All Stories
- Health & Medicine
Online favorites of 2014
Science News' website traffic reveals the most-read news stories and blog posts of 2014.
- Animals
Rock ants favor left turns in unfamiliar crevices
Rock ants’ bias for turning left in mazes, a bit like handedness in people, may reflect different specializations in the halves of their nervous system.
- Life
Hydrogen sulfide offers clue to how reducing calories lengthens lives
Cutting calories boosts hydrogen sulfide production, which leads to more resilient cells and longer lives, a new study suggests.
- Neuroscience
Smartphone users’ thumbs are reshaping their brains
Smartphones are forcing us to use our thumbs in new ways and reshaping the way our brains respond to touch.
- Life
Fossil fish eye has 300 million-year-old rods and cones
A fossil fish shows the earliest evidence of rods and cones, cells essential for color vision in vertebrates.
- Animals
The scent of a worry
The smell of fear makes other rats stressed. Now, scientists have isolated the Eau de Terror that lets rats communicate their concerns.
- Genetics
The year in genomes
From the tiny Antarctic midge to the towering loblolly pine, scientists this year cracked open a variety of genetic instruction manuals to learn about some of Earth’s most diverse inhabitants.
- Health & Medicine
Some heart patients do better when the doctor’s away
When cardiologists are away at national conferences, patients with acute heart conditions are more likely to survive, a study shows.
- Astronomy
Hubble telescope spots our galaxy’s newest neighbor
The Milky Way galaxy has a new neighbor, Hubble images show.
- Life
Bird flu follows avian flyways
A deadly bird flu virus spreads along wildfowl migration routes in Asia.
- Microbes
The year in microbiomes
This year, scientists pegged microbes as important players in several aspects of human health, including obesity and cancer.
- Animals
Starving mantis females lie to make a meal of a male
When in desperate straits, a female false garden mantid turns into a femme fatale, emitting false chemical cues that lures in a male to eat.
