All Stories
- Chemistry
New method leaves older ways of 3-D printing in its goopy wake
Finding the sweet spot in a pool of resin, chemists can create detailed 3-D objects faster than 3-D printers.
By Beth Mole - Paleontology
Rise of East African Plateau dated by whale fossil
A whale fossil is helping to pinpoint when the East African Plateau started to rise and how the uplift played a role in human evolution, scientists say.
- Animals
Getting stabbed is no fun for land snails
When hermaphroditic land snails mate, they stab each other with “love darts.” But being darted comes at a price, a new study finds.
- Materials Science
Copper-wire ‘metamirror’ reflects selectively
A metamaterial mirror reflects only a single wavelength of light, potentially leading to more compact and affordable radio antennas.
By Andrew Grant - Chemistry
Cooking up life’s ingredients, all in one pot
An interconnected series of chemical reactions with a few primordial chemicals can cook up all the necessary elements of life
By Beth Mole - Health & Medicine
In babies, turning down inflammation soothes the hurt
Babies don’t feel nerve pain because their immune systems tamp down inflammation.
- Quantum Physics
Finding quantum entanglement in a crowd
Physicists have measured entanglement between pairs of photons within a macroscopic beam of light, a first step toward understanding how particles’ quantum connections lead to large-scale effects.
By Andrew Grant - Animals
Nanocrystals explain chameleons’ color shifts
Tiny crystals embedded in chameleons’ skin reflect specific wavelengths of light based on their position, explaining how chameleons change colors.
By Beth Mole - Animals
A brain chemical tells when to fight or flee
Crickets tally the knocks they take in a fight, and flee when their brains release nitric oxide to tell them they’ve had enough.
- Archaeology
Ring brings ancient Viking, Islamic civilizations closer together
Ancient find fingers ninth century connection between Vikings and Islamic civilization.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Super-Earths may form in two ways
Rocky planets much heavier than Earth may form in different ways.
- Planetary Science
Aurora shift confirms Ganymede’s ocean
New observations confirm the presence of a liquid saltwater ocean beneath the surface of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede.