All Stories
- Earth
Meeting of the Americas came early, study suggests
Volcanic crystals thought to have formed in Panama and found in an ancient Colombian streambed hint that North and South America may have met up roughly 10 million years earlier than once thought.
- Genetics
Contagious cancer found in clams
A soft-shell clam disease is just the third example of a contagious cancer.
- Animals
Tiny sea turtles are swimmers, not drifters
Young green and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles moved in different directions than instruments set adrift in the sea, which shows the animals were swimming.
- Genetics
Mummies tell tuberculosis tales from the crypt
Hungarian mummies contracted multiple strains of tuberculosis at the same time, researchers find.
- Planetary Science
A modest Plutonian proposal
Flagstaff, Echidna, Spock. Naming conventions for the landscapes of Pluto and its moons are proposed ahead of the arrival of the New Horizons probe.
- Anthropology
Beads suggest culture blocked farming in Northern Europe
Baltic hunter-gatherers blocked farming’s spread from south.
- Astronomy
Cyanides around young star signal complex organic chemistry
Abundances of cyanide compounds around a young star match those found in comets in our solar system.
- Science & Society
Top 10 science anniversaries of 2015
From genes and dreams to gravity and Kevlar, 2015 offers plenty to celebrate.
- Animals
Dealing with droughts, museums going digital and more reader feedback
Readers share their experiences with dry weather in the U.S., discuss how humans mentally sort quantities and more.
- Science & Society
One anniversary to celebrate, one to contemplate
In this issue, both feature articles focus on anniversaries, though of two very different kinds.
- Humans
Natural selection may be growing taller Dutch people
Over the past 200 years, natural selection may have driven the evolution of taller Dutch people, researchers posit.
- Life
It’s true: Butterfly spots can mimic scary eyes
Contrary to recent studies, the old notion that butterfly wing eyespots evoke predator eyes may not be so old-fashioned after all.
