All Stories
- Life
In battle to shape immunity, environment often beats genes
The environment, especially microbes, shapes immune system reactions more than genes do.
- Animals
Earth’s magnetic field guides sea turtles home
Over 19 years, geomagnetic fields changed slightly and so did loggerheads’ nesting sites.
- Health & Medicine
What’s in a nap? For babies, it may make long-lasting memories
Taking naps after learning seems to help babies less than a year old make memories and keep them, for about a day anyway.
- Neuroscience
Brain’s plumbing may knock out blood test for brain injury
The brain's waste-removal system may complicate scientists' attempts to create a blood test to diagnose traumatic brain injury.
- Archaeology
Ancient bone hand ax identified in China
People may have dug up roots with the 170,000-year-old bone tool, the first found in East Asia.
- Neuroscience
To beat sleepiness of anxiety drugs, team looks to body’s clock
Studying basic functions, such as the body’s clock, has inadvertently led to a compound that relieves anxiety in mice.
- Environment
More toxic chemicals found in oil and gas wastewater
High levels of ammonium and iodide found in wastewater from oil and gas exploration can harm aquatic life and form dangerous byproducts in tap water.
- Science & Society
Science’s self-criticism makes the enterprise stronger
Editor in Chief, Eva Emerson, considers the the tensions between statistical correctness and headline grabbing research discussed in this issue's part one of a two part feature examining the state of science in the age of publish-or-perish.
- Neuroscience
Feedback
Readers discuss volcanoes and brain studies involving chocolate, and recommend some science-based options for game night.
- Plants
Tricky pitcher plants lure ants into a false sense of security
Carnivorous pitcher plants exploit social lives of ants as scouts escape and inadvertently lead nest mates to death trap.
- Neuroscience
Protectors of our nervous system play a role in pain
PET and MRI brain scans show that the cells that protect our central nervous system also play a role in chronic pain.
- Animals
Squids edit genetic directions extensively
In squids, RNA editing means that DNA often does not get the final say in which proteins are created.
