Feature
- Psychology
Adults with autism are left to navigate a jarring world
Researchers are beginning to study ways to help adults with autism navigate independently, get jobs and find friendship.
- Ecosystems
Noise made by humans can be bad news for animals
Animals live in a world of sounds. Clever experiments are finally teasing out how human-made noise can cause dangerous distractions.
- Science & Society
Big data studies come with replication challenges
As science moves into big data research — analyzing billions of bits of DNA or other data from thousands of research subjects — concern grows that much of what is discovered is fool’s gold.
- Life
Fast and furious: The real lives of swallows
In the fields of Oregon, scientists learn flight tricks from swallows.
- Life
Flying animals can teach drones a thing or two
Scientists have turned to Mother Nature’s most adept aerial acrobats — birds, bees, bats and other animals — to inspire their designs for self-directed drones.
- Science & Society
12 reasons research goes wrong
Barriers to research replication are based largely in a scientific culture that pits researchers against each other in competition for scarce resources. Here are a few that skew results.
- Science & Society
Is redoing scientific research the best way to find truth?
Researchers don’t even agree on whether it is necessary to duplicate studies exactly or to validate the underlying principles.
- Earth
Pumping carbon dioxide deep underground may trigger earthquakes
Injecting carbon dioxide deep underground offers a promising way to curb global warming, but the extra pressure may cause faults to slip or fractures to release the buried gas.
- Ecosystems
Dam demolition lets the Elwha River run free
Removing a dam involves more than impressive explosions. Releasing a river like Washington state's Elwha transforms the landscape and restores important pathways for native fish.
- Ecosystems
Cities are brimming with wildlife worth studying
Urban ecologists are getting a handle on the varieties of wildlife — including fungi, ants, bats and coyotes — that share sidewalks, parks and alleyways with a city’s human residents.
- Genetics
The year in genomes
From the tiny Antarctic midge to the towering loblolly pine, scientists this year cracked open a variety of genetic instruction manuals to learn about some of Earth’s most diverse inhabitants.
- Microbes
The year in microbiomes
This year, scientists pegged microbes as important players in several aspects of human health, including obesity and cancer.
