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Health & Medicine

MS milder when patients begin with higher vitamin D levels

Multiple sclerosis patients with low concentrations of vitamin D early in their disease have more nerve damage several years later.

Climate

Warm, wet weather may have helped Genghis Khan rule

Mild, wet weather — not drought — may have helped Genghis Khan expand the Mongolian empire to the largest in human history.

Animals

Elephants can tell men’s voices from women’s

Amboseli elephants may pick out age and gender — and even distinguish between languages — when listening to human voices.

Physics

Shifting grains may explain earthquake lightning

Mysterious lightning before or during earthquakes could get its spark from underground shifting.

Animals

Spotted seals hear well in and out of water

Spotted seals, native to the northern parts of the Pacific, hear frequencies that may mean they are susceptible to the effects of anthropogenic noise.

Materials Science

Phosphorene introduced as graphene alternative

Sheets of ultrathin phosphorus could lead to faster semiconductor electronics.

Cosmology

Gravitational wave detection a big day for the Big Bang

On a snowy St. Patrick’s Day, our offices officially shut down by a late-winter storm, the Science News staff was abuzz over the biggest thing since the Higgs boson. On March 17, scientists announced the first direct evidence of the theory of cosmic inflation: primordial gravitational waves.

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.

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.

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.