All Stories
- Climate
Warming climate will force airlines to shed weight, increase costs
More frequent hot days coming with climate change will require airlines to reduce aircraft takeoff weight.
- Earth
Pumping carbon dioxide deep underground may trigger earthquakes
Injecting carbon dioxide deep underground offers a promising way to curb global warming, but the extra pressure may cause faults to slip or fractures to release the buried gas.
- Astronomy
Pair of black holes prepare to take the plunge
A pair of supermassive black holes in a distant galaxy will likely collide in the next million years.
- Climate
Galápagos waters preview future for corals
Posthumous analysis of Galápagos coral reefs reveals how climate change, carbon dioxide and pollution could kill off reefs worldwide by 2050.
By Beth Mole - Animals
‘Bag of chips effect’ helps bats find a meal
Bats get a clue to where dinner is by listening to peers attacking prey.
- Health & Medicine
Allergy-related Google searches follow pollen season ups and downs
Google search queries could help researchers track pollen seasons in areas without pollen-monitoring stations.
- Computing
New computer algorithm plays poker almost perfectly
An algorithm optimized to play heads-up limit Texas Hold’em poker will never lose in the long run against any opponent.
By Andrew Grant - Health & Medicine
New antibiotic candidate shows promise
Tests in lab dishes and mice suggest an experimental compound called teixobactin can kill staph, TB microbes and other bacteria.
By Nathan Seppa - Animals
How many wildebeest? Ask a satellite
High-resolution satellite imagery could offer a reliable way to count large mammals in open habitats from space.
- Health & Medicine
Weight-loss surgery linked to better survival
Obese middle-aged and older people fare better if they have had bariatric surgery, a long-term study of veterans finds.
By Nathan Seppa - Astronomy
Kepler telescope discovers another 554 possible planets
Extra year of Kepler telescope data adds 554 possible planets and eight confirmed ones that might be able to host life.
- Neuroscience
PET scans hint at brain’s reorganization after injury
Imaging monkeys’ brains after strokelike injury is giving scientists clues to how neurons reorganize themselves so the animals can move again.