All Stories
- Environment
Plastics are showing up in the world’s most remote places, including Mount Everest
From the snow on Mount Everest to the guts of critters in the Mariana Trench, tiny fragments called microplastics are almost everywhere.
- Animals
On a cool night in Malaysia, scientists track mysterious colugos across the treetops
Our reporter tags along for nighttime observations of these elusive gliding mammals.
- Astronomy
Arecibo Observatory, an ‘icon of Puerto Rican science,’ will be demolished
The telescope, known for cameos in moves like Contact and for fast radio burst observations, was feared to be on the verge of collapse.
- Physics
Supercooled water has been caught morphing between two forms
A new experiment used ultrafast techniques to reveal high-density water transforming into low-density water at subfreezing temperatures.
- Earth
50 years ago, scientists named Earth’s magnetic field as a suspect in extinctions
In 1970, researchers saw a link between magnetic pole reversals and extinctions. Fifty years later, scientists have uncovered more suggestive examples but no strong evidence of a direct link.lamb
- Life
Monarch caterpillars head-butt each other to fight for scarce food
Video experiments show that monarch caterpillars turn aggressive when there’s not enough milkweed to go around.
- Animals
Guttural toads shrank by a third after just 100 years on two islands
Introduced in the 1920s, toads on two islands in the Indian Ocean have shrunken limbs and bodies that may be evidence that "island dwarfism" can evolve quickly.
- Health & Medicine
New Pfizer results show its COVID-19 vaccine is nearly 95% effective
With final results – including showing its vaccine is 94 percent effective in the elderly – Pfizer is poised to request emergency use authorization.
- Anthropology
Ardi and her discoverers shake up hominid evolution in ‘Fossil Men’
A new book covers the big personalities, field exploits and scientific clashes behind the discovery of the hominid skeleton nicknamed Ardi.
- Planetary Science
Farming on Mars will be a lot harder than ‘The Martian’ made it seem
Lab experiments developing and testing fake Martian dirt are proving just how difficult it would be to farm on the Red Planet.
- Paleontology
How massive long-necked dinosaurs rose to rule the Jurassic herbivores
New dinosaur fossil dates to same time as a volcanic surge, suggesting ensuing changes in plant life allowed these long-necked giants to emerge.
- Animals
Hundreds of new genomes help fill the bird ‘tree of life’
More than 10,000 bird species live on Earth. Now, researchers are one step closer to understanding the evolution of all of this feathered diversity.
