All Stories

  1. Life

    Ancient enzymes adapted to a cooler Earth to keep life’s chemical reactions going

    Ancient enzymes kept their speed at lower temperatures.

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  2. Neuroscience

    How scientists are hunting for a safer opioid painkiller

    Scientists are sorting through chemical structures, twisting and turning known drugs and exploring new ways to ease pain.

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  3. Animals

    Tales of creatures large and small made news this year

    Scientists filled in the details of some famous evolutionary tales in 2016 — and discovered a few surprises about creatures large and small.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    New blood tests can detect prions

    Blood tests may detect prion disease in people even before onset of symptoms.

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  5. Life

    Force-detecting protein senses when lungs fill with air

    A study in mice pinpoints a force-detecting protein that regulates breathing, previously implicated in touch.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Motherhood might actually improve memory

    Having a baby changes all sorts of things, including a mother’s brain.

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  7. Astronomy

    More fast radio bursts detected from same location

    Six more outbursts have been detected from a repeating source of radio waves somewhere outside of our galaxy.

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  8. Animals

    For some salamanders, finding a mate is a marathon

    Small-mouthed salamanders will travel close to nine kilometers on average to mate, a new study finds.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    The Flint water crisis and other public health woes from 2016

    Drug use continued to threaten the health and safety of the American public in 2016, while a hidden menace in drinking water remained a worry in Michigan.

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  10. Science & Society

    What’s ahead for science in 2017?

    Science News writers reveal what they are watching for — and hoping for — in the year ahead.

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  11. Earth

    ‘Waterworld’ Earth preceded late rise of continents, scientist proposes

    Cooling mantle temperatures may have lifted Earth’s continents above sea level, helping spur the Cambrian explosion.

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  12. Earth

    Data show no sign of methane boost from thawing permafrost

    Rapid Arctic warming has increased emissions of carbon dioxide, but not methane, from northern Alaska tundra.

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