All Stories
- Science & Society
Working together doesn’t always work
Working as a team is a great way to gather information, but innovative solutions come best from small groups or individuals, a new study suggests.
- Neuroscience
Brain’s grid cells could navigate a curvy world
If we ever need to flee a dying Earth on curved space islands — as humanity was forced to do in 'Interstellar' — our brains will adapt with ease, a new mathematical analysis suggests.
- Astronomy
Amorphous space blob takes title for most distant galaxy
The new record holder for the most distant galaxy is a blob of 8 billion stars whose light took more than 13 billion years to reach Earth.
- Genetics
Editing human germline cells sparks ethics debate
Human gene editing experiments raise scientific and societal questions.
- Chemistry
Bacteria staining method has long been misexplained
New research upends what scientists know about a classic lab technique, called gram staining, used for more than a century to characterized and classify bacteria.
- Astronomy
‘Black Hole’ traces 100 years of a transformative idea
Implied by general relativity and proven by astronomical discoveries, black holes’ existence took decades for physicists to accept.
- Microbes
Possible nearest living relatives to complex life found in seafloor mud
New phylum of sea-bottom archaea microbes could be closest living relatives yet found to the eukaryote domain of complex life that includes people.
- Animals
Ivory listings found on Craigslist as elephant poaching continues
Elephants are hunted by the thousands to meet demand for ivory products.
- Science & Society
Cancerous clams and other sci-fi fodder
Fans of science fiction will find a few items in this issue sure to trip the imagination.
- Astronomy
Wandering planets, the smell of rain and more reader feedback
Readers consider how hard it would be to fashion Paleolithic tools, discuss what to call free-floating worlds and more.
- Planetary Science
How did Earth get its water?
Earth is a wet planet that formed in a dry part of the solar system. How our planet’s water arrived may be a story of big, bullying planets and ice-filled asteroids.
- Physics
Scientists take first picture of thunder
Scientists precisely capture thunder sound waves radiating from artificially triggered lightning.
