News
- Environment
Mangrove forests expand and contract with a lunar cycle
The carbon-sequestering trees grow in a roughly 18-year cycle according to tides influenced by the moon’s orbit, a study in Australia finds.
- Earth
Here’s how olivine may trigger deep earthquakes
Olivine’s transformation into another mineral can destabilize rocks and set off quakes more than 300 kilometers down, experiments suggest.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Animals
Video shows the first red 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
