All Stories
- Ecosystems
City spiders may spin low-vibe webs
Spider webs built on human-made materials have less background bounce than those built on trees and other natural surfaces, which might shrink the arachnid’s hunting success.
By Susan Milius - Neuroscience
Heartbeats help people see
People were more likely to spot a flash of a hard-to-see ring when the image was presented right after a heartbeat
- Animals
Pelican spiders: slow, safe assassins
Spiders, thank goodness, haven’t evolved assassin drones. But the specialized hunters of the family Archaeidae can kill at a distance.
By Susan Milius - Planetary Science
Mojave Crater may be source of many Martian meteorites
Many of the roughly 150 Martian meteorites found on Earth probably came from the Mojave Crater on Mars.
- Life
Giant zombie virus pulled from permafrost
After lying dormant in Siberian permafrost for 30,000 years, the largest virus ever discovered is just as deadly as it was when mammoths roamed the Earth.
By Meghan Rosen - Psychology
The addiction paradox
Addiction is often seen as a chronic disease that requires maintenance treatment even after years of sobriety. But even without help, most addicts eventually can quit for good.
By Bruce Bower - Climate
Cloudy forecast
Over decades climatologists have grown more confident in their projections of the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But whether shifts in cloudiness will amplify global warming continues to vex researchers.
- Astronomy
Galaxy drags trail of stars behind it
A Hubble Space Telescope image shows the galaxy ESO 137-001 dragging star trails behind it as it plows through the Norma galaxy cluster.
- Planetary Science
Asteroid disintegrates while spinning too fast
Asteroid P/2013 R3 is shattering into a cloud of debris in these images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
- Neuroscience
Me, Myself, and Why
Me, Myself, and Why is an ambitious effort to dissect the hodgepodge of genetic and environmental factors that sculpt people’s identities.
By Meghan Rosen - Plants
Australian flowers bloom red because of honeyeaters
Many flowering plants converged on similar a color to attract the common birds.
- Paleontology
New dino species named Europe’s top predator
At up to 10 meters long and weighing in at four to five tons, this Tyrannosaurus rex-like beast could have been the biggest predator to ever roam Europe and among the largest dinosaurs to walk Earth during the late Jurassic period.