All Stories
- Animals
Cringe away, guys — this spider bites off his own genitals
After sex, a male coin spider will chew off his own genitals, an act that might help secure his paternity.
- Neuroscience
Newly identified brain circuit hints at how fear memories are made
A newfound set of brain connections appears to control fear memories, a finding that may lead to a better understanding of PTSD and other anxiety disorders.
- Animals
Cone snail deploys insulin to slow speedy prey
Fish-hunting cone snails turns insulin into a weapon that drops their prey’s blood sugar and eases capture.
- Life
Human evolution tied to a small fraction of the genome
Natural selection has concentrated on a small portion of the human genome, and mostly not on genes themselves.
- Physics
Speed of light not so constant after all
Even in vacuum conditions, light can move slower than its maximum speed depending on the structure of its pulses.
- Climate
2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record
Record-hot 2014 marks the 38th consecutive year of temperatures above the 20th century’s average.
- Animals
Lemurs aren’t pets
The first survey of lemur ownership in Madagascar finds that thousands of the rare primates are held in households.
- Planetary Science
Mars orbiter locates lost Beagle 2 lander
The Beagle 2 lander, missing since 2003, has been found on the surface of the Red Planet in images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
- Tech
Using Facebook ‘likes,’ computer pegs people’s personalities
Using limited data from Facebook, computers can outdo humans in assessing a user’s openness, neuroticism and other personality traits.
- Earth
Faulty thermometers exaggerated western U.S. mountain warming
Defective thermometers used in snowpack and ecology research overstated warming in western U.S. mountains.
- Science & Society
Attitude, not aptitude, may contribute to the gender gap
Does talent or hard work matter most? A new survey suggests an emphasis on genius predicts how many women end up in a field of study.
- Life
Fossilized fish skull shakes up the evolutionary history of jaws
Analysis of a 415-million-year-old fossilized fish skull suggest that the earliest jawed vertebrates probably looked a lot like modern bony fish.
