All Stories
- Genetics
Gene drives aren’t ready for the wild, report concludes
A type of genetic engineering called gene drives need more work, a National Academies report concludes.
- Life
Refined ‘three-parent-baby’ procedure improves chances for healthy infant
Improved technique could reduce risk of passing on faulty mitochondria.
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Desert moss slurps water from its leaves, not roots
To survive in arid deserts across the globe, one moss species replenishes its water stocks by catching dewdrops with its leaves.
- Chemistry
Four newest elements on periodic table get names
Four elements officially recognized in December, highlighted in yellow, now have names that honor Japan, Moscow, Tennessee and physicist Yuri Oganessian.
- Chemistry
Four newest elements on periodic table get names
Four elements officially recognized in December, highlighted in yellow, now have names that honor Japan, Moscow, Tennessee and physicist Yuri Oganessian.
- Life
Obesity’s weight gain message starts in gut
Acetate made by gut microbes stimulates weight gain, research in rodents suggests.
- Anthropology
Hobbit history gets new preface
Jaw, tooth fossils put new spin on evolution of Homo floresiensis.
By Bruce Bower - Life
By leaking light, squid hides in plain sight
Glass squid camouflage their eyes with wonderfully inefficient bioluminescence.
By Susan Milius - Astronomy
Space-based probe passes tests for gravitational wave detection
The LISA Pathfinder mission has demonstrated that future observatories in space could detect gravitational waves.
- Astronomy
Space-based probe passes tests for gravitational wave detection
The LISA Pathfinder mission has demonstrated that future observatories in space could detect gravitational waves.
- Earth
Spy satellites reveal early start to Antarctic ice shelf collapse
Declassified spy satellite images reveal that Antarctica’s Larsen B ice shelf began destabilizing decades earlier than previously thought.
- Paleontology
Human route into Americas traced via trail of bison fossils
Bread crumbs in the form of ancient bison may mark one potential path that humans took to colonize the Americas.