News
- Animals
Do gophers farm roots? It’s not as clear as viral articles claim
Pocket gophers aerate and fertilize the soil in a practice that encourages rudimentary food production, researchers claim. But not everyone agrees.
- Tech
This octopus-inspired glove helps humans grip slippery objects
The human hand, for all its deftness, is not great at grasping slippery stuff. A new glove aims to change that.
- Astronomy
The most distant rotating galaxy hails from 13.3 billion years ago
Astronomers have spotted a rotating galaxy whose light comes from just 500 million years after the Big Bang.
- Health & Medicine
Two pig hearts were successfully transplanted into brain-dead people
The transplants kept the patients’ blood flowing for three days and are an early step in figuring out if the procedure might work in living people.
- Environment
Flower shape and size impact bees’ chances of catching gut parasites
Bumblebees have higher chances of contracting a gut parasite from short, wide flowers than from blooms with other shapes, experiments show.
- Astronomy
Here are the James Webb Space Telescope’s stunning first pictures
President Biden revealed the NASA telescope's image of ancient galaxies whose light has been traveling 13 billion years to reach us.
- Physics
Wiggling metal beams offer a new way to test gravity’s strength
A new experiment aims to get a better handle on “Big G,” the poorly measured gravitational constant.
- Health & Medicine
The flowery scent of a Zika or dengue infection lures mosquitoes
Mice and humans infected with dengue emit acetophenone, attracting bloodsucking mosquitoes that could then transmit the viruses to new hosts.
- Astronomy
Sand clouds are common in atmospheres of brown dwarfs
Dozens of newly examined brown dwarfs have clouds of silicates, confirming an old theory and revealing how these failed stars live.
- Plants
This pitcher plant species sets its deathtraps underground
Scientists didn’t expect the carnivorous, eggplant-shaped pitchers to be sturdy enough to survive below the surface.
- Particle Physics
A supersensitive dark matter search found no signs of the substance — yet
The LZ experiment’s first measurement raises hopes that scientists are closer than ever to finding the source of much of the universe’s mass.
- Paleontology
A newfound dinosaur had tiny arms before T. rex made them cool
A predecessor to Tyrannosaurus rex, Meraxes gigas had a giant head and puny but muscular arms, suggesting the limbs served some purpose.
