All Stories
- Animals
Polar bears’ ‘walking hibernation’ not much of an energy saver
Summer’s “walking hibernation” doesn’t shut down polar bears as much as winter does.
- Life
Good luck outsmarting a mosquito
Mosquitoes use their senses in sophisticated combinations and sequences to find you.
- Plants
Defense hormones guide plant roots’ mix of microbes
Plants use salicylic acid to attract some bacteria to roots and repel others.
- Physics
Elusive particle shows up in ‘semimetal’
Weyl fermions, which resemble massless electrons, have been spotted inside tantalum arsenide. Their discovery comes 86 years after they were proposed.
- Animals
Birds learn what danger sounds like
In just two days, superb fairy-wrens learned to recognize an unfamiliar alarm call as a sign that a predator loomed.
- Neuroscience
How screams shatter the brain
The acoustical properties of screams make them hard to ignore, a new study suggests.
- Climate
Current El Niño coming on strong
Meteorologists expect the ongoing El Niño to strengthen in the coming months and alter weather patterns worldwide, including bringing potential drought relief to California.
- Health & Medicine
In children, a sense of time starts early
Minutes, hours, days and years start to take on new meaning as children acquire a deeper concept of time.
- Genetics
Melonomics: Sounds like a cancer, smells like a melon
The project that published the first melon genome dubbed itself melonomics.
- Planetary Science
Mission to Pluto: Live coverage
The New Horizons spacecraft is scheduled to fly by Pluto on July 14. Check back often for frequent updates on the status of the mission, updates from mission control, and the latest images.
- Life
Shifted waking hours may pave the way to shifting metabolism
Shift workers are at higher risk for obesity and metabolic problems. Scientists are working hard to understand why the night shift makes our hormones go awry.
- Neuroscience
‘Speed cells’ found in rats’ brains
Newly discovered “speed cells” clock rats’ swiftness.
