All Stories
- Earth
The birth of a lightning bolt was caught on video
High-speed imagery shows the formation of an electrical connection between opposing currents, offering new insight into how these flashes form.
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Should corporations get access to our brains?
Editor in chief Nancy Shute reflects on how reader feedback shaped the cover story about privacy and neurotechnology. She also highlights the next theme in our Century of Science project.
- Health & Medicine
How coronavirus variants may drive reinfection and shape vaccination efforts
New coronavirus variants could infect people who have already recovered from COVID-19 or been vaccinated, but there are still many unknowns.
- Health & Medicine
The animals that ticks bite in the U.S. South can impact Lyme disease spread
Ticks in the north primarily attach to mice, which do a good job of infecting them with Lyme bacteria, setting up the spread to people.
- Astronomy
Two exoplanet families redefine what planetary systems can look like
The TRAPPIST-1 and TOI-178 systems, both home to multiple bunched-up planets, have densities and orbits that defy expectations.
- Health & Medicine
Nearly half a million U.S. children missed out on lead tests in early 2020
A big drop in routine lead tests, which can identify children with elevated blood levels, is another troubling sign of the pandemic’s toll.
- Animals
A new chameleon species may be the world’s tiniest reptile
The newly described critters, found in the northern forests of Madagascar, may be threatened by deforestation.
- Neuroscience
Famous brain sketches come to life again as embroideries
A needlework project pays tribute to the iconic drawings of Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal.
- Earth
An upwelling of rock beneath the Atlantic may drive continents apart
Rock rising from more than 600 kilometers deep at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge may play a more active role in plate tectonics than thought.
- Animals
How a tiny spider uses silk to lift prey 50 times its own weight
Dropping the right silk can haul mice, lizards and other giants up off the ground.
- Archaeology
An ancient Egyptian mummy was wrapped in an unusual mud shell
Commoners in ancient Egypt may have used mud in place of expensive resin to imitate royal mummification techniques.
