News
- Life
Some viruses thwart bacterial defenses with a unique genetic alphabet
DNA has four building blocks: A, C, T and G. But some bacteriophages swap A for Z, and scientists have figured out how and why they do it.
- Anthropology
A child’s 78,000-year-old grave marks Africa’s oldest known human burial
Cave excavation of a youngster’s grave pushes back the date of the first human burial identified in the continent by at least a few thousand years.
- Space
A rare glimpse of a star before it went supernova defies expectations
A hydrogen-free supernova in a nearby galaxy appears to have come from an unusual source.
- Health & Medicine
How a small city in Brazil may reveal how fast vaccines can curb COVID-19
Almost all adults in Serrana, Brazil, got COVID-19 shots. That may help answer questions about how well vaccines will work to end the pandemic.
- Health & Medicine
Here’s what breakthrough infections reveal about COVID-19 vaccines
Studies analyzing vaccinated people in the real world show that COVID-19 vaccines are extremely effective, but experts are keeping an eye on variants.
- Health & Medicine
Meet three moderators fighting disinformation on Reddit’s largest coronavirus forum
Science News spoke with volunteers about what it takes to correct misinformation online during a pandemic.
- Health & Medicine
The surge in U.S. coronavirus cases shows a shift in who’s getting sick
Younger, unvaccinated people are a rising share of COVID-19 cases, raising concerns anew that lack of vaccine access may hit minority populations hard.
- Agriculture
Nanoscale nutrients can protect plants from fungal diseases
Applied to the shoots, nutrients served in tiny metallic packages are absorbed more efficiently, strengthening plants’ defenses against fungal attack.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter’s mission with Perseverance has been extended
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has passed all its tests and is ready to support the Perseverance rover in looking for ancient Martian life.
- Anthropology
Little Foot’s shoulders hint at how a human-chimp common ancestor climbed
The shape of the 3.67-million-year-old hominid’s shoulder blades suggests it had a gorilla-like ability to climb trees.
- Earth
Lightning may be an important source of air-cleaning chemicals
Airplane observations show that thunderstorms can directly generate vast quantities of atmosphere-cleansing chemicals called oxidants.
- Ecosystems
Wild donkeys and horses engineer water holes that help other species
Dozens of animals and even some plants in the American Southwest take advantage of water-filled holes dug by these nonnative equids.
