All Stories
- Earth
Winning helium hunt lifts hopes element not running out
A volcanic region of Tanzania contains more than a trillion liters of helium gas, enough to fill 1.2 million medical MRI scanners — or hundreds of billions of balloons, researchers report.
- Materials Science
Shark jelly is strong proton conductor
A jelly found in sharks and skates, which helps them sense electric fields, is a strong proton conductor.
- Animals
Two newly identified dinosaurs donned weird horns
Two newly discovered relatives of Triceratops had unusual head adornments — even for horned dinosaurs.
- Health & Medicine
Tight spaces cause spreading cancer cells to divide improperly
Researchers are using rolled-up transparent nanomembranes to mimic tiny blood vessels and study how cancer cells divide in these tight spaces.
- Quantum Physics
Quantum fragility may help birds navigate
Birds’ internal compasses may rely on the delicate nature of the quantum world.
- Plants
‘Lab Girl’ invites readers into hidden world of plants
In Lab Girl, geobiologist Hope Jahren reveals secret lives of plants — and scientists.
- Astronomy
Possible perp found in mystery of Milky Way’s missing galaxy pals
Billions of years of supernovas could explain why galaxies like the Milky Way have so few tiny companions and why those companions have so little mass.
- Life
Cities create accidental experiments in plant, animal evolution
To look for evolution in human-scale time, pick a city and watch a lizard. Or some clover.
- Animals
Reptile scales share evolutionary origin with hair, feathers
Hair, scales and feathers arose from same ancestral appendage.
- Animals
Insect debris fashion goes back to the Cretaceous
Ancient insects covered themselves in dirt and vegetation just as modern ones do, fossils preserved in amber suggest.
- Animals
Bacteria make male lacewings disappear
Scientists have tracked down why some green lacewings in Japan produce only female offspring: Bacteria kill off all the males early in life.
- Planetary Science
Earth has a tiny tagalong, and no, it’s not a moon
Asteroid 2016 HO3 is a quasisatellite of Earth — orbiting the sun while never wandering far from our planet.
