News

  1. Neptune and its rings as seen in infrared by JWST
    Planetary Science

    Here is the first direct look at Neptune’s rings in more than 30 years

    In 1989, the Voyager 2 spacecraft took the first pics of Neptune’s rings. Now, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is providing a more detailed look.

    By Christopher Crockett
  2. a black and white animation in which ghosts representing neutrinos pass through the earth
    Particle Physics

    How ghostly neutrinos could explain the universe’s matter mystery

    If neutrinos behave differently from their antimatter counterparts, it could help explain why our cosmos is full of stuff.

    By Emily Conover
  3. illustration that shows a man wearing a face mask that contains a sensor, virus particles with arrows pointing to the mask, and a cell phone receiving a signal
    Health & Medicine

    This face mask can sense the presence of an airborne virus

    Within minutes of exposure, a sensor in a mask prototype can detect proteins from viruses that cause COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses.

    By Freda Kreier
  4. photo of the night sky with Milky Way stars visible
    Astronomy

    A protogalaxy in the Milky Way may be our galaxy’s original nucleus

    Millions of ancient stars spanning about 18,000 light-years at the Milky Way’s heart are the kernel around which the galaxy grew, researchers say.

    By Ken Croswell
  5. image of a downy woodpecker (gray body, black and white wings, and a red crest) pecking a tree
    Animals

    Drumming woodpeckers use similar brain regions as songbirds

    Woodpeckers drum on trees and other objects using brain regions similar to those that songbirds use to sing, suggesting a common evolutionary origin for the complex behaviors.

    By Darren Incorvaia
  6. a fossilized ape jaw on a black background. The jaw has several discolored teeth
    Anthropology

    Fossil finds put gibbons in Asia as early as 8 million years ago

    Specimens from China raise questions about the evolutionary ID of an even older ape tooth from India.

    By Bruce Bower
  7. photo of a red fox licking its lips
    Animals

    Video shows the first fox known to fish for food

    Big fish in shallow water are easy pickings for one fox — the first of its kind known to fish, a study finds.

    By Freda Kreier
  8. tweezers hold a diamond sensor as light shines through
    Quantum Physics

    This environmentally friendly quantum sensor runs on sunlight

    Quantum sensors often rely on power-hungry lasers to make measurements. A new quantum magnetometer uses sunlight to measure magnetic fields instead.

    By James R. Riordon
  9. photo of giant honeybees packed close together in an open nest
    Life

    Here’s what triggers giant honeybees to do the wave

    A new study is revealing details about what sets off a defensive behavior in open-nesting bees known as shimmering.

    By Ananya
  10. illustration of a blue immune cell gobbling up rainbow-colored immune proteins
    Health & Medicine

    5 people with lupus are in remission after CAR-T cell treatment

    More than six months after CAR-T cell treatment, five patients are in remission and have functional immune systems.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  11. Saturn from an angle of roughly 45 degrees from the plane defined by its rings. The sunlight casts a shadow of the planet across its rings.
    Planetary Science

    Saturn’s rings and tilt might have come from one missing moon

    The hypothetical moon, dubbed Chrysalis, could have helped tip the planet over before getting shredded to form the rings, researchers suggest.

    By Lisa Grossman
  12. A phone on a desk showing the LinkedIn login screen, alongside a purse, notebook and other accessories
    Science & Society

    Looking for a job? Lean more on weak ties than strong relationships

    A 50-year-old social science theory gets put to the test in a new study using data on 20 million LinkedIn users.

    By Sujata Gupta