All Stories

  1. Health & Medicine

    50 years ago, a promising agent pulled

    DMSO was promised to cure everything from headache to the common cold. But human testing stopped in 1965.

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  2. Animals

    When tarantulas grow blue hair

    Azure coloring is surprisingly common in the spiders, though they themselves are colorblind.

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  3. Physics

    Aircraft industry could take tips from penguins

    Tiny grooves and an oily sheath prevent water droplets from freezing on the feathers of some penguins.

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  4. Science & Society

    Climate, new physics and Jupiter on the horizon for 2016

    The first issue of the new year features stories about what will, editor in chief Eva Emerson predicts, hold on as scientific newsmakers during 2016.

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  5. Science & Society

    Aging, hominid ears, whales and more reader feedback

    Readers offer their thoughts on how hominids heard, a biochemical switch for aging, one-way airflow in lungs and more from the October 31 issue.

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  6. Climate

    Arctic passageways let species mingle

    People aren’t the only animals likely to use passages that open up as the Arctic melts.

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  7. Tech

    Stretchy silicon sticker monitors your heartbeat

    A new stretchy memory device looks like a temporary tattoo and works like a heart rate monitor.

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  8. Physics

    The science of avalanches

    High-tech instruments are helping researchers study how temperature can change the character — and danger — of an avalanche

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  9. Physics

    Halo of light crowns Antarctica

    Ice crystals in the air bend sunlight into a ring over a research base in eastern Antarctica.

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  10. Particle Physics

    Dark matter helped destroy the dinosaurs, physicist posits

    In ‘Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs,’ Lisa Randall finds connections between particle physics, cosmology, geology and paleontology.

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  11. Chemistry

    Four elements earn permanent seats on the periodic table

    The four newest elements on the periodic table gain official recognition and will be getting new names soon.

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  12. Animals

    Ants’ size and profession controlled by chemical tags on DNA

    Epigenetic marks determine whether female Florida carpenter ants are soldiers or foragers.

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