News
- Plants
These ferns may be the first plants known to share work like ants
Staghorn ferns grow in massive colonies where individual plants contribute different jobs. This may make them “eusocial,” like ants or termites.
- Physics
Nuclear clocks could outdo atomic clocks as the most precise timepieces
Better clocks could improve technologies that depend on them, such as GPS navigation, and help test fundamental ideas of physics.
- Health & Medicine
After 40 years of AIDS, here’s why we still don’t have an HIV vaccine
The unique life cycle of HIV has posed major challenges for scientists in the search for an effective vaccine.
- Paleontology
Something mysteriously wiped out about 90 percent of sharks 19 million years ago
Deep sediments beneath the Pacific Ocean revealed a mystery: a massive shark die-off with no obvious cause.
- Animals
Newly recognized tricks help elephants suck up huge amounts of water
New ultrasound imaging reveals what goes on inside a pachyderm’s trunk while feeding. It can snort water at the rate of 24 shower heads.
- Planetary Science
NASA will be heading back to Venus for the first time in decades
Two newly selected missions, VERITAS and DAVINCI+, will explore the history of the planet's water and habitability.
- Health & Medicine
After vaccinating 95 percent of adults, a Brazilian city is returning to normal
An experiment to vaccinate all adults against COVID-19 in Serrana shows that widespread immunization drastically cuts hospitalizations and deaths.
- Life
Even hard-to-kill tardigrades can’t always survive being shot out of a gun
A recent experiment put tardigrades’ indestructibility to the test by firing the critters at speeds up to 1,000 meters per second.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccinating people in developing countries costs far less than doing nothing
Shots for half the adults in those countries will cost $9.3 billion, the Rockefeller Foundation reports. Doing nothing could cost trillions.
- Astronomy
Some fast radio bursts come from the spiral arms of other galaxies
Tracking five brief, bright blasts of cosmic radio waves to their origins suggests their sources form quickly in regions with lots of star formation.
- Health & Medicine
Here’s what we know about the risks of serious side effects from COVID-19 vaccines
Allergic reactions, blood clots and possibly heart problems are rare and their risks don’t outweigh the benefits of getting vaccinated, experts say.
- Animals
The teeth of ‘wandering meatloaf’ contain a rare mineral found only in rocks
The hard, magnetic teeth of the world’s largest chiton contain nanoparticles of santabarbaraite, a mineral never seen before in biology.
