All Stories
- Life
Monitor lizards’ huge burrow systems can shelter hundreds of small animals
Two species of Australian monitor lizards dig nests four meters deep. Now scientists reveal that the burrows are home to far more than their creators.
- Space
The most ancient supermassive black hole is bafflingly big
The farthest known quasar challenges ideas about how the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed.
- Health & Medicine
The more contagious coronavirus variant may soon be the U.S.’s dominant strain
More rigorous efforts to vaccinate, wear masks and social distance are needed to curb the variant’s spread, CDC says.
- Space
The Parker Solar Probe will have company on its next pass by the sun
The probe is about to make another close pass of the sun. This time, Solar Orbiter, BepiColombo and others will be watching too.
- Climate
‘The New Climate War’ exposes tactics of climate change ‘inactivists’
In his new book, climate scientist Michael Mann draws the battle lines for a new phase of the struggle against climate change denialism.
- Climate
2020 and 2016 tie for the hottest years on record
Ocean temperature data as well as temperatures measured over land at weather stations around the globe revealed the extent of the warming.
- Health & Medicine
Could delaying a second vaccine dose lead to more dangerous coronavirus strains?
Some experts worry extending the time between vaccine doses could help the virus evolve in potentially harmful ways, but viral evolution is complex.
- Animals
Some electric eels coordinate attacks to zap their prey
Electric eels were thought be to solitary hunters, until researchers observed over 100 eels hunting together, releasing coordinated electric attacks on corralled prey.
- Quantum Physics
Drones could help create a quantum internet
Flying drones sent entangled particles of light to two locations a kilometer apart.
- Archaeology
One of the oldest known cave paintings has been found in Indonesia
A drawing of a pig on the island of Sulawesi dates to at least 45,500 years ago.
- Earth
How the Earth-shaking theory of plate tectonics was born
Plate tectonics explains many of Earth’s geologic wonders and natural hazards — and may hold clues to the evolution of life.
- Science & Society
Marie Tharp’s groundbreaking maps brought the seafloor to the world
In part because of her gender, Tharp was the right person in the right place at the right time to make the first detailed maps of the ocean’s bottom.
