All Stories
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Math puzzle: Imagine there’s no zero
Solve the math puzzle from our February 2025 issue, based on the number system of mathematician James Foster.
- Health & Medicine
Plastic shards permeate human brains
A study of microplastics and nanoplastics in brains shows an astonishing increase over time.
- Health & Medicine
Welcome to The Deep End, a new podcast about brain implants and depression
This new six-part podcast follows the lives of people with severe depression who volunteered for deep brain stimulation.
- Anthropology
An African strontium map sheds light on the origins of enslaved people
While genetic tests can reveal the ancestry of enslaved individuals, strontium analysis can now home in on where they actually grew up.
- Health & Medicine
A new kind of non-opioid painkiller gets FDA approval
The new drug, called Journavx, is a non-opioid for treating short-term moderate to severe pain.
- Animals
Hotter cities? Here come the rats
Well, rats. A study of 16 cities shows that higher ambient temperatures and loss of green space are associated with increasing rodent complaints.
- Science & Society
Do science dioramas still have a place in today’s museums?
Science dioramas of yesteryear can highlight the biases of the time. Exhibit experts are reimagining, annotating — and sometimes mothballing — the scenes.
- Earth
Ancient rocks reveal when rivers began pouring nutrients into the sea
Rivers began pumping weathered material into the sea about a billion years after Earth formed, suggesting continents may have gotten an early start.
- Animals
Wild baboons don’t recognize themselves in a mirror
In a lab test, chimps and orangutans can recognize their own reflection. But in the wild, baboons seemingly can’t do the same.
- Neuroscience
Scratching an itch is so good, and so bad
The motion kicks off inflammation but may also combat harmful bacteria
- Particle Physics
A tiny neutrino detector scored big at a nuclear reactor
A compact method of detecting neutrinos provides new tests of physics theories and could lead to new reactor-monitoring methods.
- Animals
Feeding sharks ‘junk food’ takes a toll on their health
Many blacktip reef sharks in French Polynesia are commonly fed by tourists. But the low-quality diet is changing the sharks’ behavior and physiology.
