile-onset Pompe disease typically have enlarged hearts and weak muscles. But 1-year-old Ayla has a normal heart and walks.

Climate

Greenland’s frozen hinterlands are bleeding worse than we thought

An inland swath of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is accelerating and thinning. It could contribute much more to sea level rise than estimated.

Animals

Some harlequin frogs — presumed extinct — have been rediscovered

Colorful harlequin frogs were among the hardest hit amphibians during a fungal pandemic. Some species are now making a comeback.

Humans

This ancient Canaanite comb is engraved with a plea against lice

The Canaanite comb bears the earliest known instance of a complete sentence written in a phonetic alphabet, researchers say.

Health & Medicine

Here’s how mysterious last-resort antibiotics kill bacteria

Scientists are finally getting a grip on how a class of last-resort antibiotics works — the drugs kill bacteria by crystallizing their membranes.

Life

Certain young fruit flies’ eyes literally pop out of their head

The first published photo sequence of developing Pelmatops flies shows how their eyes rise on gangly stalks in the first hour of adulthood.

Life

Video reveals that springtails are tiny acrobats

Poppy seed–sized cousins of insects, famed for wild escape leaping, right themselves in mid-falls faster than cats.

Earth

Catastrophic solar storms may not explain shadows of radiation in trees

Tree rings record six known Miyake events — spikes in global radiation levels in the past. The sun, as long presumed, might not be the sole culprit.

Astronomy

Part of a lost, ancient star catalog has now been found

Greek astronomer Hipparchus may be the first to try to precisely map the stars. His lost work turned up on parchment that had been erased and reused.

Astronomy

Astronomers have found the closest known black hole to Earth

Discovered by how it pushes around a companion star, the black hole is about 1,500 light-years away and roughly 10 times the mass of the sun.