All Stories

  1. Science & Society

    ‘Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies’ reveals the secrets of invisible ink

    Kristie Macrakis takes readers on a tour of invisible ink’s history and the need to hide information, from the earliest empires to the Internet age.

    By
  2. Animals

    Swimming evolved several times in treetop ants

    Certain ants living in tropical forest canopies turn out to be fine swimmers.

    By
  3. Animals

    Feedback

    Readers discuss mammal milk, ancient human genetics and hand washing techniques.

    By
  4. Tech

    Scientists struggle to find signals in the noise

    Even in a simple system like email, detecting the signal from the noise is not always easy. It can be even more difficult separating a dazzling discovery from dust or whether a breast mass is cancerous or benign.

    By
  5. Health & Medicine

    Mammography’s limits becoming clear

    It may be time to move way from blanket recommendations about mammography and empower women to decide for themselves, new work suggests.

    By
  6. Cosmology

    Dazzle or dust?

    The unpredictable glow of galactic dust could undermine the biggest cosmological discovery in years.

    By
  7. Earth

    Earth’s deep interior holds vast reservoir of water

    Ocean’s worth of water trapped in Earth’s mantle, lab experiments and seismic data suggest.

    By
  8. Animals

    It’s hard being a sea otter mom

    The energy requirements of lactation may explain why some female sea otters abandon their young.

    By
  9. Life

    Dinos straddled line between cold- and warm-blooded

    Tyrannosaurus rex and other dinosaurs straddled line between cold- and warm-blood, a new analysis finds.

    By
  10. Tech

    Exoskeleton helps paraplegic kick off World Cup

    A paralyzed person wearing a brain-controlled robotic exoskeleton has made the first kick at the 2014 soccer World Cup.

    By
  11. Health & Medicine

    If timing’s right, cats and roaches may be good for kids’ allergies

    Exposure to mice, roaches and cats before a child’s first birthday may confer protection against asthma and allergies, a new study suggests.

    By
  12. Life

    California mite becomes fastest land animal

    Despite being the size of a sesame seed, the Paratarsotomus macropalpis mite can outpace Usain Bolt and even a cheetah in terms of body lengths per second.

    By