All Stories
- Physics
Knotted structures called skyrmions seem to mimic ball lightning
Skyrmions in a quantum state of matter have something surprising in common with ball lightning — linked magnetic fields.
- Astronomy
Loner gas clouds could be a new kind of stellar system
Weird loner clumps of gas that have wandered for 1 billion years may have been stripped from a trio of larger galaxies.
- Planetary Science
How a vaporized Earth might have cooked up the moon
A high-speed collision turned the early Earth into a hot, gooey space doughnut, and the moon formed within this synestia, a new simulation suggests.
- Chemistry
Extreme cold is no match for a new battery
A rechargeable battery that works at –70° C could be used in some of the coldest places on Earth or other planets.
- Earth
Early land plants led to the rise of mud
New research suggests early land plants called bryophytes, which include modern mosses, helped shape Earth’s surface by creating clay-rich river deposits.
- Animals
It’s official: Termites are just cockroaches with a fancy social life
On their latest master list of arthropods, U.S. entomologists have finally declared termites to be a kind of cockroach.
- Animals
A new species of tardigrade lays eggs covered with doodads and streamers
These elegant eggs hint that a tardigrade found in a Japanese parking lot is a new species.
- Health & Medicine
Human skin bacteria have cancer-fighting powers
Strains of a bacteria that live on human skin make a compound that suppressed tumor growth in mice.
- Microbes
A new way to make bacteria glow could simplify TB screening
A new dye to stain tuberculosis bacteria in coughed-up mucus and saliva could expedite TB diagnoses and drug-resistance tests.
- Cosmology
Here’s when the universe’s first stars may have been born
The first stars lit the cosmos by 180 million years after the Big Bang, radio observations suggest.
- Health & Medicine
When it comes to baby’s growth, early pregnancy weight may matter more than later gains
Women’s weight before and during the first half of pregnancy may be most important indicators of baby’s birth weight.
- Astronomy
Watch an experimental space shield shred a speeding bullet
Engineers tested how well a prototype shield for spacecraft would stand up to space debris by shooting it with a solid aluminum pellet.
