Feature
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Sequencing the dead to save the living
Reviving ancient genomes of long-extinct creatures offers a window into past extinctions—and may help prevent future die outs.
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No gene is an island
Even as biologists catalog the discrete parts of life forms, an emerging picture reveals that life’s functions arise from interconnectedness.
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The decider
Informing the debate over the reality of ‘free will’ requires learning something about the lateral habenula.
- Health & Medicine
Itch
When it comes to sensory information detected by the body, pain is king, and itch is the court jester. But that insistent, tingly feeling—satisfied only by a scratch—is anything but funny to the millions of people who suffer from it chronically.
- Space
Half-life (more or less)
Physicists are stirred by claims that the sun may change what’s unchangeable—the rate of radioactive decay.
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- Chemistry
Nicotine’s new appeal
Mimicking the addictive compound’s action in the brain could lead to new drugs for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and schizophrenia.
- Chemistry
Long Live Plastics
With plastics in museums decomposing, a new effort seeks to halt the demise of materials commonly thought to be unalterable.
- Health & Medicine
Body In Mind
Long thought the province of the abstract, cognition may actually evolve as physical experiences and actions ignite mental life.
- Astronomy
Ultramassive: as big as it gets
A black hole can consume anything in its path. These monsters can become huge — but perhaps only so huge.
- Humans
The Science Vote
Science News runs down what the two presidential candidates and their campaigns have been saying about science and technology issues.
